Authors: Harmony Raines
Tags: #General Fiction
His fists crunched into the jaw of his opponent, sending the poor guy sprawling backwards.
Who was he kidding? He felt no sympathy at all; it was a dog-eat-dog, or cat-eat-dog game of survival in this world. And this world was the only one Kieran knew.
Larry, that was the guy’s name, if he remembered from the announcement at the beginning of the fight. Larry Lap Dog, or something like that. He smirked. Maybe he should run that name past the guy, might make him realise there was no getting out of the ring unless he was on a stretcher.
Yes, he was confident he would win, that was what he did, that was why he was his boss’s favourite fighter, because he won so much money. Shame none of it was his—as a shifter, he couldn’t actually own anything. But his boss, Lance Valli, kept him well taken care of, every need catered to. Every depraved one of them.
“Want another bone broken?” he asked Larry Lap Dog, tilting his head from side to side, and bouncing on his toes, warming up ready for the next shot. He had to make this look good, had to stretch it out a little, or the punters would get bored. As if hitting a man until he was senseless wasn’t enough entertainment.
Larry came at him, and Kieran let him get a glancing blow on his ribs. He moved as if it hurt, but he knew as well as Larry that there would be no damage done. In fact, if he looked at Larry properly, he could tell that the guy knew he was beat, but just didn’t know how much it was going to hurt.
Poor guy
. Kieran launched at him, his fists flailing, and struck him once in the gut, and then in the face. Time to put the poor dog down.
Larry seemed to hover in the air, like the world really was spinning around, Kieran could almost see him watching little stars circling his head, like they did in cartoons, but then he toppled, his feet struggling to keep him upright, and he went down, crashing into the floor. Dead to the world.
“And the winner is Kieran, Killer Kitty.” Yep, Kieran’s badass name was just as ridiculous as every other poor shifter who got dragged into the underground sport. His boss had given it to him, although neither of them knew what kind of shifter he was.
The ref … a loose term for the guy who made sure no one actually died, held his arm aloft, and Kieran took the applause, what little there was, and then headed out of the cage into the waiting embrace of his boss.
“Good show.” Lance Valli patted him on the back, smiling widely, but there was no love between them, this was a business arrangement, pure and simple. The only reason Kieran was treated well was because he was worth money, and he was in no doubt that when that changed, when Lance found someone better, Kieran would be used as meat fodder, like so many other shifters.
“Boss.” One of the henchmen, Div, called to Lance, and he broke away.
“Go get your reward, Kitty.” Lance Valli never called him by his real name. Kieran thought it was because he didn’t see his best fighter than anything other than an animal he would one day send to the slaughter.
“Thanks.” Kieran knew what his reward was, long-limbed, blonde-haired, and naked in his bed. First he had to go get showered and cleaned up. They might think he was an animal, and that was OK, but Kieran had more pride than he ever let on.
Walking out to the showers, he took a minute to examine his knuckles, noting he had some swelling around his left thumb, and a cut on the knuckle of his index finger. Larry’s jaw had been harder than he thought. Switching on the shower, he stripped off, and got under the hard jets that glanced off his fight-hardened body.
As he stood under the water, he let the tension slip from his body before picking up the soap and scrubbing the sweat and dirt off himself. It didn’t take long; he was too eager to get his reward to spend too much time under the shower. Anyway, by the time he had finished with his blonde, he would be all hot and sweaty again.
Grabbing a towel, he wrapped it around his waist, and headed back towards his locker. He dragged on his jeans, and then headed upstairs to his room. His cock rose in anticipation; damn he was going to fuck his reward until she begged for mercy. Not that he was going to force himself on her, oh no, they were lining up to sleep with this kitty. A nice rumour was circling town that his cock was as magical as his fists.
Chuckling to himself, he dragged a T-shirt over his wet body, and towelled off his hair. Then he headed out, surprised to hear his boss talking in one of the back rooms. Normally the guy was in the bar by now, setting up new fights off the strength of this one.
