Increasing the length of my strides, I changed direction slightly and headed toward the warehouse. A fight club seemed a ridiculous thought, but it was better demons got together and tore each other apart rather than lose control and risk hurting or killing a human.
Or several.
There were rules against that kind of thing.
On my way, I concentrated on the feel of my demon, allowing myself to relax the constant control we needed to have, and sensed my muscles ripple with excitement and the promised bloodshed. Frank would be a challenge to take down, and knowing him, he wouldn’t give me a chance to warm up, so I needed to walk in there pumped and ready to go, preferably even launching at him before he could me.
The onlookers would place their bets if they wanted. I didn’t care.
Shrugging off my jacket as I entered the warehouse, I followed by pulling my T-shirt over my head and discarding it to the side, rolling my shoulders, and punching the air a few times. My breathing was heavy and ragged, and my eyes flashed yellow as I released hints of my demon and approached the group at the other end of the warehouse, passing crumbling pillars and stepping on debris from a forgotten attempt to restore the building.
Frank came from the crowd to meet me halfway, barefoot and bare-chested, only wearing pants that looked to be half of an expensive suit. It took only a beat of a moment for the remaining demons to realize what was going on, as Frank and I, two demons who were older and more powerful than they, stopped a few feet from each other.
My fists were held up level with my chest as Frank rolled his neck, the bones crackling too many times to be human. His eyes never left mine, nor did that smirk of amusement plastered on his smug face. I cared for my brother, but he was an arrogant bastard, always had been, and I wouldn’t deny there’d be a certain level of satisfaction at knocking him out.
If I could.
“Welcome, brother—”
Before he finished his sentence, I swung a punch at his jaw,surprised when he managed to lean out of the way. Not quite fast enough, as I felt my knuckles graze the five o’clock shadow on his chin. His eyes flared with yellow and rage at being caught out, and he raised his fists to mirror my stance as I shifted my weight between my feet, wishing I’d removed my shoes too.
Frank launched an attack, and I managed to block most of his blows, copping a few to the ribs and stomach that would’ve had me buckling over if I had given into the pain. I snuck in a backhanded hit direct to his ear, and his head twisted to the side. But he caught my arm at the elbow and used my momentum against me, hurling me past him and into the dirt and trash that littered the floor.
There was cheering which both Frank and I ignored as I pushed myself to my feet. He was constantly moving from foot to foot, keeping his fists up between us, his knuckles bloodied with his blood or one of the other demons, I didn’t know nor care at this point. There was something about having a blood relative so close, something that pumped that need to survive through my veins and forced me to arch my back as my muscles shifted to accommodate a change into my true form I wouldn’t allow to happen.
Fight club was done in your human form. I’d been told of the rules, what few there were.
No humans, no killing, and no demon forms.
Although there were more than one pair of yellow eyes in the crowd, and Frank’s in front of me, letting some of that power peek through was accepted. Fighting would be pointless if we weren’t allowed to let that part out—we weren’t here to restrain ourselves.
The rage was rolling off Frank in waves, not only at my proximity and the competitiveness it induced but at my initial attack without bothering to greet him. It had been a long time since I’d seen Frank, and perhaps I had misjudged. Perhapshis time on Earth had humanized him somewhat, and he was expecting a hearty handshake rather than a punch to the jaw.
Studying him now, I looked for existing injuries he had gained from other fights tonight that hadn’t fully healed and weak spots I could exploit because demons fought dirty.
There was blood on his neck. Had someone bitten him?
Momentarily, I was torn between elation at finding a weak point and anger at someone else hurting my kin. But I pushed that to the side, shifting my gaze back to his eyes and moving as though I was going to attack in the same manner again. It almost worked, but once again, Frank’s sheer size was an advantage. It didn’t slow him down at all, and as I moved toward him, he swept to the side, punching me in the back of the neck with strength that had me staggering before kicking my knee out as I was forced to expose my back to him, unable to stop the forward momentum.
My knee hit the floor, and I growled as I stood and spun to face him. The asshole was smiling again. He knew he had the upper hand—years of experience over me in both fighting and controlling himself.
We parried for so long I’m sure the other demons were tired of watching, the crowd visibly thinning as we fought. I was covered in dirt and sweat, bruised with blood dripping from my nose and lips. Frank wasn’t looking much better, albeit slightly less out of breath than I was.
My demon was satiated with the violence inflicted, but this was now about preserving what little dignity I had left.
“Face it, Cade, you’re a lover, not a fighter.” Frank barely managed to contain his laughter as I spat blood at his feet. “Deep down, you don’t actually want to hurt me, and that’s your downfall.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s a human thing, that’s for sure, and here, it’s a weakness.”
Launching at him again, I had let my pride and emotions get the better of me, and Frank hooked an arm around my neck, forcing me to bend over as he pummeled several blows into my stomach. Winded, I dropped to the floor on my hands and knees, coughing. The remaining crowd left, no longer cheering nor giving a shit about the outcome of this fight, and after a moment, Frank sunk to the floor next to me.
“How do you feel?” he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I fucking hate you,” I growled out, shaking his hand off. I was angry and humiliated, feeling less like a demon than I wanted to. Control was one thing, but to have your pride beaten from you by some arrogant son of a bitch was something else.
Frank chuckled. “Good, so it helped then.”
