Page 41 of It Must Be Fate

“Don’t make it this easy for me,” he taunts. “Fight back a little.”

Blade pushes off the ropes and goes for a jab hook combo that Phoenix easily weaves away from. Blade comes back with four more punches, every single one missing their target. He throws a desperate kick, but Phoenix puts up a shin to stop him.

The secondhand embarrassment I get watching Blade punch at the wind is almost crippling. For my own sanity, I can’t watch a second more of this.

I cup my hands around my mouth so my words are heard above the crowd. “Phoenix!”

“Yeah, baby?” he answers immediately, keeping his eyes on Blade as he moves around the ring.

“Stop toying with him and wrap it up, please. I have something to tell you.”

Blade’s eyes bulge out of his head at the easy conversation between Phoenix and I, as if he isn’t mid-fight but rather we’re talking while one of us is doing a household chore like taking out the trash.

In a way, that’s exactly what Phoenix is doing.

“Okay, wild girl. You got it,” my husband answers.

Then he takes two steps forward and lands a left hook, quickly followed up by a devastating uppercut, to Blade’s jaw.

His head snaps backwards and then he crumples to the ground, out cold.

The crowd explodes in cheers, hands slapping against the mat as people start chanting Phoenix’s name.

“Like I said,” Nera comments dryly, “A murder.”

“That whole sequence of events cracks the top five of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed,” Thayer says, laughing so hard tears bead in the corners of her eyes. Rhys, standing beside her with his arm draped over her shoulder, is laughing equally hard.

Phoenix walks over to my side of the ring, bends and snatches Blade’s discarded robe off of the ground.

He goes back over to his fallen opponent, snaps the robe up so it’s laying flat in the air, and drops it over Blade’s unconscious body until it covers him like a blanket.

“Nighty night, asshole,” he throws over his shoulder as he walks away.

And then he’s back in front of me, crouching so we’re more or less eye level.

“Hi,” he says, not even slightly out of breath.

I smile. “Hi.”

“What did you want to tell me?”

Our friends, the crowd and the noise all recede into the background until it’s just the two of us staring into each other’s eyes.

I go straight to the point.

“What if I told you that you’re going to be a father?”

Phoenix freezes, every muscle in his body locking in place as my words hit him. His mouth parts in shock.

And then he weaves his upper body past the ropes and reaches into the crowd for me, easily lifting me up and into thering like I weigh nothing. He sets me down in front of him, his hands remaining on my arms.

Surprised eyes find mine. “Are you saying you’re pregnant?”

“Yes,” I answer with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

His gaze drops to my stomach, a look of wonder playing out in his eyes. For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. I can’t gauge his reaction at all.

I’m about to ask him if he’s happy, but the words die in my throat when he does the last thing I expect him to.

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