I’ve never been to a cocktail party, so I can’t really say how this one stacks up. But I can say that compared to life in the bullpen, this is beyond bizarre. Chocolate fountains. A dozen varieties of hors d’oeuvre and champagne in tall flutes, served on silver trays that hover at chest height, like the stretcher that took Cohen Roth out of D block.

If I thought the buffet in the greenroom was extravagant, then this is…

I have no fucking idea what this is.

Even though our sponsors have bought into Sylvie and me as a couple, the crowd splits us up the moment we walk into the room. Kaya gives me a pointed nod as she takes off with Sylvie, silently promising to stay by her side in the throng of men in dark suits. Not that I think any of them could hurt her. She could take down any of those soft motherfuckers with one punch.

Charles seems to have been assigned to me, based on the way he hovers near, guzzling champagne as a crowd of women in short, colorful dresses closes around us.

I don’t see any production cameras, though no doubt there are security cameras everywhere, and the only reason I can think of for the obvious lack is that the executives might not want their drunken, lecherous behavior broadcast on the feeds.

And when the fourth woman in ten minutes runs her hands over my chest like she owns me, I can understand why.

I excuse myself, leaving Charles to apologize for me, and head for the nearest tray of drinks, hoping for something stronger than champagne. I swear I’d rather face twenty death row inmates in the yard than one more woman with painted nails and an entitled touch.

One of those bitches actually slid her hand into the front of my pants.

Still, I’m sure this is nothing compared to what Sylvie faces on a daily basis in the bullpen.

I don’t see a bottle of whiskey in the whole room, so I grab a glass of champagne from the nearest floating tray.

“I’m not supposed to let you have that.” Charles appears on my right, miraculously absent female company, though I can feel gazes on me from all over the room.

“You can’t expect me to be civil to these rich fuckers while I’m sober.” I drain the glass in two gulps, then pick up another.

“I don’t expect anything.” Charles picks up a glass of his own and sips from it. “You’re not doing this for me. You’re doing this for yourself.”

“Actually, I’m doing this for her.” I glance around the room until I find Sylvie, just as Kaya tugs her away from a fat man with wandering hands and a bulbous red nose. He’s holding a short glass of whiskey.

Where the hell did he get that?

Charles shrugs. “Either way, your best chance of survival comes from impressing the people in this room, who can pay for weapons and medical care.”

He’s right. And that goes for Sylvie as well as myself, even though tier two fighters aren’t eligible for weapons yet. She’s eligible for medical care now. And soon she might need more than just a scan from the doc in the greenroom.

I drain the second glass of champagne and set the empty flute on the tray, and this time when I scan the room, I notice that from waist-height up, the walls of this odd, circular room are paneled in curved viewing screens, each showing a different clip from my time in zone one, or from Sylvie’s. Or of both of us…together. And not the clean version.

One of the screens shows her half-naked in the arena, her eyes unfocused as she regains consciousness with Tony fucking Yost standing over her. Hellbent on getting something out of his victory, since they won’t let him kill her.

Why the hell would they show that? If these are our sponsors, shouldn’t the producers be showing clips that make us both look strong? To paint us as good investments?

But then I understand. It isn’t just victories on the sand that make us marketable. It’s Sylvie that makes us marketable. Her story. Her beauty. Her grit. Her wins and her losses, both in the arena and in the bullpen. It’s the drama that brings in viewers.

She’s a fucking novelty to them. A shiny new game-piece to push around the marketing chessboard. But once that shine wears off…

Fuck them all.

She’s going to win and get the hell out of here. But I—

I kill that line of thought before it can truly form. We haven’t discussed the obvious problem. The fact that only one of us can make it out of here alive. This season, anyway.

Sylvie first. If she can survive the arena, she’ll be fine in the open population, but if I win and she winds up in the bullpen alone? No matter how strong she is, there’s a limit to how many men she can take on at once.

“You can always see the fight better on the screen,” Charles says, when he sees that I’m watching the footage. “Yet they each pay a small fortune to watch the fight from here.” He taps his foot and aims a pointed glance downward.