“So this is her?” Lance was talking in that tone he used when he was talking about Kieran, and he instantly knew the
she
being mentioned was a shifter.
“Walk away,” he muttered to himself. He had a good life here, not a free life, but he wanted for nothing.
Except her.
That voice in his head; it had been a long time since he had heard it. Why now, why did it invade his thoughts at a time like this?
She is our mate.
He took a step back, looking around, as if there should be someone standing next to him. But there wasn’t, he knew there wasn’t, and he also knew that the reason his beast had chosen to speak to him again; it had to do with the woman in the room with his boss.
The woman
. She was crying, a sound that called to him in a way he’d never felt before. It was as if they were connected in some way. But as he slid his head round the door and looked at her, he knew he had never seen her before.
He also knew his life would never be the same again, and that he
couldn’t
walk away from her, no matter what the consequences. That left him with only one choice. It was like in the cage, either he fought to win, or he would die.
As if possessed by the thing inside his head, he flexed his muscles, stretching his fingers before balling them up into fists. Silently he walked forward, into the room where Div was slapping the woman around the place again. Each of his blows might just as well have been across Kieran’s face; he could feel her fear. Then she looked up and saw him, and the recognition was there on her face too.
“What are you doing here?” Lance asked Kieran, his face red, angry.
“I’ve come for her.” That was all he said, and then Div turned to look at him, and Kieran looked at the people in the room and realised that none of them liked him. All of them were disgusted by him, he was just an animal. A thing that made them money.
“Walk away, Kitty, while you still can. You might think you’re king in the ring, but here you are nothing,” his boss sneered, making Kieran’s blood rise and the thing inside him roared, the sound made him feel more powerful than he had ever felt in his life.
“I’m not walking anywhere.” Kieran pulled himself up to his full height. “I suggest it’s you that walk away, before I break your legs.”
His boss laughed. “Come on, Kitty your reward is upstairs waiting for you. Go and have some fun. This is nothing to do with you.” His boss took a step towards him, acting all confident like he was in charge, but Lance was not in charge anymore.
And before he could think about it, before he could talk himself out of it, Kieran’s fist crunched into his boss’s face, ending the life he had known since he was old enough to walk into the cage.
Misty sat there, stunned, not from the slaps across her face, but from the vision of the man who had walked into the room, and was now pummelling the face of the guy who had hit her. Normally violence disgusted her, but today all she wanted was for someone to put an end to this nightmare.
She wanted to go home
.
By now, she should have been at the border. Instead, she had been brought here, tied up, threatened, and then beaten, all for information on Darius, information she could not give up. Information she had never even known until her conversation with him last night. Her sudden release from her contract now seemed tied up in a world she didn’t understand, people moving her around as if she were a pawn.
Inside her head, her horse snorted and pawed the ground, anxious for the man who had knocked out two of the men and was now rounding on the short fat man, who was in charge. Scrap that,
had
been in charge, because now the room belonged to her saviour. She only hoped he was a good man, and wasn’t simply trying to take her and use her for his own devices.
Just as he seemed to have everything under control, the boss pulled a knife. Her heart jolted in her chest. She didn’t fully understand what it meant, but her horse was trying to tell her something. And then it clicked:
he was her mate
.
Of course, that was it, that was why he has here, he had felt it too.
Felt her presence
. She saw the glint of metal around his neck. He wore a collar, just like her. The collar stopped him turning into his other side. The collar marked him as a shifter in this human world.
The knife flashed, aimed at his ribs, but with grace and confidence, he jumped back out of the way. Then he jabbed a long arm out, hitting the boss in the face, sending him reeling backwards. But the short guy wanted to play dirty, and so waved the knife in front of him, backwards and forwards in a deliberate action, if for nothing else than to play for time.
And then she heard why. There was a shout from the corridor outside: reinforcements.
