Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) (23 page)

That’s when he noticed her outfit. She was wearing her fighting clothes. The black tank top and dark-wash jeans were fitted, yet moved well with her body if she had to throw a punch or a side kick.

He’d bet his left nut she was wearing her ass-kicking boots, too. The very same silver-heeled boots that had knocked Candy Kane on her butt at Kitty Kat Palace a few short weeks ago.

She expected trouble tonight. And probably not just their usual kind of trouble. He could see it in her shadowed, worried eyes.

At that moment, he didn’t give a good goddamn what they were facing tonight. As long as they were together, they’d be fine.

Again, too fucking bad he hadn’t come that conclusion
earlier
in the damn day.

Ignoring the crowd and the two mafia families and pretty much everyone else in the world, he went to her.

Harper reached for him when he got to the wall separating the owner’s box from the Arena itself. He lifted her up and over the wall in one motion and she latched onto him tight, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

He breathed a sigh of relief when she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He pulled back, cupping the back of her head in his hand, looking her square in the eye. “No, it does matter. I was a dumbass for walking away today, and I was a dumbass for doubting us. I know I have issues to work out, but I don’t fucking care about any of it. My family, the damn paranormal mafia, Romeo Jones, the beast…none of it matters. As long as you’re willing to tolerate me, forever, then it’s all good.”

He paused and rested his forehead against hers. “You were right,” he added. “About everything.”

She grinned. “If you could just assume that right up front, it would really save us a lot of time.”

He shifted his hand down to her ribs and tickled her, causing her to squeal and cling to him even tighter. “Smartass.”

“Well, this is so cute I could puke, but can we get on with the fight, son?” Ken asked.

Riddick ignored him. “So, am I to assume by this outfit—you look crazy hot, by the way—that you’re expecting some serious shit to go down?”

She nodded. “Yep. I have a plan.”

He smiled. “Of course you do.”

“Want to hear about it?”

“Nah. Surprise me.”

Her brows raised. “Don’t I always?”

“Every damn day. In the best possible ways.”

***

After a kiss that left her knees shaky and the audience hooting and hollering like a bunch of hormonal teenagers, Riddick handed Harper over to Romeo, who hauled her back over the wall into the owner’s box.

“The families didn’t care for that display,” Romeo said, gesturing toward Archer and the Lykoi boss, who sat at his right.

Must not have, she thought, noting their dour expressions. Most people would probably apologize or offer some kind of conciliatory gesture at this point.

Harper flipped them off.

Romeo dropped his forehead into his palm with a loud smack. “Jesus, girl, you really are crazy, aren’t you?”

She grinned at him. “Crazy is just a side effect of awesome.”

He rolled his eyes. “Then you are all kinds of awesome, Harper Hall.”

Whatever reply she was going to make was interrupted by Christy and her gong. Harper’s stomach immediately clenched into a knotted ball.

Here we go.

Riddick and Ken circled each other, eyes focused, each ready to strike at any given moment.

Ken looked tense, Harper noted, which was somewhat surprising, given his supreme arrogance, and the ease with which he’d pummeled his sparring partner. His jaw looked tight, and his knuckles were so clenched that veins bulged grotesquely all over the back of his hands and forearms.

Riddick, on the other hand, wore a completely relaxed, somewhat bored expression. Anyone who didn’t know him would assume he hadn’t a care in the world. But Harper
did
know him, and she was probably the only person in the room who could see that his ruthless calm masked his wholehearted determination to win this fight at any cost. Quite simply, Ken Riddick didn’t stand a chance.

His son was going to destroy him.

Ken made the first move. He dove low, obviously meaning to sweep Riddick’s legs out from under him and take him to the ground. Riddick must have anticipated the move, because he jumped straight up and over Ken, who hit the ground face-first and slid about a foot before getting his bearings and scissoring back into a standing position.

Ken had blood in his eyes as he faced off against Riddick once more. Riddick smirked at him, which the crowd loved. Beside her, Romeo shook his head. “The boy’s good,” he said.

Riddick dodged the hard right hook Ken threw at him, but wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the follow-up left that glanced off his temple. Harper sucked in a sharp breath, but Riddick just shook it off.

