Page 83 of Seduced

She was screaming at his attackers to stop hitting him. Alexei tried to smile, but his lips were torn to shreds by Wilder’s fists, and there was blood in his mouth. He spit it out, feeling a sharp pain on his jaw, and received another blow. This one wasn’t Wilder; he recognized the lack of skill.

Still, it did its job.

The pain consumed him, stole his breath.

The pain was good.

The pain was what he deserved.

“For God’s sake, stop it!” he imagined Poppy saying, his little furious knight in shining armor. In his head, her voice sounded so real, almost as if she were in the boxing room right now, shouting.

My little seed, he thought.Defending me. Saving me. Again.

A fist landed on his chest, sending a sharp pain all the way into his lung.

Stop it. She is not ‘your’ anything. And you have no right to conjure her voice in your head, not after the pain you caused her.

“Stop it!” Poppy’s voice screamed, sounding terrified.

I must be close to passing out, he thought.I am hallucinating. I must tell them to stop soon.

And then, within the space of one shuddering breath, everything went to hell.

Poppy was leaping out of his imagination and somehow appearing in front of him, very real.

She was there in the flesh, standing in his bloody boxing rooms, and he watched her as if in slow motion as she rushed between him and his opponents, her thin body crushed by two huge men. Then Alexei was leaping to his feet, his pain forgotten, and throwing his body over her, running between her and the guards, screaming at them to stop.

She was barefoot and limping, and he got blood all over her nightgown, but he hadn’t been fast enough.

He heard the blow before he saw it.

The second guard’s fist, which was going straight for Alexei’s teeth, landed on Poppy’s back with a sickening crack instead. The force of it sent her to her knees. She fell, choking and gasping for breath. Alexei grabbed for her, but he wasn’t fast enough; he heard the whimper of pain leave her lips as she went down, and his breath hitched.

“No!” he roared. “Wilder, get them under control! Stop hitting, right now, halt!”

They stopped.

Everything was still, including the fallen girl.

Including his bloody heart. It had stopped.

“Are you hurt?” he shouted, but got no response.

He looked down at Poppy, her nightgown soaked with his blood, her brown-red hair spilling all the way down to the floor in loose, sleep-formed curls.

“Dear God,” he stuttered, “what have I done?”

He picked her up in his arms and laid her carefully on the carpet, a few feet from the ring, where he could try to assess how much she had been hurt.

Wilder approached from behind, attempting to kneel as well, and reached out a hand to touch her, but Alexei screamed bloody murder at him and all three guards scattered, scared out of their minds.

He placed a hand on either side of Poppy’s face and turned it slowly to face him.

“Poppy,” he said urgently, “Poppy, answer me, dammit, where are you hurt?”

She moaned and shut her eyes tighter.

He thought he would go mad. “Christ, talk to me, Poppy!”

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