24. Raegan

Chapter twenty-four

Raegan

He drives us into the heart of downtown and parks on the street. The car doors slam on either side as we get out, then Kellan guides me to a set of stairs directed downward from the sidewalk. There’s an old neon sign hanging above it that says Cactus Jacks.

I give Kell a look over my shoulder. “A dive bar?”

“Not what you expected?”

I shrug. I’m not sure what I’m expecting from this trip. Does he want me to get into a bar fight to check my progress?

His long arm appears from behind me to shove the door open and let us inside. The constant hum of the city disappears instantly beneath rowdy voices and rock music. My minimalist life over the last five years makes me cringe at the clutter and disorganization of the bar.

The walls are covered in newspaper articles, pictures, license plates, and string lights dangling in front of them. The booths are worn and cracked leather along one side, a few high tables and chairs down the middle, and then the bar itself takes up three quarters of the room.

Kellan’s hand on my hip encourages me forward, and I realize I’d frozen in the doorway to take it all in. I can feel the rumble in his chest when he chuckles since I can’t hear him unless he yells at me, and I don’t swat away the possessive arm around my back to my hip because I’m a tad overwhelmed.

He waves at some people at the bar, who look so relaxed and comfortable that I’m guessing they’re regulars. The entire bar looks filled with regulars, though, if I’m going by those two requirements.

We pass by a couple of pool tables and dart boards in the back, and then Kellan opens another door that leads from one hallway to another, eventually bringing us to a bouncer-type guy at the top of a set of stairs.

“Evening, boss.” The beefy guy nods his head in respect to Kellan, who’s since taken up the front position for all the doorways while keeping a firm hold on my hand. “Miss,” he adds with another distinct nod my way. I’m pleased he didn’t ignore me as if I’m some temporary side piece to Kellan tonight. Does that mean he hasn’t brought a lot of girls here before?

Ugh, stop thinking about it. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t even keep track of the guys I’d been with in the last five years, so it shouldn’t bother me if he’d done the same thing. We were dead to each other, and we each had moved on in our own ways.

It still fucking bothers me.

“You fightin’ tonight?” The bouncer’s gruff expression cracks enough to reveal barely restrained eagerness.

Kellan’s hand squeezes mine. I’m not sure what he’s looking for with that squeeze, but then I see the look in his blue-green eyes, and it’s nothing but pure excitement. He’s pumped over whatever’s about to happen.

“Naw, I’m here to watch my girl tonight.”

The bouncer turns to look me up and down, sizing me up in my black leggings, tank top, and jacket. He merely nods. “If you’re with him, then I’m sure you’re a fighter. I’ll put my money on you, darling,” He shoots me a wink.

Kellan laughs and pats his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Good call, Lorcan. Hopefully, your shift is over soon, so you can watch.”

Lorcan digs a wad of cash from his pocket. He flicks through a few bills and hands it to Kell. “In case I’m late, put my bet in for me, will ya?”

Kellan raises his hand with the money and tilts his head. “You got it.” He turns his face to me. “You ready, beautiful? ”

“No, but when has that ever stopped me?”

Snickering, he pulls us down the stairs. I can already hear the echo of shouting and cheers from here, even though there’s a thick door between the stairs and the next room. Once it opens, we’re walking into a large, open room full of barrels for seats and small round tables. In the center of the room is a platform with a metal cage around it in the shape of a dome. It goes as high as the ceiling and is twice as wide.

It’s huge.

The room itself is packed. Money is held up in hands, and I spot staff serving drinks and taking bets every ten feet. Kellan uses his large frame to push a pathway for us to a guy in the corner with the microphone.

The guy sees us and stands on the stool he’d been parked on. “Oh, hells yes! Folks, count your lucky stars because I see the Dragon is here!” he cries out into the microphone over the din. Cheers from every corner of the room erupt in a deafening roar. “If you think you’re fierce, I dare you to take on the Dragon! This is your chance to claim the title of champion while he’s here, so sign up against him while you can!”

Kellan drops my hand to cross his arms over his chest while smirking up at him. “Get your dumb ass down here, York. I never said I was fighting tonight.”

York jumps down and tosses the microphone back behind him. “Well, you can’t disappoint your fans and competition now, can you?” He grins. “It’s been too long since you were here last, man. You owe me some of that hype we’ve been missing.” He looks past Kell to me. “Evening!” He salutes me with two fingers. “You a watcher or a fighter?”

