Page 27 of Bloom in Darkness

I cup the side of his neck, rubbing my thumb once beneath his ear. “Caelan handles problems here every day. The fighters listen to him.” I wait until Astra’s eyes come back to mine. “He’ll be okay.”

Astra leans into my touch, some of the worry leaving his face. He kisses me, soft and lingering, before the cab pulls up. He gets in, and I stand on the curb until the cab turns the corner. Something twists hard beneath my ribs before I can move, anger surging through me so fast my fingers close into fists around the keys already in my hand. It hits too hard and too suddenly to be mine. I turn back toward the Forge, a growl working up my throat as I head inside.

I cut through the front hall toward the arena and come around the last corner hard enough that the guy behind me nearly walks into my back, stopping dead when I see Caelan in the fucking ring.

He’s stripped down to fight shorts, hands wrapped, dark hair damp at the temples, moving lightly across the canvas opposite a Valla heavyweight who has at least forty pounds on him. Caelan can fight. That doesn’t mean he usually climbs into the ring halfway through a work night against somebody that much bigger.

“What the fuck is he doing?” I start toward the ropes before I finish the question, but Forrest catches my arm and stops me after three steps. I look down at Forrest’s hand, then back at him. He still doesn’t let go, and that alone is enough to keep me where I am even though every part of me wants to keep moving.

“Don’t.” Forrest keeps his attention on the ring, his voice calm enough to make me angrier. “He has to have this one.”

I jerk my arm once, and Forrest finally lets go because he knows I’m not stupid enough to shove past him without hearing the answer. “Why? What happened?”

“Danner decided the lineup rules were optional. Caelan corrected him, and Danner started running his mouth about an Alpha telling a floor full of Valla what to do.” Forrest folds his arms while Caelan slips outside a punch and drives a short shot into Danner’s ribs. “He said it loudly enough that everybody heard it.”

My jaw locks. “Then ban him. Dock his purse. Do anything that doesn’t involve putting Caelan in the ring with him.”

Forrest keeps watching the fight. “He could. That isn’t why Caelan took the bout.”

I look back at the ring as Danner tries to crowd him again. “Then why the fuck is he in there?” Danner gets turned off-line for the effort. Caelan is faster than most men expect because they look at the suits and the polished shoes and forget he grew up around people who treated violence like another language. He never wastes movement, waiting until Danner gives him something to use before making every mistake expensive.

Forrest glances at me. “Because sometimes the consequence has to come from the person you challenged.”

My hands curl as Danner crowds Caelan toward the ropes. “He doesn’t have anything to prove. Everybody here already knows who he is.”

“He knows that.” Forrest’s mouth moves slightly, not quite a smile. “If Danner actually thought Caelan was weak, he wouldn’t mouth off at him. He’d put hands on him without warning. He mouthed off because he knows exactly where the line is and thought he could lean over it without anything happening.”

I say nothing because I already know where Forrest is going with this, hating the fact that every word makes sense. Forrest watches his brother circle and adds, “Caelan isn’t proving he belongs here. He proved that years ago. Tonight he’s reminding them that words move things. You challenge a card publicly, fighters hear it. You challenge the man running the floor, every decision after that gets weighed differently. If Caelan lets him walk away from it tonight, somebody else pushes the same line next week.”

If Caelan were doing this for ego, I’d already be through the ropes. The problem is that Forrest is right, and I hate him for it.

“He could let somebody else teach it,” I mutter, watching Caelan duck beneath another swing and come up close enough to take away Danner’s reach. His fist lands twice to the body before he pivots away. “He doesn’t have to be the lesson.”

“If somebody else does it for him, Danner learns Caelan needs somebody else to answer for him.” Forrest nudges my arm with his elbow and gives me the look he uses when he knows I’m right and wrong at the same time. “Let him have this one. Then take him home, because he’ll limp out of here pretending he’s fine and give everybody a speech about why this was necessary.”

The corner of my mouth twitches before I can stop it. “I hate when he does that.”

“We all do.” Forrest sounds entirely too amused about it.

Caelan lands clean against Danner’s jaw and steps away before the return comes. The crowd surges louder, but Caelan’s expression stays calm, almost bored, and I know that face. It’s the one he wears when he’s already decided something is necessary and would rather bleed than admit afterward that it hurt.

Then I see his left leg hesitate. It’s barely anything, a tiny hitch when he plants and pivots, the kind of thing nobody notices unless they know exactly how he moves when he’s fresh, tired, angry, or hiding pain. I know all of those versions, and my whole body goes tight before Danner even realizes he has an opening.

I’m moving before I think about it. “His leg. He hurt his fucking leg.”

The amusement has disappeared from Forrest’s face, but he keeps himself planted between me and the ring. “I saw. Caelan’s still standing, Bryn.”

“Then stop the fucking fight.”

“I don’t care.” Danner’s gaze drops toward the bad knee again, and I lean forward before Forrest blocks me with his shoulder. “He planted wrong. It’s the old injury.”

Forrest’s expression loses the amusement. “I know, Bryn.”

Caelan shifts his weight off the leg before forcing it back down. Danner sees it now, his attention dropping toward Caelan’s left knee as my hands close into fists.

I start forward again, but Forrest plants a hand against my chest. “Wait for the bell.”

“If he goes for the knee, I’m putting him through the fucking floor.”