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“I knew you were an alpha fucker,” he laughed abruptly. “Don’t frown so. Takes one to know one.”
“I’ve never. Well, will you fight me?”
“Why not? Or is Lord Paxton and all his fancy ways not to your liking?”
“Are you going to fight me or not?” I snapped, wanting to push our conversation in the direction I wished it to be and not think about Pax’s cock and knot.
“Can’t fight.” He scratched at a spot behind his ear. “Not with a commissioned officer. It wouldn’t look good.”
“I sold out.”
“Well, that changes things,” Puck almost purred, leaning forward in his chair, elbows on the desk and his chin resting on his folded hands. “I’ve been looking forward to this day. When the great and mighty Colonel Fordom returned to his own kind.”
“You are a snob.” I scoffed. “Hate the gentry, the lords and ladies, as much as you want—we’ve all reason to. But I hardly think that I will be one of you again. Not that you’d want me back.”
“I should take that as an insult,” Puck sneered, but the light in his eyes told a different story. I liked the alpha as much as one could like a man who’d no loyalties but the ones on paper to a criminal like Oberon Drexler. “But then… Did you know my father was a Prince before your people stole him and my mother from their homeland?”
I flushed, uncertain how to respond beyond noticing just how dark his skin was, how it glowed in the candlelight. “I…”
“Spare me your blushes. I’ll ask Oberon. I, uh, need his approval.”
“I thought you organised your own fights.”
“Oh, there is no doubt about my freedom to fight whom I choose. However, the great Oberon makes the schedule, the betting books, and most importantly to us, he holds the keys to space. You crave a prize fight, you go through him.”
“We agree I lose?”
His eyes widened. “What? Throw a match?”
I shrugged. “This isn’t about money. I know I can beat you. I want to be beaten.”
“Is that your preference? You like pain that much? To each his own…” His face stilled. “But I don’t do rigged fights, Jack. Unless you can promise you won’t throw the bout, I’ll put a fist through your pretty face with pleasure.”
We shook on it in happy accord with each other in a way few alphas could. We were two outsiders. Me for my lowborn Scotts birth. And Puck for his skin like polished onyx, which advertised his difference in a far more public way even when his origins were shrouded in shadows. How he’d found his way to Drexler, I did not know.
“How’d you end up here?” I asked.
“With Drexler? Fleet Street Prison. Someone paid our debts before the authorities could ship us off to a fate worse than death, if you know what I mean.”
“Who? Paid, I mean.”
“When I learn, I’ll tell you,” he laughed. “But does it matter? No. Not until they come to collect on that debt.”
“If they never return?”
“All debts must be paid, Jack. I’d think you of all alphas would know that.”
“What might you mean?”
“I know who bought your commission. When will that be paid?”
“How?”
“Oberon makes it his business to know. A lot of money for a commission in a cavalry regiment.”
For a minute, I thought Puck and Oberon knew the true price of commission. But no. Just my anxiety preying on me since the realisation that Pax wanted my mate, that he would pursue her. I needed to convince him otherwise, for the image of her so temptingly close and so impossibly far would drive me mad.
Beatrice