“A fighter,” I shout back at him, even though we’re only a couple feet from one another, because the crowd still hasn’t calmed down from his announcement.

Pride glows from Kellan, and my heart trips over itself. It’s like a shot of adrenaline and dopamine all at once, and a girl could get addicted to the feeling.

I can’t remember the last time I’d ever wanted to do something for someone else like this. I better not fuck it up. He clearly thinks I can do this, but what if I fail in front of everyone here?

“You’re worthless . ”

Shut up, Gordon . Kellan believes in me, and I’m not going to let him down.

“Fucking fantastic! This is going to be a great night, Kell. You’ll see in your bank account when it’s over.”

Kellan waves his hand at that like he couldn’t care less. “Make sure she’s got some time to watch the fights before you stick her in the line-up. This is her first time, so she’ll need to see what we’re about first.”

York whips out his phone and nods seriously. “Yes, yes. Oh! What’s your calling card?” he directs the question my way.

Uh… “My what?”

“Your nickname that they’ll call you,” Kellan leans down in my ear to answer.

“Oh. I don’t know…”

I recall Kit’s nickname for me and snort. Well, if Kellan is Dragon, then maybe this name isn’t as silly as it sounds.

“Ruin. Call me Ruin.”

Kellan’s eyebrows pop up, and I shake my head. I’ll tell him about Kit and the moniker he dubbed me with at another time.

The emcee cackles. “Alright, Dragon and Ruin. I’ll call you out when it’s your turn to fight. Now let me take care of this line behind you of new contenders so I can redo all the match-ups.” He waves us away, and Kellan loops his arm around my shoulders to keep me close while leading us through the throng of people to the cage.

It’s large enough that we find an open spot against it. The ring is empty, probably while that guy York rearranges the fights, and I turn out of Kellan’s hold and grip the unzipped sides of his leather jacket in each hand.

“Are you going to tell me what exactly you’ve gotten me into, Dragon ?” I tease with an arched brow.

Kellan gives me a wolfish grin and crowds me back against the cage. His fingers grasp the metal on either side of me as he hunches over me. “A gifted fight.”

My eyes widen. Did he say gifted?

“Yup. This isn’t your regular pack of ragtag thugs and fighters here. Everyone here has a gift and uses it in the fight.”

Shit. He couldn’t start me with some normal fight club to see how far I’ve come? We didn’t train with gifts.

“If you want to face GE, then this is how you train. I can train you with your gift if you’ll let me, but the only way you’ll be able to practice against others who have gifts is going to be here.”

I bite my lip. “But Kell, I can’t use my gift in there. What if I kill someone by accident?”

He’s so close now that the heat from his body instantly warms me as I draw in a breath of his musk and motor oil scent.

“Then don’t,” he replies simply with a quirk of his lips.

“Gee, thanks,” I snark back at his lack of help.

Kellan angles my face to look at him. “Not today, but we will start training with your gift, so you aren’t afraid of it anymore. And then you’ll find a way where you can use it that won’t be just for killing.”

York’s voice blares through the speakers overhead as he calls out the next contenders before I can say anything back to him. My gift does nothing but kill. There’s no other way for me to use it, not like how Jackson can do so many amazing things with his, or Aiden. I’m a one-trick pony. Death and destruction.

“Just watch.” He spins me around to face the cage, and his body tucks in behind me. The first two in the ring, or dome really, are a girl who’s smaller than me and a guy around my height. They’re both lean and look nimble rather than strong, and I find myself pressing my nose between the cage bars in anticipation of their gifts.

A horn sounds, and they immediately move. The girl jumps back but lands on air a few feet up. She keeps hopping up some invisible steps until she’s above the guy. If I squint and angle my head, I can see the faintest shimmer in the air.

“She can solidify air,” Kellan murmurs, his facial hair tickling my skin and sending a rush of heat through me.

I watch as she jumps around the dome, and now I can see why they needed a cage all the way around and so high. It gives her far more room to move in instead of just the platform.

Her competitor seems unphased and jumps onto one of her air platforms, beginning his ascent after her by following the same path she took. His head rears back when he gets closer, and then something flies from his mouth at her.

She dodges, but whatever liquid he expelled is aimed at her feet and hits the air she’d hardened instead. The girl drops, but she catches herself with another translucent circle of air before she hits the ground.

