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“Right?” He linked his arm through mine as doors came into view up ahead. “Okay, these are all the wrestlers’ dressing rooms. I’ll show you Corey’s door, but you won’t be able to miss it.”

One of the doors on our right suddenly opened, and for some strange reason, I felt Nat instantly tense up against my side. I glanced over and was about to ask him what was wrong, but then someone stepped out of the room and into the hallway.

A huge, towering masked figure. One wearing a leather harness over wide shoulders that were thick with muscle. Biceps like boulders twitched and flexed with the movements of the figure’s arms swinging as he walked out of the room. Long, dark hair trailed over his shoulders, but his entire face was covered by a black and dark green mask. It looked a little like a hockey mask, but with more moulded features. Through the eye holes, I could just about see unfathomably dark eyes. His skin was a rich but murky green, like something wild and untouched in nature.

I gulped. I knew Corey was an orc, and that he was absolutely enormous, towering over everyone else just like the person in front of us, but… I didn’t think this was Corey. Nat had described a flamboyant, divalicious orc who loved the colour pink and decorated himself to make all eyes turn to him.

This definitely wasn’t that. This was someone else.

And Nat had grown a little tense at his arrival.

Chapter 46

Cold Hands…

Klaus

That eerie mask turned toward us as the huge figure paused when he noticed us standing there. Then it dipped into the tiniest of nods, aimed more in Nat’s direction than mine, before he walked past us in the direction we’d just come from without saying a single word.

“Who was that?” I whispered as we continued walking too, a little awestruck by that masked giant. Brian was tall as Hell, but that guy… Wow. He was enormous. And that moulded mask made him intimidating in a weirdly hot way.

“He’s called Beast.” There was an edge to my best friend’s voice that I hadn’t heard before. I glanced over at him quickly, but his face was blank.

Almost too blank. Almost… carefully blank.

“What’s he like?” I asked.

Nat shrugged, and the movement was uncharacteristically stilted. “Fine. I guess. He doesn’t talk.”

I blinked. “What, ever?”

“Nope. Never. Doesn’t talk. Doesn’t take off his mask. Here’s Corey’s dressing room,” he said brightly. I decided to let him change the subject, because I really was excited to see where he and Brian both worked.

Corey’s door had been painted bright pink, with ornate gold hardware in place of the standard chrome all the other doors had.

“He calls it his sanctuary,” Nat told me in a low voice, “so we won’t go in.”

“Sure. Of course.”

“And this…” Nat pushed open the set of double doors at the end of the corridor, a wall of sound hitting us. “Is the wrestlers’ backstage area. Where they work out and practise and relax and stuff.”

It was a cavernous room with a practice ring dominating the centre, weightlifting machines at the far end, and a huge sectional couch right in front of us, with a long bank of kitchen counters against the wall just behind.

And there were scantily clad wrestlers everywhere.

Some were on the couch lounging around, playing videos games. Others were in the kitchen mixing protein shakes and talking. I looked around for Brian, but before I could spot him I felt a gentle hand touch my elbow. I turned, and there he was.

My smile was so big and wide it made my cheeks hurt.

“Hi.” I went up on my tiptoes to kiss the side of his muzzle. He grinned down at me, gently raking a big, clawed hand through my curls.

“What did you think?”

“You were amazing.” I kissed him again and tangled my fingers through his. “It was so much fun. I knew you were going to win.”

He chuckled. “Only because I was scripted to win.”

I waved that off. “The audience wouldn’t be able to believe anything else, though.”