It’s a blunt reminder that Royce could easily have killed Ben that night.
In my periphery, I am aware of money exchanging hands and bets being placed. I wonder who on, especially watching the two of them go at it, I wouldn’t know who to bet against. Dax is more practiced, his precision uncanny. On the other hand, Royce has a determination about him. His anger and resolve drive every punch and kick, whereas Dax is almost treating this as a game, with a small smirk plastered to his lips.
The tension in the air is palpable as the battle between them reaches its climax. My eardrums threaten to burst from the crowd’s screaming. I’m faintly aware of Logan shouting words of encouragement from somewhere beside me, yet all of it comes to me as if underwater, my focus so intent on Royce that I’m not even sure I’m blinking.
Both men’s bodies glisten with sweat, their breaths heavy and labored. Blood drips from a gash to Royce’s head, and Dax’s nose looks like it might be broken. Both of them wear battle scars as they grin at one another as though this is all in good fun.
In a flash of luck, Royce finds an opening, delivering a precise and powerful blow to Dax’s instep. He stumbles back. Royce goes in for the kill, a bloody-toothed smile on his face as he presses his advantage, delivering a series of rapid, punishing blows.
Dax falls to the mat, tapping out as screams threaten to shatter the bottles of alcohol lined up behind the bar.
Unlike in his previous fights, Royce doesn’t continue to beat on him until he’s a bloody, unconscious pulp. This time, he’s not too lost to the beast to see the man beneath him. Instead, as the crowd erupts, Royce reaches out a hand and helps Dax to his feet.
“I’ve gotta go,” Tara says, her voice unusually small as she pushes her still-full beer into my hand. I notice hers are shaking, and the color hasn’t returned to her face.
“Are you okay?” She gives me a quick nod, her gaze constantly flicking back toward Dax as though expecting him to suddenly move and pop up before her. “Do you need me to come with you?”
Another shake of her head. “No. I’m fine. I just can’t—” She waves in Dax’s general direction as he puts on a show, bowing to the crowd like he was the winner. “Go check on your man. I’ll be fine.” Her smile is tight, and I worry on my bottom lip as she all but runs for the exit.
When I tear my eyes from her retreating form to look at the ring, I notice Dax’s focus pinned on her with the same steely intensity he wore in the ring as she disappears into the night.
52
RILEY
“Ididn’t know Royce and Dax knew each other,” I say casually to Logan, feeling him out as we walk to campus the next morning. I’d planned to ask Royce about it last night, but he said he had to stay behind at The Depot after. That, and for the first night since Ben’s attack, he didn’t sneak into my bed after I fell asleep.
“Royce and Dax are… competitors. Opponents. Strange friends that beat on each other every time they’re in a room together,” he responds easily.
“Guess that explains why I overheard them talking with Xander when I went to the bathroom.”
Logan goes stiff, deliberately not looking at me for a long moment before slowly saying with forced casualness, “They were probably just catching up before the fight. Did you hear what they were saying?”
I shake my head. “I couldn’t make it out.”
His shoulders drop in what looks a lot like relief. “You’re not missing much. Just their god-awful smack talk. Trust me. Royce probably told Dax he’d seen more fight in a dead fish. Dax would have responded with something equally weak as you fight like a grandma with two left feet, and Royce probably pushed himover the edge by saying something stupid likeyou’re about as intimidating as a fluffy bunny.Then I imagine Dax stormed off in a huff ‘cause the guy’s ego is as fragile as a China cup.”
“So nothing else is going on?” I hedge.
“Why would something be going on?” he asks rigidly.
I shrug a shoulder. Honestly, I’m not sure, and if I tell Logan I’m feeling paranoid since Royce didn’t crawl into my bed for one night, he’ll think I’m insane. Which, clearly, I am. This is why I didn’t want to let either of them get too close, why I didn’t want to become too dependent on them. Because then, when they pull back or let me down, I’m left second-guessing myself and missing what I had.
“I guess it wouldn’t,” I eventually mutter aloud. Side-eyeing him, I tack on, “However, if it was, you’d tell me, right?”
He seems to suck in a breath and hold it for a moment too long before he gives a sharp jerk of his head. “Of course, I would.” Wrapping an arm around my waist, he tucks me in against him. “Everything is fine. Everything is going tobefine. You just focus on going back to Lux tonight. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
I keep my eyes on him for a moment longer before taking his change of subject for what it is. “I can’t let my fear control me. Besides, it’s not like Ben will be there. Tara is in charge now. Things will be different, and she won’t let anything happen.”
“Even if it does, Royce or Grayson will be there.”
Ugh, please let it be Royce.He’s the more reasonable out of the two… and crazily, the less volatile. Grayson is liable to rip me off the stage if someone so much as looks at me wrong. He has become entirely insufferable since Ben’s attack. How he can one-eighty so quickly is beyond me. Somewhere between accepting my truth and finding out about Aurora and Ben’s attack, he has gone from hating me to thinking he owns me.
And it is driving me insane. Royce is possessive with how he stares at me, and Logan with his public claimings, but Grayson is on an entirely different level.
The insanity of it all is that I’m not even his. Nor do I have any plans to change that. I’m glad he wants to have a relationship with Aurora and no longer hates me. I may even like how overprotective he is—not that I would ever tell him that. It reminds me of how I imagined he would be if I was his when I was fifteen.
The problem is, I’m not fifteen. I’m not that naive little girl anymore. I’ve been looking out for myself for a long time now, and I don’t need him to bulldoze his way into my life and start running it for me.