“He can create all types of acids and poisons in his body,” Kellan explains while I look on in awe.

The guy shoots acid in rapid fire at her, and she creates a shield of air that blocks it, but disintegrates almost as quickly as she’s able to throw it up. I realize then that they are relying primarily on their gifts for this fight rather than hand-to-hand. He works best at a distance, firing off his acid where she can’t touch him.

She, on the other hand, keeps trying to find an opening to reach him. The girl jumps from one platform to the next. Then, from behind him, she flips upside down for her feet to plant on a platform above his head. She launches herself down at him, and he turns in time to spit acid at her, but she conjures a shield in seconds. It melts away, and her body crashes down on his, and the impact knocks him out.

The bell rings and York’s voice carries over the crowd’s hollers. “Float wins by knockout!”

The girl raises her arms up to her fans and grins when their cheers heighten. Someone enters the cage and presses two fingers to her contender’s forehead, and he groans and pushes himself up. They all leave the cage, and York calls out the next match.

I watch fight after fight of people using their gifts with their fighting skills. It’s amazing to see just how different some gifts are while also seeing some familiar ones as well. The fight is won by either a knockout or yielding, and there’s a healer just outside of the door to take care of any serious injuries or wake up those who are knocked out.

After what feels like a lifetime, I hear my name being called.

“Next up! Knight versus a brand-new, first-time fighter…Ruin! Don’t let her inexperience fool you, though! She came hand-picked by our very own Dragon.”

Kellan squeezes my shoulders and walks around the dome with me to the one and only door that leads inside it.

“Give it up for your next fighters!”

I take a deep breath and flex my hands. I can do this. I’ve seen what some of the others can do, but if I can somehow bring the fight back to hand-to-hand combat like a few of the fights I’d just watched, that’s my chance.

“You’ve got this, beautiful. Just remember everything I taught you, and don’t lose your head in the moment. If you need to stop and think, then make that time and do it. This isn’t a battle of strength. It’s a battle of thinking on your feet with what you have, what they have, and whatever’s available around you.”

I nod and take another breath. “Okay.”

He grins and opens the door for me. “Go be a badass, Ruin.”

I smirk while walking through the door and shoot over my shoulder, “Try not to nut in your pants while watching.”

Kellan howls with laughter and smacks his chest. “Sorry, but no promises on that.”

I laugh and keep moving to the marker on the floor for the start position. The guy across from me takes up his spot and assesses me from head to toe.

“Ruin, huh?”

I shift my feet for better balance and raise my hands up at the ready. “That’s me. I hope you’re not too knightly to just let a lady win.”

He scoffs and drops his hands at his sides, his fingers open but curved as if they’re ready to catch something. “There are no ladies here. Just warriors.”

My lips tug into a smile. Damn. I like this guy.

The horn blasts, and I watch as glowing red weapons appear in each of his hands in an instant.

Well. Fuck me.

I silently curse Kellan for not preparing me better for this before throwing me to the wolves, but there’s no more time for that when Knight rushes me with his weapons.

I do the only thing I can do when unarmed and run. When I keep my distance, sadly just running from him with no move to counterattack, he switches up his swords for a halberd that crosses the distance between us. He swings it at me, and I dive over it, then roll to dodge his strike downward.

Shit on a stick. I’m literally a sitting duck, just waiting for him to hit me with one of his weapons when I lose all stamina from running around this huge space. I need to find a way to switch to the offensive.

He comes around with the halberd again, and this time, when I dodge, I bend myself out of the way and then take a chance and grab the pole. It’s warm and feels like micro zaps of electricity against my skin, but it’s not unpleasant. Best of all, I can touch it.

I shove it back at him, trying to dislodge his hold on it, but he doesn’t relent. We’re both tugging on the weapon between us and then I move down it toward him to close the distance.

The halberd vanishes, and two more short swords appear in his hands. His arms sweep down at me in alternating patterns, and I’m forced back, but he tosses something behind me, and just as I turn to look at it, I trip on it instead and fall on my back .

Knight pounces over me, holding the one short sword left in his hand and holding it at my neck. “Yield!”

I growl and thrash under him, but he’s sitting above my waist where my legs can’t reach him. I can’t lose like this. I’ve barely even showed them what I’m capable of.

My gift heats in my gut and snakes up to my hands. I grab his blade, and it shatters as soon as I touch it.

