Page 17 of Bloom in Darkness

Caelan laughs against my shoulder. “I’m getting you someone to fight.”

I narrow my eyes at him, but he only slides a hand down my side. “You still need it. And afterward, you’re coming home with me.”

“Yes.”

His mouth curves. “Good.”

I catch the back of his neck and kiss him once more, hard enough that his breathing changes when I let him go. Then Caelan turns toward Derrick like we weren’t just making out against a wall. “Who’s available?”

Derrick clears his throat without looking at either of us and taps quickly through the card on his tablet. “Marek is still here. West circuit. He was supposed to be the alternate on the late card.”

The adrenaline is still humming loud in my ears while Derrick pulls up Marek’s information. “Weight?”

“Close enough.”

“Experience?”

Derrick keeps his eyes on the tablet. “Enough that he won’t embarrass himself.”

Caelan catches my eye beside me, and I roll my shoulders once before nodding. “He’ll do. Full purse.”

Derrick’s fingers start moving across the screen.

Caelan nods. “Move the secondary bout and give Marek the late-change incentive.”

Derrick heads for the locker rooms, leaving us alone again. Caelan turns back to me, and I catch his jaw in one hand, brushing my thumb over the skin beneath his ear. He leans into the touch for a second before looking up at me.

“You going to be okay?” he asks quietly.

“Not yet.” I still want to put my fist through something, and part of me still wants to drag him back into the alcove. “I’ll be better after I hit someone.”

Caelan huffs a laugh and squeezes my side once. “Try not to kill him.”

I turn toward the locker room.

“Bryn.”

I look back before I reach the locker-room door. Caelan is still standing where I left him, watching me.

“After,” he says.

I nod once. “Yeah.”

Then I head for the lockers and start stripping off my shirt before I’m fully through the door. My hands are steadier, but I still need the fight. By the time I’m changed, the announcement for the new bout is already carrying through the concrete halls, and I flex my fingers once before heading toward the tunnel.

“Don’t kill him,” I mutter as the arena noise gets louder. “Don’t kill him.”

Caelan

The back office of the Forge always smells like iron and industrial cleaner, which usually means someone is bleeding or is about to be. I lean over the scarred desk with the updated fight card open on my tablet, shifting names between slots while the warm-up area pounds steadily through the wall.

Talia taps the doorframe before stepping inside and sliding another tablet beside mine. The photograph on the screen shows Vance’s knee swollen badly enough that I don’t bother opening the second image before dragging his name off the card.

“He says he can go,” she tells me. “His coach says he’s looking for a bucket to catch the kneecap when it pops.”

“Pull him and pay half his show fee anyway. He’s behind on rent, and I’d rather Forrest complain about the ledger than watch a man ruin his leg for four figures.”

Talia is already updating the card. “Garrow?”