Page 56 of Meat

Varag struck first. Jale easily blocked the attack. The fighters both jumped back, quick as vipers.

“I’ll have your wummum,” Varag sneered. “And I’ll eat your little ukkur child after. Too bad you won’t be around to see it.”

Jale did not allow himself to be drawn out by the taunt. But the ball of rage in his chest glowed a little brighter.

Varag feinted, switched knife hands, slashed.

It happened in the space of a second, but to Jale’s keen eyes it was as slow as the sun moving across the sky. He saw the trick as soon as Varag had planned it. He ducked it easily, spun underneath, and nicked Varag’s side.

“Do you yield?” Jale growled.

Varag laughed cruelly. “Rot you, boy. That’s only a scratch. And a lucky one at that.”

“Lucky for you,” Jale hissed. “I could have ended it there.”

Varag roared and charged, skewering his knife at Jale’s heart. But Jale spun out the way at the last moment. This time, his knife tip caught the strap of Varag’s loincloth, dropping it to the ground.

The crowd burst into laughter, and Varag’s face turned nearly as red as the grass under foot.

Jale had him now. The one-eyed fuck had lost control. Now, now he would end it.

Varag slashed with his knife. A wild, sloppy swing that Jale easily ducked.

Jale saw his opening. The badly executed attack had left Varag’s chest wide open, defenceless.

There were two ways he could finish this now.

There was the noble way to go about it—slam his shoulder hard into Varag’s solar plexus, send him sprawling to the ground, stunned and short of breath. From there it would be simple enough to achieve a non-fatal submission.

That was not the option Jale chose.

The young ukkur exploded upward, leg muscles snapping like steel springs. He channeled all of that raw power through his hips, through his arms, and into the point of the stone knife that entered Varag’s chest just below the arch of his ribcage.

The impact brought Varag to his toes. Jale’s blade parted his enemy’s skin like water. Only the tough meat of Varag’s heart gave any resistance. Jale felt its shuddering beats vibrating through the knife handle as he watched the life go out of his opponent’s one good eye.

But he wasn’t through yet. Not completely.

He would make an example of Varag.

He would make his message clear.

***

Alyx cried out in shock.

She had forced herself to keep quiet during the fight, forced herself to restrain her impulses to yell Jale’s name. She didn’t want to distract him at the wrong moment.

Now, however, it didn’t matter. The fight was over, and Jale had won.

It was the utter brutality of his strike that had raised the cry from her lips. The dull, drum-like thunk as his body had slammed into his opponent, raising the ugly ukkur warrior nearly off the ground.

And though Alyx was ashamed to admit it, that sight had an effect on her body.

Her skin pimpled with gooseflesh, her nipples stiffened, and something clenched deep in her core.

Jale had been fighting over her, that much was clear. He had killed for her.

And he wasn’t finished yet.