I look down and notice for the first time that the floor beneath us is completely transparent. It’s not a thick shatterproof panel, like the windows on a space transport. The floor just appears to be…missing. Yet I’m standing on it.

Once I get used to that eerie piece of technology, I realize what I’m looking at through the bottom of the blimp.

The arena. Half of it, anyway.

It’s still lit up like mid-day, though the audience is long gone and the sun went down at least an hour ago. The ship seems to be making repeated slow circles around it, displaying the sand from every angle while the screens all around us show what happened there earlier today.

Beyond the arena, though…

Lights mounted along the top of the tall perimeter wall illuminate broad swaths of land outside of zone one. “What zone is that?”

Charles follows my gaze through the floor. “No idea. I’ve never set foot on the planet, outside of the arena complex. And honestly, outside of zones one and two, it all pretty much looks the same to me.”

“I was in zone two before this.”

“I know. I wanted to get you talking about that clusterfuck at the Resort, for your background footage, but UA wouldn’t even let us mention it. Makes them look bad.”

“That’s why they’ve got such a hard on for Sylvie, isn’t it?” I grab another glass of champagne as a tray floats past. “I bet the warden got his ass handed to him after the Resort fell.” After so many inmates escaped into zone three. “Sylvie has investors interested again.”

Charles shrugs, and I notice that his eyes are glazed. He’s buzzed. “She’s a marketing windfall. A sympathetic death row inmate and an underdog in a sea of sharks.”

The producer’s strange mixed metaphor makes me think he may be more than just buzzed. If anyone notices, they’ll assign me another handler. Probably an armed guard, selected from the ranks patrolling the entire room. Watching both Sylvie and me closely. But until then…no one talks like a drunk man.

“So, that’s why we’re here. Because the sponsors are as enamored of her as the viewers are.”

Charles shrugs again. “That, and so they can see for themselves that she’s okay, after Yost nearly ripped her head off. An underdog is one thing. A dead dog is another.”

I swallow the urge to remind him—with my fist—that Sylvie isn’t any kind of dog. “So—” Movement through the transparent bottom of the ship catches my eye, and I look down to see one of the lights…floating. After a second, I realize it’s not one the perimeter lights—it’s a shuttle, flying over the wall into one of the other zones. “What’s that?”

Charles looks through the floor again, and his eyes blink sluggishly. “Oh. That’s the hearse.”

“Like, for a funeral?”

Charles snorts and sets his empty glass on a passing tray. “If dumping bodies in a pile in zone three counts as a funeral, then sure.”

Bodies. Shit.

“That’s what they do with the dead fighters? Just dump them on the ground?”

“The ones whose next of kin declines to pay for transportation home. And the ones without a next of kin on record.”

Like me.

If I die in the arena, they’re just going to dump me into a human landfill in zone…

“Wait, why zone three?”

“Who the hell knows?” Charles slurs. “Because it borders zone one? All I know is that once a month they spray some kind of decomposition accelerant on the whole pile. It might stink to high hell right now, but some day that’s going to be the most fertile piece of land on the whole damn planet.”

* * *

Sylvie’s pissed. It’s been two days since she lost on the sand, and she’s hardly stopped training or taken a breath since. I’ve never seen her lift harder or run faster. But if she doesn’t get some rest, she won’t have to worry about dying in the arena, because she won’t make it that far.

I finish a set of lat pulldowns and let the weights slam as she completes her cool down lap. When she heads across the grass toward me, I give up the machine, grab my backpack, and cross the pavement in her direction.

No one messes with her when she runs anymore, because the last people who tried that died. But everyone’s still looking for an angle. Watching for their shot. She wasn’t ready for Yost, and he nearly killed her. In their minds, that means they all have a chance.

She’s determined to prove them wrong.

“Hey.” Sylvie slides her arm around my waist and drops a kiss on my neck. She’s still breathing kind of hard from her run, and I can’t help picturing her sweaty and out of breath as she grinds out an orgasm sitting on my cock.

But this isn’t the time. My head knows that. Yet my body disagrees.

“Do you think we’re still scary enough to kick everyone out of the cafeteria for an hour or so?”

