Blood on Sand

ENTOMBED

When Zoe woke, it was dark all around him. He flicked his tongue, taking in the musty smell and the cold. It didn't smell like the fridge. He had to be somewhere below ground. With a groan he banged his head against a stone floor, not the mouldy concrete he was used to from his cell. This felt smoother, but it had seams so he guessed it was tiled.

Why wasn't he dead? He'd done everything right. He'd broken the rules in a way that left the Alpha no choice but to kill him, there, on the spot, for everyone to see. Yet, here he was, in a cold dark room.

A lump formed in his throat. If he hadn't been in his warrior form, he might have cried. Not because he was locked up in a cold, dark place—he'd been in the fridge enough times to not freak out. No, he wanted to cry because it should've been over. He'd suffered enough. They should've killed him. He should've been free.

Would they approach him in human form? It was impossible for him to understand what the beasts were saying. Not that anyone was close by, but when they came for him he wouldn't be able to understand them unless they were human. Even if they were, he was too weak, too lethargic, to change. He sighed. He wouldn't be able to speak to them either way. Not that they'd ever wanted to talk before. The fighters were always treated like animals. Like they tried to ignore that they looked alike when they weren't in their shifter forms.

Zoe couldn't remember how many times Aldo had promised they would set him free. Before every fight, they promised it would be his last. He'd believed them in the beginning, thought that he'd be free as soon as he'd won them enough money. Aldo had said that he and the Alpha had agreed on setting him free when his market value had been paid off. He couldn't believe he'd ever been that naïve. He didn't have a market value. His only value was what they collected in bets at the end of every Friday night. He was replaceable. If he died, they'd just bring in a new fighter the following week. If the stocks ran low, they'd send a group to raid the south and bring back new fighters. Zoe wondered if there were very many of his kind left.

If the fighting ring continued as it did, they'd soon be an endangered species. The werewolves wanted the males because they were generally more aggressive, and when engaged in a fight, they often fought to the death, even in the wild. But sometimes they captured females. Zoe wasn't even sure they could tell the difference when a lizardian was in warrior form. He'd heard Aldo being displeased when a new arrival changed into human form, and he realised it was a woman. They weren't very smart, these beasts.

Zoe had fought for all he was worth in the beginning—and undoubtedly a lot more than that. So they probably thought he was an aggressive male. Maybe that had been his mistake. He scoffed. He should've let the reptilian he was fighting earlier win; then it would've been over by now.

Why couldn't his brain become as slow as his muscles in the cold? He couldn't feel his injuries, he was too numb, but he remembered being speared in the side. It had been pretty severe. Almost enough to kill him. Maybe it wasn't too late yet; he couldn't tell in the cold. A spark of hope shone in his chest. Maybe he was about to die. Lizards didn't heal very fast, contrary to what anyone might think. Just because he could regenerate a tail didn't mean he wouldn't bleed to death from a spear wound.

It took all of his strength to lift his arm and reach over his torso. Bastards! They'd stitched him up. He tried to scratch at the stitches, but he didn't have the strength to tear them. His clawed fingers didn't obey as they should, and before long, he had to give up. He flicked his tongue again—couldn't even smell any new blood. There was some on his tunic, but that was all. Why had they wiped off the rest of the blood? They never used to clean them up after a fight. Hygiene wasn't high on their list, at least not in the slave quarters.

Zoe shut his eyes, not that it made much difference; the dark was thick enough to make it hard to see anything. He knew he was in a rather small room. There was an arched ceiling above him, and there were shelves along the sides. Everything but the shelves was made of stone. He would bet his life he was in a cellar. He'd already bet his life, though—more times than he could count.