Riddick threw a kick at Ken’s head. Ken ducked, moving into a leg-sweep, knocking Riddick flat onto his back. Harper couldn’t hear anything over the cheers of the crowd, but could tell by the look on Riddick’s face that the air had been forced from his lungs. She held her own breath and clutched Romeo’s hand for support.

Ken moved in to kick Riddick while he was down, but Riddick rolled backwards and to his feet smoothly. Riddick covered the distance between them.

What followed was a flurry of thrown and blocked punches that moved so fast, Harper wasn’t sure she was even seeing all of it. They broke apart when Riddick landed a punch to the center of Ken’s chest.

A punch like that could’ve stopped a normal man’s heart, Harper knew. But Ken Riddick was no ordinary man. And true to his
dhampyre
status, he rushed Riddick, slamming into him with enough force to drive him back into the far wall of the Arena.

Riddick ducked, barely missing the heel of Ken’s hand, which, had it hit him in the face, could’ve sent bits of crushed bone up into his brain. He grinned savagely when the wall behind him took the full brunt of his father’s punch.

Ken clutched his hand—which had to be shattered, Harper realized with a kind of grim glee—for a moment before head- butting Riddick, then sweeping his legs out from under him.

The blow to the head opened up a cut on Riddick’s forehead, and a steady stream of blood oozed into his eye. But he didn’t seem to notice. He was much too focused on blocking Ken’s repeated attempts to smash his skull under the heel of his boot.

His father drew back his foot to deliver a kick, and Riddick grabbed hold of Ken’s ankle, twisting savagely and dragging him to the ground. Before Ken could scramble away, Riddick threw his left arm around Ken’s neck, then grabbed his own upper right bicep, with his right hand behind Ken’s head.

“Beautiful,” Romeo murmured. “A perfect figure four blood choke.”

“A what?” she asked, watching Ken struggle fruitlessly to escape Riddick’s hold.

“A blood choke. He’s cutting off blood flow to Ken’s brain by compressing his carotid arteries. And he’s doing it like a fuckin’ pro.”

And within thirty seconds—Romeo said it would’ve taken half as long for a normal guy—Ken Riddick, the undefeated Lykoi mafia champion, was unconscious.

Noah Riddick was the new champion of the Arena.

That’s when everything went…a little sideways.

The Lykoi hadn’t anticipated this outcome. They were convinced Riddick had somehow cheated, thanks to the suggestion Hunter planted with their boss.

The Lykoi boss and his men stormed over the wall into the Arena toward Riddick. Archer and his men followed.

And of course, while no visitors or fighters in the Arena were allowed to carry weapons, the mafia was packing all manner of artillery. Harper counted ten Lykoi and nine Vrykolakas, all armed with at least three weapons apiece. Guns, knives, short swords…yep, they were armed to the fangs.

Which was pretty much what she’d expected. Didn’t mean she was happy about it, though.

The Lykoi boss, who was about six foot eight and nearly equally wide, practically bent in half to get in Archer’s face. “You have this fighter—” he gestured to Riddick “—classified as human. There’s no way a human could’ve beaten my fighter that easily. I demand his immediate disqualification.”

Archer smirked up at him. “And your fighter is classified as human as well,
friend
. The bout was evenly matched. There are no grounds for disqualification.”

The argument went on for about ten minutes. The audience got bored and started filing out row by row until the stadium seats were empty. Romeo handed Harper down to Riddick, then vaulted over the wall himself. They were halfway to the locker room when the Lykoi boss yelled for them to stop.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he bellowed. “Guards!”

Harper smiled. Yeah, sure, she thought, call the guards.

Hunter, Mischa, Lucas, Benny, and about twenty of Benny’s halfer friends stepped out of the shadows—armed and wearing guard uniforms—and surrounded the group in the middle of the Arena.

If everything had gone according to plan-—and it looked like it had-—the real guards were bound and unconscious in a dumpster down the street from the building that housed the Arena.

Archer sputtered. “What is the meaning of this?”

Mischa, who looked a little ridiculous in her guard uniform, especially since she’d had to roll up the sleeves and pants several times to fit her tiny frame, leveled her crossbow on him. “We didn’t really care for the
offer
you made to Harper earlier.”

Beside her, Riddick tensed. “What offer?”

