Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series by Austin Rogers Page A

skin.
    When she wheeled herself around, her face displayed tearful rage. Her chest heaved for oxygen as she sucked air through locked teeth. “Take off your velvet gloves, old cradlemate. I’m no helpless child.”
    Kastor’s heart slowly cracked. He couldn’t do it. His hands wouldn’t let him.
    Pollaena ran at him again, swinging hard and fast. Kastor saw a new opening every few seconds. He could initiate a sequence and finish her in a handful of moves. And yet he couldn’t. An impassible mental block prevented even a flinch toward hurting her. Even as she grunted with the power of her blows, even as she exhausted herself from swinging, he didn’t make a single offensive move at her.
    She pulled away for a breather. “Come on, you bastard,” she said between gasps. Then she calmed herself and pushed away the fiery anger in her eyes. “Kastor . . . son of Tyrannus . . .”
    Pollaena swung from the side and Kastor blocked. Then from below. He blocked. From above. He blocked.
    “ . . . warrior of Eagle . . .”
    A flurry from the right and left.
    “ . . . winner of tournaments . . .”
    She sliced down from above, then thrust, and thrust again. He parried and dodged.
    “ . . . champion of Triumph . . .”
    Slower swings, to the sides, from above, from below. Easy to block.
    “Take what is yours,” she said, exasperated. Then, after gathering air, she screamed, “ Take it! ” and heaved a sharp thrust at his chest.
    He grabbed her wrist and cuffed her across the jaw with the hilt of his sword. Something jolted in him as if he’d been struck by an iron gauntlet, yet she hadn’t touched him.
    Pollaena drew her hand away, wet with blood, and spat on the floor, which still displayed the huge image of the Milky Way. Her cold eyes glared at him. “Stop toying with me. You’ve made your choice.”
    She attacked again, raining blows that were all too easy to parry, pushing him backwards, keeping him on defense. Then her stance opened as she thrust. Instinct took control of Kastor, and he watched—more than commanded—as his sword flashed downward, slicing through her thigh.
    Instantly, Kastor felt a whip-like sting in his chest. The inner pain almost crippled him as Pollaena stumbled away, whimpering through clenched teeth, blood trickling down her deactivated nanoflex armor.
    Without a break, she hobbled toward him with surprising speed and swung. He evaded and felt his sword slash through her side. Pollaena cried out and dropped to the slick floor, and Kastor sensed a corresponding sting—a sharp, stabbing pain in his rib cage, forcing him to take a knee. Pricks exploded through his brain, nearly blinding him. His hands shook. The academy had conditioned him against this, had designed his body and mind to feel pain as she did, to desire only protection and wellbeing for his maiden. It went against his nature, against everything he knew, against his very DNA.
    But then came a worse pain: memories. Holding Pollaena’s hand when they ran the maze drill as children. Rubbing her fingers between his palms when she had hypothermia in arctic training. Seeing her naked for the first time at the lake, when she stripped off her clothes in front of him. A hundred memories assaulted him at once. Paralyzed him.
    And now she lay on the floor, writhing and gasping as she held her bleeding side. Blood laced her teeth, seeped through the fingers pressed against her ribs. Kastor fought against the crushing weight in his chest. Against the thought of Pollaena watching over him with a sniper rifle from the tower. Of feeling her warmth against him at night. Of sprinting to the launch pad after morning drills to wish her goodbye before she left for Triumph.
    Kastor forced himself to look away, across the hollow expanse to the marbled dais and the Diamond Thrones. Up at the gallery of nobles, huddled against the balustrade between gargantuan pillars, watching with serene faces. And higher, at the exquisite depictions of glory painted