“Maybe…” I shrug as we head for the atrium. “What did you have in mind?”

“Some honest-to-god practice. Grappling. Kicking. Punching. No holds barred. With no one watching.” Because the problem with doing all that on the grass in the yard is that the whole world can watch her practice. And study her weaknesses.

“Sylvie, if you get hurt, you won’t survive the arena.”

“If I don’t train, I won’t survive the arena,” she counters. And she’s right. “Graham, I can’t go out there unprepared again. There won’t be any more lifelines, and I have at least four more fights before I’m eligible for a weapon on the sand. I need your help. Please take me seriously.”

“Hey.” I tug her to a stop and turn her so I can look right into her eyes. “I always take you seriously.”

“Then come do this with me. Unless…” She frowns. “I don’t really have any right to ask you to take time away from your own training.”

“If I’m training you, I’m training myself too,” I assure her.

“We both know that’s not true. I’m not on the same level as the men you’ll be facing, so you won’t gain much from helping me.”

“Hey. Come here.” I tug her farther from the pavement, where several dozen men are either working out or hanging out. “You have to move past this, Sylvie. You lost, but you got lucky, and—”

“I’m trying to move past it. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”

“I don’t mean physically. You need to move past this mentally, or no matter how well-trained you are, you won’t be able to concentrate out there on the sand. Yost is in the past. Roth is in the past. It’s time to look forward, and the only thing in front of you is the next fight. Not the ones after that. Just this fight. You focus on that, and when it’s over, you focus on the next one.”

For a second, she looks like she’ll cry. Then her gaze hardens. Her jaw clenches. I see her blink back tears with sheer willpower. Then she kisses me.

I sink into that kiss, surprised, and when she pulls away, I groan. “What was that for?”

“The next fight isn’t the only thing in front of me, Graham.”

Before I can figure out how to respond—or think about something other than my stiff cock—she grabs my hand and takes off toward the building, practically pulling me along behind her. But instead of heading for the cafeteria, she goes into D block. It’s still daylight, so the block is mostly deserted, the cells still unlocked.

“Grab a few mattress pads,” she says as she darts into the first one.

“Sylvie…” I say, and she pops into the aisle again with a thin, floppy pad under her arm. Taking more mats than we need will start trouble. We don’t need trouble. We need to lay low and train.

“We’ll bring them back before lockdown,” she promises. So I grab three mats and follow her through the atrium into the cafeteria.

There are only a few men inside—four in line at the two dispensers that still work and one eating at a table near the window. “Get what you’re getting and get out,” I say as we step into the large room. “The cafeteria is closed for the next hour.”

The man at the table grumbles while he packs up his food. The other four take their time at the machines, then saunter out of the room at their own pace, stuffing their bags with food, soap, deodorant, and whatever other sundries the computer decided they were due, based on a scan of the numbers on their hands. They’re not going to fight us on our cafeteria takeover, but they’re going to save face by leaving at their own pace.

Before the door has even closed behind the last of them, Sylvie is already on the floor, laying the mats out against the wall, which is the only bumper we have to keep them from sliding around, since the tables and chairs are bolted down and can’t be rearranged. When she has them laid out the way she wants them, we start training, but no matter how hard I am on her, she demands more. Harder. Faster.

Those are my favorite words to hear from her—but not like this. She’s wound so tightly that one more hint of pressure could snap her. She’s running herself into the ground. And when I try to slow her down, she ignores me.

“Again!” Sylvie pops up off the mat like a spring, knees bent, bare feet sinking into the thin padding while she circles me, watching for any hint of the approach I’ll take next. “Come on, Graham! I can take it! Come at me.”

I’m not sure how she’s even still on her feet, considering that I can hardly even feel mine. But I drop into a crouch, preparing to tackle her, because that’s the approach it’s hardest for her to recover from. She’s so much smaller than I am that half the time, when her back slams into the ground, she loses her breath and is stunned for a couple of seconds. Which could mean death, on the sand.

But before I can lunge at her, the cafeteria door slides open.

“I said get the fuck—” I’m spinning toward the door as I shout, but Sylvie’s squeal cuts me off. Before I can focus on the man standing in the doorway, she’s racing across the large room toward him.

