Page 86 of Hot Irish Halloween

And squeezed…until his enemy went limp. Became dead weight.

Jack kept squeezing, rage replacing adrenaline. Every insult, every slur aimed at Penny replayed in his head. In his mind’s eye, he saw her fall and felt the helplessness of watching it happen. Felt the anxiety of not knowing if his unborn child would be okay. Because of this man.

He kept squeezing, as everyone in the fucking place went silent.

The crowd’s energy was feral, grasping and greedy. Blood wasn’t enough.

They wanted death. A final sacrifice. They were salivating for it.

And he was going to give them what they wanted. What he’d kept locked inside him all his life, that darkness that raged to be fully unleashed.

The Hunter, finally going for the kill.

He would have given into it, would have given them what they wanted, if he hadn’t happened to see Penny’s face again. Imploring him with her eyes. Shaking her head, “No.”

The Hunter backed down in the face of her silent plea. He would do anything she asked.

Anything for Penny.

Meg suddenly shouted, “Finish him!” And Jack couldn’t help it. He pushed La Roque away from him and laughed. Lay there on the bloody floor and laughed at the sweetness ofit.

It, that old familiar ecstasy of absolute and total victory, rushing through every cell in his body.

Realizing that he actuallyhadfelt this since he’d quit the fight five years ago, he laughed until he cried. This is how he felt holding Penny and making her smile. What a fucking tribulation he’d put himself through, only to see now that he’d had access to this glorious sensation all along.

Charlie and the team scrambled over and helped him up to standing. La Roque’s team was kneeling over him with a tiny vial of smelling salts, Quinn staring down at him with disgust. Jack ignored them. Ignored Bautista’s announcement of his victory, Simon and the crowd, Clarissa, who appeared and tried to grab his arm. He blocked out everything and everyone that wasn’t Penny.

She was clapping with tears streaming down her cheeks when he reached her.

“I’m disgusting,” he panted ruefully, looking down at his sweat-streaked, blood-smeared chest and gloves. “I’m gonna ruin your dress.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Penny said with a watery laugh. She cupped and kissed his face, all his cuts and welts. She was medicine, she was all the healing balm he needed.

“Alright, alright.” Charlie broke into the kissing to help him put his shirt on.

Then Penny put her shoulder under his arm and wrapped her own around his waist as they walked out of the Great Hall with their crew.

In the changing room, they firmly shut the door in the face of anyone who tried to get in. James was already busy popping a bottle of champagne that had been waiting for them in a silver bucket of ice. Jack lowered himself onto a bench, some frilly velvet affair, suddenly lightheaded.

“Baby, are you okay?” Penny asked, concern streaking across her face. “Maybe we should skip the champagne…”

Her words seemed to shrink and fade away as he coughed and coughed until he was breathless, until his mouth filled thick with the taste of metal.

He felt himself slump over. Heard her frantically crying his name as he went down.

Warmth.

Pain.

Movement.

Shadows and light danced across his closed eyes.

Then, through all that softness and pain, a voice. Singing so sweetly, with such purity, that it compelled him to awaken. The singing drew closer and closer still. And as warm lips brushed across his, he inhaled and was overtaken with scent. Peaches. Roses.

Jack opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed, his body thrumming with pain in so many places.

But Penny was there. Humming to him, her gaze running over his features with so much love, he found it hard to breathe again. But this time, for a good reason. The best reason.

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