Page 26

There were bleachers set up around the ring, and people were already sitting in them, while others had claimed spots at the very front, right up against the fence, to secure the best view.

“When’s Fenrir on?” a mothman asked his friend as they passed us, heading for the seats.

“Last fight, obviously,” his lampyr friend replied, waving a bright yellow slip of paper. “Got four hundred bucks riding on that big bastard.”

“He always delivers,” the mothman said confidently.

My heart gave a mighty thump. So this was fighting of some kind. I glanced apprehensively at the old bloodstains in the ring.

Pretty brutal fighting, by the looks of it.

In a cage.

In a warehouse basement.

With lizard shifter mobsters guarding the entrance.

I gulped.

Chapter 9

A Lover, Not a Fighter

Klaus

Unholy crap.

There was something wrong with me, because I was having way, way too much fun watching men beat the ever-loving shit out of each other for entertainment.

After discovering the big caged ring, Clarence and I had sat in the bleachers and nervously waited for something to happen. Within twenty minutes, the seats around us had been filled, and we were squished together, uncomfortably close.

Fifteen minutes after that, the first fight of the night had started. It had been between a ghoul and a mothman, and they’d just started punching each other, a lot, while the crowd around us went rabid, jumping out of their seats, waving their betting slips, screaming and shouting for their pick to beat the crap out of his opponent. We’d both had to stand up along with the rest of them just so we could actually see what was going on.

“It’s an underground supernatural bare-knuckle fighting club,” Clarence had whisper-shouted to me. Needlessly, I might add. I’d kind of figured it out myself by that point.

I’d only been to watch the wrestling at Goliaths that one time, but this was nothing like that. This was real. It was brutal, horrifyingly aggressive, violent and almost painful to watch. The audience weren’t just hyperactive, excited fans, they were like a pack of wild animals braying for blood.

And they got a lot of it. The fighters didn’t stop when they started to bleed. They just kept going until one of them physically couldn’t get back up or was no longer conscious and had to be dragged out. Blood had splattered over the folks pressed right up against the metal fence and they’d loved it. They were wild for it.

I knew it was awful, knew it was wrong of me—I did not condone violence ever—but… it was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen.

There was just… so much aggression. So much unbridled testosterone pumping through the air, hot and thick and a little addictive. The rational part of my brain knew how unbelievably stupid this was—men beating the shit out of each other for… I didn’t even know what for. Money? Clout? Infamy? Just because? But the rest of my body didn’t care.

I was feeling flushed and a little breathless as I watched the fae and vampire currently in the ring launch themselves at each other and meet in a clash of sweat-slicked, tangled limbs. Strained shouts and grunts echoed through the cavernous room over the rabid screaming of the audience. Lilac blood was already dripping from a cut on the fae’s high cheekbone, and the vampire’s eyes were glowing red as he stared at it while grappling with his opponent, distracted enough that the fae managed to drive a knee into his chin and snap his fangs together as his head flew back.

Chest heaving, the vampire struggled back to his feet and spat out dark red, then bared his bloodstained teeth at the fae, who was stumbling to the side of the ring and trying to catch his breath, looking more than a little worn out at this point. They were both wearing sweats and nothing else. Their knuckles were busted up, swollen and raw and bleeding. Sweat slicked every inch of them, the fae’s long lavender hair sticking to his neck and shoulders in damp tendrils, the vampire’s dark, slicked-back do now wildly mussed.

Lucifer, this is so unbelievably hot.

I’d tried to snap a picture of the previous match to send to Nat, but the gargoyle next to me had quickly nudged me and shaken his head.

“No pictures,” he’d growled, looking scary enough that I’d simply gulped and nodded while putting my phone away.

The fae ended up winning the match when he smeared his own blood on the vampire’s face during a particularly titillating grapple. It distracted the vampire completely, sending him into a bloodlust frenzy. He let go of his opponent to try and collect the blood onto his fingers and lick it off. Then the fae straddled his waist, cocked back his fist, and delivered a hard punch to the face with an audible crack that made even the most rabid members of the audience wince and “oooooh” in collective sympathy. The vampire’s head snapped to one side, eyes rolling back as his arms went limp and flopped down onto the mat.

The audience perked back up again, screaming and jumping up and down. The gargoyle beside me bellowed in triumph, almost nailing me in the face as he punched the air, clutching his yellow slip in his huge fist.

“Goodness, it’s so violent,” Clarence rasped in my ear, his hot breath wafting over my neck and making me flinch a little. I watched, unable to look away, as two lizard shifters in suits strode into the ring and dragged the unconscious vampire out by his ankles, while the fae who’d won simply spat blood onto the mat and snatched up the towel someone handed him, looking too weary and battered to even truly enjoy his victory.