Stuck With Me: A Cad Bane Novel

Chapter 26

Warnings: creepy ass spider lady picture, fighting (well, mention of injuries), canon typical, kinda smutty at the end,

Word count: 1.2k

You're more injured than you're letting on. Your ribs hurt, your cheek is stinging, and your lungs feel too small, but you've got your audience hanging by a thread; you've got Wyrmen Lictor, the fighting pit champion, the vicious arachnid, caught in your metaphorical web. You need to finish this. Yanking your sword out, you twirl it, letting it catch the light and blind the crowd, before levelling its point to her throat. Kill her, they're yelling. Spill her blood. But you don't. Glancing over at Cad, you see him pressed up against the bars of the grate, crimson eyes wide, waiting to see what you'll do next. You'll find no answers in his eyes about what to do now; he's offering you the choice, although a quick look up confirms that the Leader of the Kanji is leaving you no such sentiment and wants you to kill her - he wants you to sever her slender neck with the very sword he provided you with. The world narrows down to the silver point of the blade, the way it's pressed harshly against the flesh of her throat, the way she's staring you in the eyes - the way she's staring death in the eyes.

You take a deep breath. In, out. Back when you were with Russ, you'd have laughed secretly and silently at anyone who would have taken the time to suggest to you, a simple slave, that you'd get out of there, let alone be here, part Shi'ido, holding a sword to the throat of Wyrmen Lictor, the shouts of many roaring in your ears, worming their way into your thoughts, telling you to kill kill kill -

You throw the sword to the ground.

It makes the grains of sand around it erupt upwards when it lands. It makes the whole arena go silent. Dead silent. Silent as the screams inside a Sarlacc's stomach. Silent as a bounty frozen in carbonite. Silent as the remnants of rusty blood soaked into the sand, and silent as the grave.

There's such shock on Wyrmen's face that each of her eyes is wide, her mouth agape. She expected to die in the arena someday, but she did not expect to have her life in the hands of the not so scrawny girl that arrived with Cad Bane. And one thing's for certain, she did not expect to have her life handed back to her by her opponent, who looks as harmless as she is deadly.

You stare up at the Leader of the Kanji, shifting back into your own form, the form that no one fears, that no one ever suspects of anything other than the life of a whore. Throwing your arms outstretched, you gesture at Wyrmen Lictor, as if to say: here. I fought in your pretty little arena, I gave your pretty little flock of aristocrats a show, I played your little game, I wielded your pretty little sword, and now I refuse to give you anything else, not even the life of the person you put me against. I'm done doing as you say. I'm done giving you what you want. And then you turn your back on them all, on the anger stricken Hutt, on the awestruck crowd, on the speechless woman, and walk towards the only person you want to see at the moment. You fix your eyes on his red ones, let his shadowy form engulf your vision like arms stretched wide, let the darkness he's surrounded by swallow you as you disappear from the view of those who came to see blood spilt.

The relief that shoots through your body when Cad grabs you and crushes you to his chest renders you speechless. In the dark, your audience reduced to a soft rumble, the adrenaline levels in your bloodstream give way to an overwhelming, mind shattering fatigue, and you sniffle a little, tears of relief pricking your eyes as Cad's slender fingers run over your ribs, checking for damage. Gently, he tips your head up with a hand under your chin, tilting it this way and that as he inspects the cut on your cheek.

'It's pretty deep,' he says, his voice like the best of Max Rebo's music to your ears. 'It's goin' to scar.'
You smile tiredly, smushing your other cheek against his chest and leaning your entire body weight against him. 'Mhm.'
He raises his brow. 'Ya want it to scar, izrin?'
'Completes the bounty hunter look, don't you think?'
He laughs, but sobers quickly, one hand coming up to smooth down your hair. 'I'm proud of ya, fullua. Ya did good.'
'I sure hope the fuck I did,' you reply, but you're smiling at the tenderness in his voice.
He chuckles. 'C'mon, izrin. Let's get outta here before the Hutt bastard and the spider decide they want yer head.'

─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────

The moment the two of you get back to the Justifier, Cad has his arms around you again, dipping his head so he can taste your lips. Smiling, you return the kiss, and he's drowning in the feel of your skin on his, letting you fill his thoughts until everything fades away, until you're all he can see. He swallows your soft, desperate sounds as his hands grab at your ass, squeezing and pulling at your flesh, speaking words onto your mouth like sinful prayers.

'Want ya so fuckin' bad,' he growls. 'Ya looked so damned beautiful out there, I wanted to ravish ya right there on the sand.'
'How about you ravish me now?' You murmur, voice dangerously soft and staggeringly alluring, yet simultaneously laced with amusement.

Hot shivers run down the Cad Bane's spine as you stare at him under heavy lids, your wide set eyes smouldering with the same heat that roils deep in his stomach, the same heat that careens through his veins, urging him to hold you, to feel you, to collide with you and never leave. A groan slips from his treacherous throat when you dip your head, using your searing mouth to burn marks into the ridges of his collarbones, branding him with your touch. Threading his fingers into your silky hair, he wrenches your head up and kisses you again, bruising and frantic, his chest heaving as your warm hands slip under his shirt and run over his scarred body.

Gasping, he pushes you onto the bed, and you grab the front of his shirt and pull him on top of you, tugging the material over his head so you can survey his chest, sheathed in hard muscle and covered in marks and perfect flaws that you trace lightly with your fingertips, lighting him on fire. Growling, his chest rattling, an instinctive hissing sound emerging from the back of his throat, he pins you down, fitting his lips to yours again as he grinds against you, propping himself up with a hand on either side of your head. Dragging his lips down the column of your throat, he basks in your warmth, basks in your presence, basks in the light still spilling from your soul.

'Sweet Maker,' he breathes out. 'My fullua.'