1
RAFE
The crowd roars like a beast with too many mouths. Drunk, blood-hungry bastards jammed shoulder to shoulder, sweating under rusted pipes and flickering bulbs. Seville’s fight pits aren’t for the faint or the fair, they’re for the feral. For men like me. Monsters dressed in skin.
I wipe a smear of someone else's blood off my jaw with the back of my hand, breathing hard, chest heaving. My knuckles are raw. Bone peeking through one. I think it's mine. Doesn't matter.
Across the concrete floor, the other guy—Alejandro, or Alonzo, or some other name I won't bother remembering—isn't moving anymore. His ribs are caved in, one leg bent at a wrong angle. The crowd wanted a finish. I gave them one.
“Rafe! Bull’s still undefeated!” someone howls from the stands. A chant starts.Toro! Toro! Toro!
I hate that name. It’s not a nickname. It’s a warning.
"Show's over," I growl to no one in particular, my voice gravel ground in whiskey and ash.
I shove open the gate and stalk through the narrow corridor that leads out of the cage. The stench of sweat and rust clingsto my skin, mingling with the iron tang of blood. I feel the beast beneath my skin, not quite sated, not quite silent. He's restless tonight. Pacing. Snorting. Hungry.
The locker room’s little more than a storage closet with cracked tile and a busted sink. The light above the mirror flickers like it's trying to decide whether to live or die. I twist the tap, and cold water rushes over my hands. It stings. Good.
I lean forward, bracing both hands on the very edge of the sink, letting the water run over my busted knuckles. My reflection’s not much more than a shadow in the rust-speckled mirror. Black hair matted with sweat, a cut under my left eye still oozing. My eyes—dark brown but tonight glowing faintly gold around the edges.
Bull's peeking through.
And then it happens.
A pulse—not from my heart, but from somewhere deeper, older. It slices into my brain like a blade dipped in fire. A memory not mine. A voice I haven't heard in too long, echoing in a language we only speak in blood.
The Seal.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw pops. “Son of a bitch.”
The Crimson Seal used to mean something. Brotherhood. Blood for blood. Justice without compromise.
Now it’s just a ghost knocking on the door I boarded shut years ago.
“Darius,” I mutter, venom laced through the name like it's poison. “You shouldn’t have called.”
The Seal pulses again, this time stronger, and with it comes a rush of heat down my spine, curling through my veins like molten metal. It wants me to answer. Wants me to remember who I was before the fighting rings, before the blood contracts and backroom executions.
But I do remember.
And that's why I shove it away.
I slam my fist into the mirror. Glass spiders outward with a sharp crack, shards falling into the sink like broken teeth. The pain clears my head. I shake my hand, flicking off red droplets. Not my first broken mirror. Won’t be my last.
The door creaks open behind me. I don’t have to look to know who it is. Her perfume is expensive and reeks of desperation.
“Rafe,” says Pilar, voice clipped, heels clicking across the floor. “Boss wants you. Now.”
I grunt and grab a towel off the bench, wrapping it around my hand, still dripping blood. “Tell him I’m off the clock.”
“You don’t have a clock,” she says, arms crossed over a black leather jacket too clean for this dump. “You’re property. And you just dented his prize fighter room.”
I turn slowly, taking her in. Too much eyeliner. Gold hoops the size of handcuffs. She's sharp like broken glass and twice as cold.
“You come in here again talking like I’m owned,” I say low and slow, “I’ll make sure the next time you blink, you’ll be staring through your own kneecaps.”
She doesn’t flinch. She’s smart. Knows I won’t hurt a woman without a damn good reason.
