A shy smile bloomed on her lips. “I’d like that.”
“Anything else I could do?”
She seemed almost fully asleep when she answered and I didn’t think she really meant it… But when she replied to help her with the high priest mess because she was tired of doing it all on her own and taking the hits—I knew I would.
I would figure out how and suck up my own issues.
I owed her at least that for giving me the best sexual night of my life and seeing that I was worth being accepted. That someonewouldaccept what I needed, and I just needed to find the right woman.
She deserved to find the same, but until then I could step up and help her too.
13
Sagan
“This is bullshit and not what we agreed to,” Myriam snarled at the manager of the other club we’d agreed to change to after all the drama of the first one.
So of course they’d pulled a fast one.
“Take it or leave, tiger,” he mocked. “You want to walk out there and tell everyone a Metcalf’s word is shit? Or that your fighter doesn’t have the goods? The deal was for—”
“Don’t bullshit us,” I said, my voice cold. “This wasn’t what the contract said and you know it.”
He smirked at me. “Then call the cops.”
I smiled back evilly. “You first.” I moved faster than any of them could keep up with and dragged his ass out to the ring. I had him in the cage with the door closed before his security could even react, the large crowd going quiet when they realized something big was going on.
“Are you crazy?”
I snorted. “Are you? Fucking with someone who can turn you into a pretzel without breaking a nail?”
“You’re going to—”
“The contract said we willhash outany issues in the best way possible,” I purred before looking around at the crowd. “Who wants to see us hash it out with our fists? Who wants to see thisfucker get shown he’s not the big man around here like he thinks he is?”
Apparentlyeveryone.
Like every fucking person.
I couldn’t even hide my amusement. “You’ve pissed off a lot of people over the years, huh? Yeah, I called that right.”
The ref didn’t give him a chance to wiggle his way out of it, counting it down and making it clear this was happening.
The moment it was allowed, I slugged the guy so hard that I felt most of the bones in his face break… And my dragons were annoyed that we didn’t get them all.
Fine, I was too.
“Okay, you’ve really been holding back,” Avior grumbled from next to Myriam.
“I always said you were smart,” I purred before glancing around. “Who’s the assistant manager and willing to be reasonable instead of this crazy of a clusterfuck madness that anyone can doanythingto me or I’ll never fight in Nerthus again?”
Things went better after that, but it was still bullshit. Likebullshit.
After Myriam learned the manager of the place I was fighting at had given Avior demands to find out who I was and abduct me so the owner could drug and sell me, things had been less than friendly. Understatement of the year. But he’d basically told us there was nowhere else for us to go and make money.
Fuck him and Myriam had called his bluff, but Thovudin was so damn sexist that even the illegal gambling and fighting dens were out of control. The new place promised more fighters and the contract said—I’d read it. It was a clause about unlimited fighters andpotential.
Basically, not locking us into one fight or only fighting with them.
