The Beastkeeper's Redemption

Thirty-Nine

Thirty-Nine

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

Pain reverberated through his entire body.

Muscles strained, taut and bruised, while his flesh bled in several places where his skin had met the lethal edges of the numerous Bladewings he'd been forced to face in the sectioned arena.

Presently, two human males dragged his body between them, an arm slung over each of their shoulders. He stumbled several times, his world a veritable haze of pain and disorientation, but rather that than the alternative.

Kaede refused to raise a fist against one of his own kind- not in this context where they were pitted against each other as demeaning entertainment at the expense of their dignity. He'd take countless beatings yet and still he would not fight.

It had made the proprietor incensed enough to dismiss the youngest Beastkeeper and Kaede had been forcibly removed from the midst of the clientele present that evening.

When he had been more lucid prior to the beatings, he had determined that he had been taken to an expansive, marble-domed room with glistening white-tiled floors. Along the perimeters of the elaborately decorated room men and women grouped, sitting on various surfaces and peering over heads to witness the spectacle that the proprietor had offered them.

The proprietor- a man who Kaede had not had the fortune to meet personally himself, yet. He had made an assumption, during the first few seconds when he had been thrust forward into the centre of that chamber, that the man in question could only be the finely attired lord sitting atop a chair that very much resembled a gilded throne. Placed in the front of the proceedings, he had eyed each fight with a cold, indifferent expression on his face and his steel-like gaze had remained fixated on Kaede throughout the Beastkeeper's show of obstinance.

Eventually, rivulets of his own blood had coated the white tiles at his booted feet, making the floor too slippery to remain upright even if he could have, and Kaede had taken numerous beatings curled on his side.

He lost track of time, fading in and out of consciousness, until all he knew was unending pain as his body continued to lose its battle to fists, fangs, claws and blades.

Perhaps the proprietor had realised that there was little entertainment to be had when one of the opponents refused to put up a defensive fight, at least, and Kaede had been dragged away from the room.

And tossed back into his cell.

He staggered forward, dimly aware of the bars creaking closed and shutting audibly behind him, and fell to his hands and knees.

His stomach convulsed and he coughed, blood sliding from his lips and down his chin. Hands splayed against the stone, he stared numbly at the gore coating his knuckles, the rust-coloured fluid staining the cuffs of his shirt, and then the hanks of hair falling in front of his face- matted with yet more of his own blood.

A shudder left his body and, weakened, Kaede felt his limbs give out beneath him and he rolled to his side. Heaving lungfuls of air, he lay prone on the cold floor, every artery and pulse in his body a symphony of hurt, his vision swimming until the edges blackened entirely, and he succumbed to the darkness without protest.

When he regained consciousness, he was still on the cold stone floor, but now he was not alone. Grover knelt over him, shoving at his shoulder until Kaede rolled onto his back with a groan.

"Leave me be, human," he said. Well, he attempted to say since his throat felt as if broken shards of glass had been lined along its length.

"Cease your fussing," Upton reprimanded, yet his voice lacked any real sternness.