Mikko (Stolen Warriors #2) - Ella Maven Page 0,2

of my face, I found he’d given me a long, sharp blade. I stared at it in bewilderment before meeting his mean yellow eyes.

“We’re watching,” he said as the cage lowered over the lip of the Pit. Right before I lost sight of him, he added with an eerie cackle, “Make your death interesting for those of us watching. It’s been a slow cycle.”

My stomach shriveled into a twisted knot, and my heart pounded so loud in my ears I felt like I was underwater. This felt less like a prison and more like a trash dump for living things. The metal arm extended me over a massive pit in the ground. The sides of which were coated in a shiny, smooth material, and I assumed it was to prevent anything from climbing out.

As I looked down, I could just make out some shapes moving in the dim light below. I gripped the steel blade in my hand, testing the weight. I slashed out a few practice moves in the air with the knife, but they felt a little silly. I was five-five and weighed one-forty. If any of the prisoners were even close to the size of the Plikens, I was screwed. Would they make it quick? Would I have to turn this blade on myself? I gulped. No way. I’d fight and take out as many as I could. I never knew when to quit, even when it was clear I was losing.

The cage began its descent, and I was grateful it wasn’t achingly slow. My stomach fluttered as it dropped, and the forms below grew larger until I realized I was being dropped into a literal pit of monsters. I’d never seen anything like what awaited me. My owner with four eyes seemed like the better choice now, as scarred faces, mean eyes, and snarling mouths came into view.

I trembled so badly my teeth chattered. I clenched them together as I fought to get myself under control, but my body was in flight mode. I was trapped in a cage to be left for dead among terrifying creatures. As I passed the first floor below ground, aliens shouted at me from within door-less cells. I counted three floors of them, and the creatures milled around the walkways.

Below, at the bottom of the pit, was a cesspool of bodies, and the aliens there looked ill-fed and crazed. Not that the ones in the cells seemed welcoming, but they at least seemed less like a pit of snakes waiting for a rat.

Frozen in place, I watched as the crowd gathered around a platform along a wall of the pit, just below the bottom cell floor. They were waiting for me, nearly salivating, and it was then I realized was where my cage was heading. A beeping sound came overhead, and I looked up to see a flashing yellow light. In a moment, I’d be on that platform, my cage doors would open, and I’d be at the mercy of whatever these aliens wanted to do to me.

I didn’t see one human. I saw aliens with missing limbs and infected flesh wounds. The overpowering smell of death made me gag. Claws reached for me. Blackened teeth gnashed.

Suddenly the beeping went silent, and the cage came to a jolting halt as it swung back and forth in the air about ten feet from the platform. The crowd erupted in a thunderous roar, and then my stomach soared into my throat as the cage dropped in a free fall. The cage hit the platform with a crash, and I slammed against the bottom on my hands and knees.

My knife fell from my hand with a clatter and I scrambled for it just as the light above me flashed a bright green. My fingers closed around the hilt seconds before there was a loud rusty click, and the door of my cage sprang open.

A clawed, two-fingered hand slapped onto the platform. I didn’t wait to see who that hand belonged to. No way was I getting trapped in this cage. I surged out and swung the knife at the alien’s wrist. A wail erupted from below as I sliced through bone, and a warm liquid spurted across my cheek. Heart pumping, I skirted the cage while dodging grasping hands at the edge of the platform. I eyed the walkway surrounding the first-floor cells. If I could just make it there, maybe I could find a lone cell with a door and shut myself