“And they fight, man and woman?”
Donovan shrugged. “It depends on who you want to fight,” he said. “The moment you see a woman and think she’s weaker, that’s when you’re already on the ground with a knife to your throat. But don’t worry, no weapons in the cage. That one is a hard rule.”
I watched as they fought, going in rounds of ninety seconds. I wondered why they were such short rounds, but they packed a lot in. And there was no telling who was going to win, both of them had won rounds, both of them look exhausted, their skin painted in sweat and blood. The lights above must’ve been cooking them too.
“Tell me you’re not planning on putting me in there anytime soon,” I said.
He laughed. “I can’t make you do this one, I’m just testing you. Once this is over, we need to discuss how things are going to work going forward. Professionally.”
For those fifteen minutes, I’d been panicking about going in there, and now, I didn’t have to. I didn’t know if I should thank him, or punch him for getting my heart racing—again. It was his job, and this was mine, I needed to train. Going into the cage might’ve actually been a good idea—maybe I’d challenge Donovan himself.
6. DONOVAN
I’d heard a friend arrived at Sanctum earlier, but before I could even finish up with the training session and get a word in with him, he was busy in the cage, fighting someone for cash. He was named Reaper, and he lived up to it. Although he was definitely pulling his punches with Dina, the woman who’d been in the cage with him—she was a sharpshooter, expensive as an assassin, but she did the job and got away cleanly.
Pouring a barrel of water over his body, two workers were on step stools over Reaper as he laughed to himself on his knees. Artemis was stood right behind me, almost clinging to me, which I might not have minded so much, but we weren’t together. And I hadn’t been over the rules with him just yet—so I couldn’t be mad.
“Donovan you sick bastard!” Reaper said, pushing up off his knees, the cuts on his face dripping blood down his cheeks and neck. “When the fuck did you get here?” He locked onto Artemis. As we were on the edge of the spotlight, he was very visible. “This one yours?”
“Yeah, he’s mine,” I said, sidestepping to show him off.
The two workers were already cleaning Reaper’s wounds, like silent fairies, it was one of the perks here, thesefairiescould bring you back from the brink of death—and they might have done so for me on a number of occasions.
“Artemis,” he said, extending his hand.
Reaper revealed his hand with his bloodied knuckles. “Probably best we don’t,” he said as one of the worker bees took his hand and poured a liquid over it that had Reaper wince. The first time I’d seen that. “I’m Jaques, people call me Reaper, you probably know why.”
“Because you kill people?” he said.
We laughed. It was such a funny statement to say aloud, especially since it was so obvious. “You a trainee then,” he said. “How many bodies have you dropped?”
Artemis’s face recoiled into a pinched expression. “A few,” he said. “I didn’t keep count. I took down a trafficking ring.”
Reaper looked at me with a cocked brow and then back to Artemis. “I think you mean, you took out the head of an operation,” he said. “You know things like that aren’t just taken down because you removed a head.”
“I did more than that,” Artemis fought back. “I disrupted the entire thing.”
“Well, you should probably get medical attention,” I said. “I’ll take my trainee to make sure he’s better acquainted with the rules.”
Reaper smirked. “If you trainee wants to get to know some other things that you can’t teach, you can always send them to my room.” He grabbed his crotch inside the soaked shorts.
My eye twitched and my jaw tightened to think he as trying to get with Artemis. He was mine. “Don’t even try it,” I told him. “Get your own.” Reaper was bigger than me, he didn’t binge alcohol as much as me either, so he’d take me in a fight any day. I was surprised people still took him on in the cage.
In the elevator back to the apartments, Artemis sighed in a way that I knew he wanted me to ask him what was wrong. Of course, this was from the old habit of our dynamic. We were very different now.
As we walked back, he continued to huff a little right up until we were standing in the hallway between both of our apartment doors.
“He’s your friend,” Artemis asked.
“Colleague, friend, yeah,” I said. “He’s someone I’d trust to have my six if we’re under fire.”
“Would you—”
I shook my head. “You don’t want my answer to that now.”
Artemis rolled his eyes. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“I don’t, but it’s probably not going to be helpful,” I told him. I had to be a teacher now, but I couldn’t shake the core affection and love I had for him. It came first, and I was protecting his feelings. “Your place or mine?”
