I decided to go with the most brazen way to make them leave, and looked straight at the dizzy woman, speaking to her through the link.“Willa. You’re next.”
She stepped back hastily. “I’m sorry. Fate is right. I withdraw.”
The woman next to her was sweating bullets. The terror in her eyes was almost comical.
I looked at her.
She withdrew too.
Women were equal to men, and could be really fucking strong, but most of them never had a reason to fight a man as deadly as I was.
One by one, I called each of them to the field, starting with the most-terrified looking one and moving up through the women. With every one who dropped out, the remaining challengers would know they were closer to being called to the field, and that no one else thought they could win the fight.
When the final woman withdrew her challenge, I turned to the men.
A few of them were gone. Only five remained.
I’d fought most of them before. Some were strong, but none of them were anywhere near strong enough to beat me.
I called the best fighter out first.
Might as well get it over with.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
bloom
After a stopat the hotel so Maverick could wash the blood off his body—it was a lot of fucking blood, very little of it his—we were back on the road.
He was driving.
I’d planned on taking the wheel again so he had time to heal, but he’d literally carried me to the passenger seat when I tried.
He had put my sweater back on to hide his shoulder wound from me after he showered. I’d told him he didn’t need to, but he ignored me. And there was now a bloodstain on the shoulder of it.
“You never gave back the bloody sweater I left in your office,” I said as the realization struck me.
It was 1 AM, and we’d been on the road since 12:30. Half an hour down, three and a half to go. More, if we stopped for food at another gas station. Considering the map said we’d be at our location in five minutes, I assumed we were going to.
“I framed it as a reminder to be more careful with you.”
I gave him a deadpanned look. “You didn’t.”
“Nah, it’s in my room with the rest of your laundry. Thanks to the blood, it still smells like you, and the scent is a little different than your typical. I’m not returning it.”
“Should I ask how many other pieces of my clothing you have in your room?”
“Probably not.”
I’d take his advice.
“How scarred are you from that?” He gestured behind us, and he didn’t need clarify that he was talking about the fights.
“I’m fine. I grew up being told about the terrible things vampires are capable of, remember? Our parents start showing us gruesome pictures around four years old.”
“I forgot about that.”
“It’s fine.”