“Sebastian!” She collides with her brother, and he stumbles backward, laughing as he absorbs her momentum. “How the hell did you get here? Kaya said your trial could take weeks. I sat in jail for a month waiting for mine!”

“I confessed.” He sets her down and takes a cursory look around the cafeteria, then drops his brand new supply pack on the ground. “There was no trial. I pled to a judge remotely, via live feed from Station Alpha, and when he gave me a death sentence, I demanded combat.” Sebastian laughs again, and I have to admit I’m jealous of the way she’s looking up at him. Of the way she’s looking up to him.

Obviously their sibling bond is of an entirely different nature than my relationship with Sylvie, but it’s clear that he’s her hero. That he probably always has been.

“No one was surprised,” Sebastian continues. “UA had cameras rolling. Kaya was there. She said to tell you she’s planning some kind of big PR splash.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what. I wasn’t really listening.” His grin is larger than life, but Sylvie’s no longer smiling.

“Seb, you shouldn’t have done this. There’s no reason for both of us to die in this hellhole.”

“You’re not going to die here, sis.” He winks at her. “And neither am I. This season, you’re walking out of here. Next season, I’ll join you in the open population.”

She glances at me with a frown. “What about Graham? I can’t leave him in here. I mean, assuming I even make it to the championship round. And that’s a big if.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he assures her. But he’s looking at me, his jaw fixed in a firm line.

“It’s not that simple, Sebastian,” she insists. “We can’t both—”

“Sylvie.” He takes her face in both hands and looks right into her eyes. “We’ll figure it out. Just leave it to me. I’m here to protect you.” He gives me another hard look, and I’m starting to get the impression that he really doesn’t like me. “Just like Graham.”

“Okay, but for the record,” she says, her brows drawn into a frown. “This is a mutually beneficial alliance, not the ‘Sylvie Can’t Protect Herself’ club. No matter how bad I looked in the arena the other day.”

“Duly noted,” he assures her. “I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine. No matter what. It’ll be just like middle school. Now with one hundred percent more homicidal maniacs!” he adds in an announcer’s cartoonish voice.

“I don’t know.” She grins. “There were definitely a couple of psychos in my PE class.”

“The Michaels twins? Because I keep expecting to turn a corner and see them standing there holding a couple of dead cats. Those little bastards would fit right in here.”

“Yet somehow they both work for an accounting firm, and you and I are on death row. Speaking of which…” She glances at me again. “We were sparring. Want to—?”

“Actually, you look like you could use a break, and I’d like to talk to Graham for a minute in the atrium.” He gives me an expectant look I decide to ignore, then he turns back to his sister. “Why don’t you dig a snack out of my bag. There’s fresh water in there too. We’ll watch the door.”

“I’m not twelve anymore, Sebastian. I can feed myself.”

“Then eat your own damn snack.” He shrugs, then turns to me. “Graham?”

Sylvie gives me a nervous glance, then turns back to her brother. “What’s this about?”

“It’s okay. We’ll be back in a second.” I wrap one arm around her waist and kiss her. Hard. When we come up for air, her brother’s glaring daggers at me.

I am strangely pleased by that. She may be his sister, but she’s mine in every other way.

Sylvie looks a little lust-drunk, her lips swollen from my kiss. But then she glances at her brother, and that uneasy look comes back as she bends to grab his pack. “Five minutes,” she warns. “Then I’m coming out there to clear out all the testosterone.”

Clearly, she knows as well as I do what this is about.

I follow Sebastian into the hall, and the moment the door slides closed behind us, he slams me into the wall, his forearm pressed across my collarbone. “That’s my sister you just stuck your tongue in.”

I consider telling him what else I’ve stuck into his sister, but the more mature part of me knows that will only make this worse—for Sylvie. So I take a more rational approach.

“She’s old enough to make her own decisions.” I shove him off, and his eyes flash with anger, but he stays back. “In fact, that’s how she got here.”

“We both knows she doesn’t have any real choices in here. You’re watching out for her now, but what happens if she decides she doesn’t want to sleep with you anymore? She can’t afford another enemy, so it’s not like she’s going to tell you no. She doesn’t think she can.”