He jumps back from me and my hands, and even through all the surrounding noise, I can hear Kellan’s deep voice whooping from one side of the cage.

I get back on my feet, holding my gift in my hands and raising them up in front of me, open and waiting for his next attack. Knight has called in another short sword and flips it in one hand in a circle.

“Took you long enough to reveal your gift,” he shouts.

I smirk and shrug. “I was hoping to not have to use it.”

He crouches, and I mirror him. “Kind of arrogant, aren’t you?”

“Nope. It was just wishful thinking,” I quip. He looks confused by that for a second, and then he’s running toward me. I spread my gift down my arm, feeding it more and more until my arm’s glowing a faint red and it feels like I’ve buried my arm in hot coals.

I grit my teeth together through the pain, praying that my idea works, or else I’m going to have to hope that these healers can reattach body parts.

Knight swings his sword down, and I raise that arm up between us, concentrating on strengthening my gift there. His blade touches my skin and then turns to dust in an instant. He falls forward when it disappears, and I take that opportunity to use my legs to knock him all the way down.

More weapons appear in his hands, but I grab one with my charged right hand to make it disintegrate, while my left hand, which no longer has my gift in it, knocks the weapon from his hand and snatches it up. I hold the blade against his neck, the same as he’d done to me, while my charged hand is held up and ready as a threat.

“Yield,” I command softly.

He doesn’t give any attention to the dagger at his neck, since he can probably make it disappear at will, but he’s eyeing my hand with wariness.

“Yield!” I don’t want him to think about his options. He doesn’t know that I don’t have full control over my gift and that I can’t use it against him. He has no idea what it would do to him if I were to touch him with it, so he has to decide if he’s feeling lucky today and wants to test it.

Knight frowns and then his blue-gray eyes jump to mine. “Alright. I yield.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and fall back on my heels. The room goes wild around us. My heart is jack hammering in a mixture of adrenaline and panic while I focus on reeling my gift back in. My hands and arms still burn after it’s gone, and I’m now dreaming of drowning them in a cold bath when we get home. I touch the floor with each hand just to be sure there are no remnants of it that stick around, then get to my feet.

Knight holds out his hand for me. “Good match,” he says when I accept the handshake. “Now that I know your gift, though, it won’t be so easy next time. ”

I think about whether or not there will be a next time and decide that, yeah, maybe that was fun. And crazy. Seeing everyone using their gifts freely and in creative ways only makes me want to know what else I can do. A smile breaks free despite myself. “I’ll be better than this next time, too,” I promise.

He nods and stalks off, waving a hand up in the air as a farewell before exiting the ring. “I look forward to it!”

Kellan dashes over to me, and I’m suddenly airborne as he lifts me by my thighs. I squeal and grab onto his shoulders. “That’s my fucking girl! I knew you could do it.”

“Kell! Put me down!” York is already calling the next fighters into the ring, and Kellan seems to give zero fucks that there’s anyone else around but us.

He chuckles and loosens his grip so that my body slides down the front of his. His mouth stamps over mine, and then I’m right there with him, where there’s nothing left outside of us. I moan into his kiss that feels like fireworks exploding in my chest. My arms wrap around his neck, and I press further into him as my body melts and liquefies just for him.

“Ahem!” York’s voice cuts through my momentary loss of brain activity. “Please clear the fighting dome if you aren’t Bubbles or Spitfire!”

I jerk back and cover my mouth and then my face as embarrassment floods under my skin.

Kellan laughs and flips the bird in York’s direction, then guides me out since I’m too fucking mortified to open my eyes and see myself out. I have to assume, to hope , that I wouldn’t have fucked Kellan on a stage in front of a hundred people because I was too doped up on adrenaline and lust to notice.

We find another spot along the cages to watch the rest of the fights and wait for Kellan’s turn. I’m not gonna lie. I’m now excited as hell to see his fight. By the time his turn rolls around, my thighs are clenched, and I’m gripping the metal of the cage with bated breath. York runs through a list of people who want to take on the Dragon, and I turn worried eyes on Kell.

“Can they do that? Make you fight all of them in a row?”

He shrugs. “They could fight me all at once, but they want the glory of taking me on by themselves.” Kellan bends down to nip my ear. “I can’t wait for you to cheer for me, beautiful. Your voice is the only one I want to hear.”

I push him playfully away from me. “Only if you promise to win every single match.”

And he does.

Every.

Single.

One.