Her saviour heard the noise too, and acted fast, taking charge of the situation. In one swift move he grabbed the boss’s wrist, turning the knife on him and holding it under his throat.
“What now, Kitty?” the boss asked. “You ain’t getting out of here alive.”
“Want to bet?”
“You know I always win.” His boss sneered.
“Wrong, you only win because
I
win.” He bent the knife back a little more until it drew blood from the boss’s throat, a warning not to move. And then her rescuer’s eyes darted to Misty and he moved quickly, his one free hand going to her wrists, and he struggled with the knot binding her. It wouldn’t give.
He brought his knee up at the same time as he pulled the boss’s head down, and there was a sickening thud as the boss fell to the ground, knocked out. But before he could free her, the room filled with four other men.
She couldn’t breathe. They were going to die here. There was no way he could overpower all of them.
“Quick. They went that way.” He jerked his head towards the door. “I managed to get one of them with the knife, but they escaped.”
They believed him. She didn’t know what stunned her more, that he had the nerve to actually try to convince them that they were under attack, or that the men actually believed him. It didn’t matter, he had brought them some time, and now they had a chance.
Using the knife, he cut the rope, and then he hooked one hand under her arm and pulled her to her feet roughly. “Come on.”
“Where?” she asked, trying not to puke, her face hurt so much, throbbing where she had been punched, and she wasn’t sure if one of her ribs was broken from the car crash. “Which way do we go?”
“This way.” He dragged her through the same door the men had exited from, the thought of fainting slipping over her like a thick blanket, cocooning her from her fear and pain. But she had to stay awake, had to help them both escape. He had put himself in danger for her, and she couldn’t let him down
“But they’ll realise what’s happened if we follow them.” Her brain didn’t want to think logically, but she was forcing it to.
“We aren’t going to follow them, not all the way at least. There’s a window that leads onto the back alley. We’ll use that as an exit.”
“Wait.” She stopped, turning to look at him, “I don’t understand. What the hell is going on?”
“You’re asking me? Up until five minutes ago, I was looking forward to a nice evening of female company.” His expression was fierce as he looked at her. “And then you walk into my life.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for disturbing your entertainment.” She looked away, trying to reconcile the hurt inside her at the thought that he was going to spend the night with another woman. This was crazy; they had only just met. He meant nothing to her.
He’s our mate
, that voice again, and she cursed it. Why had her horse decided to wake up now?
“You should be. I don’t know who you are, but I do know, once I get you out of here, you are going to run as far away from this place, and me, as you can.”
“I have to go to the border.” Didn’t he feel what was between them? Was his animal mute from the collar?
“Then that’s where I’ll take you.” He began moving again. They reached the window and he opened it, looking out, and down. “It’s a way down, but we can climb.”
“What?” She looked out of the window, they were two floors up; there was no way they could jump down there. Yet when the voices sounded not too far off, he hooked his leg over the ledge and held out his hand for her.
“I’ll lower you down.”
She looked at his hand and then at the drop again. “It won’t work.”
“We have no choice.” He took her hand, and a small current of electricity passed between them. His eyes flew up to hers and she saw real fear there. “What is that?”
“Us. It’s us. You don’t get it, do you?” she asked.
“All I get is that until you showed up I had a life here. Now I’m going to be a fugitive from this mob.”
“Then come with me.”
“Across the border?” he asked, and shook his head. “They won’t want me there.”
“Please.” She needed to explain to him, but the voices came again. And before she had chance to say anything else, he took hold of her hand and, using his brute strength, moved her to the window, and then over the ledge, before lowering her to the ground.
It wasn’t close enough and she fell, her ankle buckling under her as she hit the ground awkwardly. She cried out, and then stood up, testing her weight on it. It throbbed, but she knew she had to run, but which way?
Next to her, he landed: graceful, lithe, and in one piece. “How did you do that?”
“I am light on my feet,” he said, taking one look at the way she was standing and lifting her into his arms.