He should have known better than to think for one second a woman who marched into the Lyon’s Den wouldn’t follow him into danger.
Hell, the woman ran toward danger like she collected it.
The brute’s fist slammed into Bishop’s cheek. Stars burst behind his eyes. He staggered but held his footing.
“Eyes on me,” the man taunted. “Or you’ll lose much more than awife tonight. Wait, you will anyway.”
Bishop swung wide, faked left, then planted a brutal elbow in the man’s upper abdomen. A sharp exhale rewarded him.
“You can try,” he taunted.
The brute lunged, arms swinging like a hammer. Bishop ducked beneath them and drove his knee into the man’s thigh. The meaty limb buckled a fraction. Encouraging. He pressed—until the man clamped both hands around his neck and hurled him backward.
Bishop crashed into a sideboard. Glass shattered around him.
“You’re predictable,” the man said, advancing. “All anger. No sense.”
“Sense?” Bishop wiped blood from his brow. “Coming from the hired fist? Tell me, how much does my uncle pay you? I can pay you ten times more.”
“There are some things bigger than blunt.”
“Very well. Your ruin, then.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
Swaggering cur. Bishop grabbed the leg of a chair and swung. Wood cracked against the blackguard’s forearm. He hissed and retaliated with a swinging punch that rattled Bishop’s skull.
Pain flashed. He brushed it aside. He could absolutely not lose consciousness here. Another distant slam or smash echoed back to him. Damn it. He was going to throttle the woman. How had not one damn servant have woken or come?
He ducked a punch and drove the chair leg into the brute’s midsection. The man folded forward, breath whooshing. Bishop seized his collar, twisted, and slammed him face-first into the wall. Plaster cracked.
“Stay down if you know what’s good for you,” Bishop growled.
The brute spat blood and grinned. “Not a chance.”
He surged backward, crushing Bishop against the wall. Air knocked from his lungs. Before he could recover, another blowhammered his side. For the first time, doubt slithered in. Could he win? He wasn’t a fighter, but he had trained with Crane to keep in top form, so he wasn’t the worst either.
But this man was from another deuced world.
Alyssia’s face flashed behind his eyes. What would happen if he lost? How might she be hurt? Bishop saw black.
He grabbed the brute’s wrist, twisted hard. The bone popped. The man roared. Bishop followed with a vicious head butt, and the world rang like church bells.
Not the best decision.
The brute staggered, as dazed as him. Then the man straightened and wiped the blood from his face. “You have more fight than I thought.”
Christ.
Dizziness swamped him, and he fell to one knee.
Shite.
This could not be happening.
Not now.
The man suddenly laughed heartily. “Felled by your own blow. I shall remember to tell Winterbourne the story.”
