Page 80 of My Revenant
The Drakes stepped outside a moment later, and Mason didn’t even take one moment to think before his fists were swinging. He came straight for me, as I’d hoped. I was here for vengeance for oneof our own, but it was deeper than that. This fight felt personal. This wasn’t like fight nights; there was no referee to call the match before things got too serious, no crowd cheering. It wasn’t sport. It was violence, plain and simple, and it would end only when one of us couldn’t get back up again, whatever form that took.
For a big guy, the meathead was quick.
I didn’t have a chance to check in with my people, which meant I’d just have to deal with this sasquatch first.
First punch, and I dodged. Second punch, and he didn’t. My fist connected with his ribs. But he was a big guy, and one hit was hardly going to knock him back. His elbow collided with my jaw, and I tasted blood, but I wasn’t easily knocked back either, and I was on him again, knuckles bruising skin.
We traded blows, blood spilled on both sides. The metallic taste in my mouth was like a drug. Fuel. I hit him again, and my fist came away with our blood combined, red gushing from his lips down his chin. I had this. Mason fucking Bates was going down.
A sharp cry to my left and I spared Raven the briefest of glances, not wanting to give Mason any advantage by being distracted—but it was enough to notice with our uneven numbers,twoof them had gone for her. Should have figured the fucking Drakes would gang up on who they saw to be our weakest link. One of them shoved her into the bricks.
The flurry of other fights and bodies slamming into each other faded when a fist slammed into the side of my head hard enough for my vision to blur and my ears to ring with the force of it.
As I stumbled backward, losing and finding my feet again, Mason took the chance to deliver another. I raised my arm fast enough to cushion the blow, but it still sent me staggering back further.
Raven made a wounded sound, and despite Mason boxing me in, I was determined to get to her. He swung, I dropped, his fist catching the air above me as I took the lower ground, landing ahit to his gut, then my boot kicked at his knee. He shouted and stumbled, giving me the out I needed to get to Raven.
I cocked my arm back to take a swing at one brute attacking her, but before it landed, a fist was in my hair dragging me back. I spat. Red landed on the cheek of the guy pinning her to the wall, who turned to look at me, giving Raven an opening as she kneed him in the balls.
Mason’s grip left my hair, only for his arm to circle my neck. I clawed at him, but the bastard wouldn’t budge. I attempted to elbow him, to take out his feet with mine. No luck. His arm tightened, the headlock stealing away my oxygen until heat flushed over my face, my lungs burned, my vision blurred.
As I faded, I took in the carnage surrounding us. Raven on someone’s back, inflicting a headlock of her own. Bryce on the ground, straddled, but still fighting. And Reaper, the last thing I saw before I faded was Reaper, a knife in his hand as it plunged into the gut of one of the Petrov brothers.
When I opened my eyes again, it was to Raven shaking my shoulder frantically. “Come on, Dexy, we gotta bounce, dude.”
I sucked in a breath that felt like inhaling fire, my hands finding the pavement as I pushed myself up. The Drakes were no longer here, but I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes at most.
I quickly accounted for my own: Raven, her nose probably broken, but otherwise she seemed fine; Bryce, who stood just behind her, with an eye already swelling shut; and Reaper, leaning against the brick, blood on his hands and his clothes.
“Status?” I croaked.
Reaper looked up at me with cold, dead eyes and a blank expression on his pale features. “Scurried off into their cave. One unconscious.”
“You stabbed him.”
“Had to.”
“You didn’t have to. Fuck, Reaper. If you’ve killed him, it’s an all-out war.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “He was breathing when they ran off.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“Who thefuckput you in charge anyway?”
I stumbled toward him, my fingers grasping handfuls of his dark clothing. “You think because Archer isn’t here you can just do whatever the fuck you want?”
His jaw ticked. “You think because Archer isn’t here you’re automatically the one in charge? You aren’t. I don’t have to listen to a fucking thing you say.”
Using the grip on his clothing I shoved him until his back pressed against the wall. One of his hands wrapped around my wrist, and as the heat in my eyes clashed with the ice in his, I had a pretty good idea of where his other hand was.
“Going to stab me too?” My voice was low but firm.
He didn’t answer, but the way his jaw ticked told me I was right. He was either bluffing to get me to back down, or the sick fuck had actually thought about using that knife in his hand against me.
“Try it,” I threatened.
“For fuck’s sake, that’s enough.” Raven appeared beside us, a hand on each of our chests as she shoved us apart. “Why are boys so fucking stupid? You dumbasses are on the same side here.”