“Okay, look.” My voice comes out as a growl, and I let it resonate between us. My patience is wearing thin. “You’re obviously worried about your sister, so I’m going to let this slide. Once. But you need to back the fuck up and understand that you’ve got this all wrong. I’m not using Sylvie. If she decides she doesn’t want me, I’ll never touch her again, but I won’t abandon her. As long as I’m here, she’ll never be on her own. Whether she’s in my bed or not.”

“Don’t…fucking…” He closes his eyes and props both hands on his hips, as if he’s fighting for patience. Or trying to unsee whatever mental image is stuck in his head. “She still my little sister, man, and I don’t need to think about her… With you… Like that.”

“Fair enough. But there’s no privacy in the bullpen, so if you don’t want to know exactly how grown up your little sister is, you might want to sleep anywhere but A block. Because as long as she wants it, I’m damn well going to give it to her.”

A series of hoots and obscene cheers echo from one of the empty offices across the atrium, and I look up to see several men gathered in the doorway, watching us.

Sebastian looks like I just tried to serve him slime mold for dinner. “Okay, for fucking real, man. I get it. You’re sticking it to my sister and that’s none of my goddamn business. Message received. But this truce will only work if you stop throwing that shit in my face.”

I frown when I realize he’s just voiced the real problem between us. “Sebastian this isn’t a truce, because you and I aren’t at war.” I lower my voice, so no one else can hear. “We can’t afford to be. If we’ve both got Sylvie’s back, that makes us allies, not enemies.”

He thinks about that for a second. Then he nods. And when I stick my hand out he takes it. But instead of shaking it, he squeezes it, meeting my gaze with a stone-cold glare. “The only reason I’m on this shithole planet—the only reason I gave up the rest of my fucking life, and my career, and millions in endorsements—is to get my sister out of here alive. That’s the only thing I give a damn about. As long as you’re willing to help with that, great. But eventually you’re going to start making decisions that benefit you, rather than her, and when that day comes, I will fucking end you.”

I jerk my hand from his grip. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I ever do that?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, man,” he growls, and I’m starting to think we’re having a pretty damn serious miscommunication. “If we keep her alive, eventually they’re going to pit the two of you against each other in the arena, and only one of you is going to walk away from that fight. We both know it won’t be her. Which means I can’t let you take the sand with her.”

“So, you’re just going to try to kill me before the fight?”

“Try!” He snorts, as if I’m being ridiculous.

“Are you going to kill everyone they put up against her?”

He nods. “Everyone she can’t beat.”

“So, what, they announce the names, and you just go kill her opponent before he even takes the sand? You do that even once, and she’ll lose every bit of respect she has in here.”

Sebastian shrugs. “Better no respect than no heartbeat.”

“That’s not how it works in here!” I lower my voice, when I realize those nosy bastards from the office are still trying to eavesdrop. “If people think she’s entirely dependent upon your protection—or mine—the first time they find her without us, they’ll fucking rip her to shreds. We learned that lesson the morning of her first fight. I’m not sure if you saw the feeds.” But I can tell from his clenched jaw that he did. “They need to fear all three of us.”

“And how do we make that happen? She’s strong, but she’s still small.”

“I think you’re underestimating her. She had a bad time out there the other night, but that’s not who she is. That’s not how she fights. You help me train her, and I think she’ll eventually be able to take just about anyone in here.”

“But not you,” he says. “She’ll never be able to take you.”

“She won’t have to.” I exhale. Then I bare my fucking soul to the man who just threatened to end my life. “If they put us on the sand together, I’ll kill myself before I’d lay one fucking hand on Sylvie. You have my word.”

Sebastian stares at me, trying to deduce the truth from whatever he sees in my face. Then he frowns. “You would die for her?”

“Every day of the week.”

“Why?”

“Because I love her. Because I’ve already had to watch everyone else I love die, right in front of me, and I can’t do that again. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Sylvie, but there are some things she has to do for herself. So why don’t you quit busting my balls out here and help me get her ready to save her own life?”