The bell rings, indicating it’s time for me to enter the cage,and I roll my shoulders and stretch my head to each side before turning to Lily.
In true Lily fashion, her words surprise me.
“If he fights dirty. You fight dirtier.” She jabs her finger to the centre of my bare chest. “I don’t care if that means you have to kill him. You dowhateverit takes to make sure you come back to me.”
Fuck.
My heart flips.
“You want me to come back to you?”
“Of course.” She frowns, and fuck my grin is shit-eating.
“Be careful, Lil. Those words make it sound like you want to keep me.”
She smirks. “I do.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, and she balls her fist and punches my bicep.
“Go out there and edge me, Asher. Make me wet.”
For fuck’s sake. It’s pure fucking luck that I get my cock to stay down.
Sure, I’m wearing a cup to protect my junk, but a stiffy will only dislodge the fucking thing.
Feeling like I’m walking on water at Lily’s declaration, I enter the cage and turn my focus on the crazy fucker pacing on the other side. I have a feeling he’ll be much like my last fight. More like a raging bull charging than any actual skill.
And I’m right. Mad Dog is a mass of muscle that fucking hurts when you get hit, but he has little skill. We go four rounds. I get in a number of hits and kicks, and we get weighed down by some grappling, but most of Mad Dog’s contact with me is him trying to bowl me over and trying to use his weight to hold me down, throwing the occasional elbow or knee.
I can hear Monty’s grating voice calling out to his fighter throughout the match, but Mad Dog doesn’t listen to a thing he says until he calls, “Do it now!”
The moment those words pass Monty’s lips, Mad Dog shifts on the mat where he’d fallen on all fours, and a deep voice calls out.
“Hawaii!”
By the time Mad Dog has leapt up, I’m prepared for the shiv he pulled out of thin fucking air, dodging his first strike as I slam my fist into his ribcage.
Chaos erupts around the basement, and it’s only because I can still hear her calling to me that I know Lily is safe.
“Finish him!” Lily calls, and I keep my eyes on the beast of a man as he dances around in front of me with the blade.
The only weapons I have are my fists, but I’m not worried. They are all I need.
I run for Mad Dog, knowing he’ll fall for it, and he leans forward, bracing for me to collide with him.
With his head low and his arms stretched wide, he has one hand fisted and the other gripping the shiv. I leap at the last second, doing a one eighty, my foot slamming hard into his face with a crack. He stumbles back, blindly swinging the blade as blood spews from his nose, and I lunge to the side, kicking out my leg to sweep through his stance, sending him crashing to the mat.
“Kill him!” Monty roars, and Mad Dog tries to get his bearings as I leap on his back like the fucking monkey I am, locking him in a chokehold.
He swings the shiv back, stabbing my shoulder, then my arm, before he changes tactics and buries it in my side. My grip loosens as air whooshes from me, searing pain shooting through my ribs as the warm rush of blood oozes down my skin.
It’s not a long blade, so there’s a big chance it didn’t hit anything vital, and as Mad Dog gasps for air, falling forward, I rip the blade from my side and plunge it into the back of his neck.
Mad Dog falls to the mat with a thud, and it takes me a moment to blink my vision clear to see his blood pooling on the mat.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself as everything blurs again, the world starting to spin.
“Asher!”
