The sound of cracking bone echoed through the space. The men in full fight mode, no more polite circling. This was war. The Viking threw a punch at the younger man, but he took it like a champ, pulling the petite girl behind his back.
And I was done watching someone else’s fight.
Movement closer to me had me running again, down a corridor and around the edge of the main arena. Ahead, in a doorway, a curvy girl with wavy dark hair had been seized. She screamed, but not in fear. More like a banshee yell of ecstasy. Her fingers tangled around the back of a man’s neck as he hauled her to his chest and shoved off two other contenders. She gasped, her eyes blazing. Then her lips were on his throat.
He lifted her. Tore her underwear with a sharp rip. A second later, he thrust inside her, holding her at arm’s length so everyone could see his thick cock pushing into her body.
My breath caught at the violence. At the public nature of what should’ve been private.
It was pure chaos. Lust-fuelled, adrenaline-laced, and primal.
Exhilaration filled me.
I slipped between two pillars and ducked under a swing of someone’s arm. A man in a torn navy shirt sighted me, dark eyes narrowing in hunger. A second later, he lunged.
“Not a chance,” I muttered and pivoted hard, using a metal staircase to block his reach.
I didn’t want him. Not my guy. Not like?—
No.
Had to stop thinking about the rich boy. But then, I caught movement again on the far side of the room. Tall. Broad shoulders. A slow, deliberate prowl. Dark eyes held on me.
Shit. Itwashim. Edward, or whatever his real name was. I hadn’t hallucinated him after all.
A deep shiver ran through me. Of antagonism. Of need.
As cool as the night, he strode through the carnage, nothing touching him. While other men thrashed and tore each other to pieces for scraps, he walked like he’d already decided. As if he didn’t need to run, because he’d win.
He had no right to be here. None. Billionaires didn’t belong underground, fighting over women like bloodsport. And he especially didn’t, not with the company he kept.
He could buy anything he wanted. Throw parties with naked women every night of the week. His existence was a world away from this. There was only one conclusion I could reach. He was here for me.
Well, he couldn’t have me.
I backed away. He didn’t put on speed. Just kept coming.
The room resounded with grunts, yells, the slap of skin on skin and bodies hitting concrete. Another woman got captured, pinned against a pillar by two men. One got his mouth to her throat under her fall of dark hair, the other to her thigh through the slit in her burgundy gown, but she only had eyes for the third, a thick-muscled man holding his hand out like an offering. She took it and let him drag her free, even as her clothes were torn off her.
I pivoted left and ran.
I was no damsel in distress. I hadn’t entered this with desperation, only with purpose. Let the billionaire feel the shock of wanting someone who didn’t want him back.
My heart thundered. My heels clattered and skidded. A man cut across my path, eyes crazy, shirt shredded but caught in hisjeans. I dodged low and slipped past a support column, rounding the corner into a corridor.
The low-lit space was mostly empty, aside from old industrial piping across the ceiling. Only a few unconscious or almost-out men were here. Echoes of the fight bled from the next room.
I ducked into a recessed doorway and crouched, trying to slow my breath.
Edward wouldn’t follow. Not if he was who I thought he was. Just another man who’d never had to chase anything in his life. He said jump, and people paid for the privilege of asking how high. This game wasn’t his world, and easier prey would distract him away from me. There were still women to be claimed.
Footsteps echoed outside my hiding place.
Measured and darkly intentional. Not running, only getting closer.
I didn’t breathe. Didn’t even dare move.
Until a voice cut the silence. “You run as well as you flirt, Miss Braveheart.”
