Page 102 of Hidden Desires
“Now we’ll see if you are worth all the trouble. If you can beat my best fighter, I’ll give you the privilege of joining my crew. If you end up dying? Well, then we will know that you are nothing like your father.”
Blade’s jaw clenched at the thought of being compared to his father.
Behind him, he could hear his opponent preparing himself for battle.
Was this what they did for fun on weekends? Battle it out like dogs in an illegal fight match?
“Are you really sure that you want me to injure your best shadowboxing student? It’s never good for one’s self-esteem to be destroyed by the new guy in front of his peers.”
Blade turned to face his opponent.
How long would he have to fight before Marcus and the guys showed up? The plan was to jump Raz and his crew shortly after he arrived. But it had already been at least fifteen minutes.Had something gone wrong? Had Marcus left him there to die?
No. Marcus would never do that. Or would he? He was sticking it to his little brother after all.
Stepbrother.
Marcus never made that distinction. As far as he was concerned, both he and Ace shared the same vagina and penis in their creation. They were brothers, and that was that.
Pulling out his trusted blades, Blade ran them against each other, feeling the cold steel vibrate between his fingers.
He loved that feeling. It was as though the essence of the blades flowed through his body.
Accepting the vibrations into him, he felt his mind pull away, and a sense of calm rolled over him.
The man standing before him was a beast. He was about two heads taller than Blade, with big, bulging tree trunks where arms should have been.
The words “Smash. Me, smash little man” came to mind when Blade thought about how he might sound if the beast ever opened his mouth and spoke.
Based on the vacant look in his eye, intelligence was likely not one of the man’s strong suits.
Well, if the man was only used as hired muscle, intelligence was probably not high on the list of job qualifications.
Sliding his blades against one another, Blade assumed a defensive stance and waited for the beast to come at him. He wasn’t going to start throwing blades before he had a chance to assess the man’s fighting skills. Perhaps he wouldn’t need to resort to violence if the man were a weak fighter.
Slowly, the giant stalked toward him.
The crowd around them roared. Men, women, large, beastlike creatures that had no right to be called human.
Seriously, where was this gang finding its members?
Once theDefilerwas only a few feet away, Blade got tired of waiting for the man to attack, so he decided to bring the fight to him.
Bad decision.
When Blade was within arm’s reach, a big, meaty paw wrapped itself around his neck. The next thing he knew, stars exploded in front of his face when something solid—perhaps it was a bus or a train—collided with his face.
Blade fell backward into the dirt.
Flashes of light continued to dance in front of his face as he wondered how one man could be so gifted with such a strong right hook. And for that matter, why was the guy not fighting in UFC matches? Or playing professional hockey? One body check from this beast-man would send any hockey player soaring through the air like a feather caught in an Easterly wind.
Also, what the fuck?
No man had any right to be that powerful.
Blade’s life flashed before his eyes as his body was picked up by Hercules’s twin brother and tossed across the pit until his flesh hit the ground, and he decided it was smarter to play dead.
No. He was a fighter!He needed to get up and show this punk-ass, steroid-pumping, gorilla-fucking, beast-god who was boss.