Harper opened her mouth to answer, but Mischa beat her to it. “He said even if you won tonight, he’d demand extra payment. He wanted Harper to be his personal psychic—and whatever else he wanted—until the remainder of the debt was paid, which surely, he just intended to keep upping until he was done with her.”

Riddick growled and moved toward Archer, but Harper grabbed his arm. “Don’t. It’s not worth it.” She turned to Archer. “This ends tonight. If you let us go now, free and clear, you’ll keep your little operation going. If you don’t…I. Will. End. You.”

Archer tipped his chin to his men, and they all pulled their weapons. “I’ve tolerated a lot from you, little girl. You’re right about one thing: this ends tonight.” To his men, he yelled, “Kill them all!”

Everything went crazy all at once.

The Lykoi, who had no idea what was really going on, clashed with the Vrykolakas in a tangle of fists and steel, blades flashing and sparking against one another. The halfers joined the fray and it became an all-out barroom blitz.

“Down!” Harper shouted to her crew as the bullets started flying.

Riddick shielded her with his body as he shoved her through the door to the locker room. The showers and lockers blurred in her peripheral vision as they sprinted to the exit. “Wait!” she shouted, digging in her heels. “Where are Mischa and Hunter? Lucas and Benny and Romeo?”

“We’re all here, doll,” Benny said behind them. “That was freakin’ awesome!”

Hunter, who had Mischa tucked under his arm, glared at him. “Mischa and Harper could’ve been shot, Benny. That is not
awesome
.”

“Harper orchestrated a mafia war so that we could slip away while they killed each other,” Romeo said with a chuckle. “That definitely counts as
awesome
.”

Lucas grinned. “It
was
fairly awesome.”

Riddick pulled up the bottom of his t-shirt and dabbed at the bloody cut above his eye. “Let’s get out of here so that we can all enjoy Harper’s awesomeness from a good, safe distance of this place. Deal?”

She grabbed his hand. “Deal.”

They ran up what felt like a hundred flights of steps and down two crazy-long corridors before they spilled out into an alley.

And that’s when everyone’s good mood disappeared.

Eight Lykoi fighters glowered menacingly at them in the alley. All armed, all looking a little less than sane. One of them was the pathetic dude Riddick had beaten during his first Arena fight. Probably not a good idea to remind the guy about it, Harper thought. Especially since he had a machete strapped to his back and looked a little…twitchy.

Romeo snorted and pointed at the guy. “Hey, look, Harpy. It’s
Enter the Dumbass
.”

Riddick smirked. “Hey, dude,
loved
the headband.”

Harper watched the kid’s face turn red, then purple. “We’re all dead now because of you,” he ground out, stabbing a finger at Riddick. “Ken winning was the only thing keeping our team together. The boss is gonna kill us now that we’re all losers.”

“Maybe if you explain that you’ve
always
been losers, he’ll be more understanding,” Romeo suggested helpfully. Benny chuckled and bumped knuckles with him.

Riddick did a face-palm. He was probably lamenting his solo days when there was no one around to almost get him killed by mouthing off at the wrong time. He glanced back at Harper and she shrugged sheepishly in wordless apology.

The Lykoi fighters took a minute to crack their knuckles, roll their necks, and throw a few shadow punches. Thankfully, no one went for their weapons. Maybe they thought they actually stood a chance in this fight hand-to-hand.

Romeo nudged her. “Aw, aren’t they cute? They think they can win.”

Behind her, Lucas sighed impatiently. “Jesus, are we gonna fight, or what? I’m freakin’ bored, here.”

And that was all it took to set them off.

Riddick shoved her out of the way as the Lykoi charged, but as he was occupied with subduing the crazy flailing of his opponent, one of the smaller Lykoi moved toward her.

He cocked his arm back, but Harper was ready for him and flung her fist out, throwing her full weight behind it. Her knuckles connected with his cheekbone, making a very satisfying crunching sound. He staggered back, hands pressed to his face.

Harper took advantage of his preoccupation with his cheekbone and pivoted on one foot, kicking him in the stomach with her other foot, just like Riddick taught her. When he doubled over, she brought her knee up into his face and shoved him to the ground, hard. He hit face-first, not even able to get his hands down to break his fall.