Chapter 1
When Quinn was little he always thought Gheyos were the coolest.
Maybe it was, precisely, because he had been born and raised amidst healers that the first time he had seen Bharin he’d been so mesmerized.
Accustomed to seeing the blood disappear he’d been curious about those who made it appear in the first place. Settling into his Alpha rank had made him reckless, impulsive, and left him with his hands wrapped around his throat, covered in more blood than his own, trying to hold on to his life.
Now with a fresh death seal and a companion Joker rank, he would like to take it back.
Gheyos weren’t cool. They were bored and terrible gossip.
“Marionette, stop toying with him”
Quinn huffed but didn’t refute focusing instead on the thin strand of a rich red color twirled between his pale fingers.
He wasn’t even looking at his opponent, he didn’t need to. Not when the fluctuations of the gheyo’s aura betrayed his movements.
A right foot glowed lightly, the glow quickly shifting upwards to the hand wielding a fine dagger— The gheyo king was now going for the left side. Shame he wouldn’t make it.
After all, what fun was seeing the strings if you didn’t pull on them?
Quinn tugged softly on the string.
The other gheyo’s movements faltered and, just like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he crumbled leaving himself open to Quinn’s attack.
And Quinn didn’t forgive.
The board with the match results wasn’t updated.
He scanned the names searching for his mentor, for the word puppeteer, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Quinn raised a hand to search one by one and make sure he hadn’t missed it but he was annoyed by a slender pale green thread tangled in his pinky finger.
He clenched his jaw annoyed. It was the third time this particular thread had ended up in his hands.
Literally.
And not even by choice! Quinn pulled it off his hand and watched with mild curiosity and resignation how it wriggled until it was tightly wrapped around his fingers again as if it belonged there. Quinn wasn’t an empath and couldn’t see the aura of a soul strand but he could feel the smugness radiating from the thin string.
He felt several auras approaching but Quinn was too focused on the pleased thread to pay them any mind. At least he was until they started talking.
"Have you heard about the new medic?" A blonde girl whispered to another, their voices barely audible over the sounds of crashing blades.
"Yeah, they say he's some wide-eyed intern, fresh out of med school," came the reply. "I heard he’s a submissive.”
There they went again with the rumors that had been circulating throughout the pits all week.
At first, he hadn’t paid attention to the new stories thinking it was just another useless gossip. After all most gheyos on contract with the pits usually had restricted communication and hadn’t been in contact with the outside in a few years so they liked to gain a sense of normalcy by gossiping. But soon it became obvious that this wasn’t something he could ignore, not when it seemed everywhere he went he found something related to the new medic.
Just a few days ago he had been sparing with his mentor and noticed the ugliest band-aid peaking from underneath his armor. It was an outstanding bright neon pink color with small badly-drawn unicorns as print. It was then that he learned about the new intern that was staying in the pits, and the band-aid competitions that had arisen since then.
Gheyos were truly bored sometimes.
Besides, it wasn’t like Quinn was ever going to step foot in the infirmary. Not with how he always tended to his wounds, eschewing the aid of healers in favor of using what his family had taught him. And certainly not after his newly dug-up merrow instincts balked at anything other than a claim mark or his tattoos marking his skin.