Page 4 of Fighting Furry

CHAPTER TWO

“Shit. I know I fucked up, Axel—”

“Quiet,” a gruff male voice answered. A voice that sent shivers and tingles up and down my whole body. That guy, whoever he was, gave great voice.

I shifted and reached for the remote to turn off the T.V. I must have left on, and I hit the floor. Hard. Had I fallen asleep on the couch? And why was the floor so cold?

I groaned and forced my eyes open. I got my good hand under me and pressed up enough to see I was lying on a cement floor. Where the hell was I? I never drank, so I wasn't hungover. Maybe I was sick? Except, I felt amazing. Like I could run a marathon.

“How are you feeling?” that delicious voice asked.

I pushed to my feet and spun, spreading my legs and bending my knees to get into a fighting stance. I was surrounded by metal bars and outside them stood a big mountain man with pitch black hair, a trimmed beard, and a body like…Shit, I needed to focus on what was important and ignore the way my libido suddenly wanted to take the lead in this situation. I'd always been attracted to big, gruff, muscular guys, but I'd always known they were bad for me. I'd never date a man who could overpower me.

“Why am I in a cage?” The cage was in a big room with cinder block walls and cement floors and had iron bars that ran to the ceiling, like a jail cell. On either side of me were cells like the one I was in and there were other cages in the room that looked more like dog kennels. In the cell to my left, my attacker sat on a cot, his shoulders slumped, his expression a scowl, but not a mark on him. I thought I'd at least bruised him a bit.

“You were fighting, for one,” the mountain man said.

“He attacked me.” I pointed at my attacker. “He grabbed me from behind. I was defending myself.”

“I just wanted to talk to you,” my attacker said, his scowl shifting to a pout. “I didn't know you were human.”

I gestured to my attacker and raised my eyebrows at the mountain man in the universal expression for, 'see, that guy is clearly insane, so why don't you let me out of this cage and we'll all go about our business?'

“Who are you?” mountain man asked. “And why are you in our town? Why were you out on a full moon night?”

Oh, for the love of green gummy bears, was everyone in this town crazy? And if they were, was I about to become someone's serial kill? “I'm Julie Jacobs, maybe you've heard of me?”

Mountain man gave me a blank look, but my attacker leapt to his feet. “No fucking way,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar.” He looked over at mountain man. “Axel, dude, I turned Julie Jacobs. I fucking turned Julie Jacobs.” He pumped his fist in the air and jerked his leg in what appeared to be a pathetic attempt at a roundhouse kick. Axel cleared his throat and glared at my attacker, whose excitement quickly vanished. “Oh, fuck. I am so dead. I am so fucking dead.”

“Jeremiah,” Axel said. “Sit back down and shut the fuck up. I can't think for all your whining.”

“But dude, there's no way they're going to let me—”

Axel growled. “I said I'd take care of it and I'll take fucking care of it. Sit down and shut up.”

A door at the far end of the room opened and a tall man, possibly the tallest man I'd ever seen, walked over to stand next to Axel. “Morning, boss. Heard you had an interesting night.”

Axel rolled his eyes. “Zane—”

But Zane wasn't listening to Axel, because he'd caught sight of me and his eyes had gone wide as saucers. “Dude. Shit.” He took two steps toward my cage, stopped, and almost tripped over his feet, his cheeks going flame red. He looked about my age, but he was acting like a teenager caught with a nudie magazine. It was adorable. “Julie Jacobs. Damn. You are even hotter in person.” Somehow his eyes got even wider and he slammed his lips shut, swallowed hard, tightened his hands into fists, and swallowed again. “What I mean is, you're an amazing athlete. Your technique and, man, your kicks are out of this world.” He crossed his arms over his chest, dropped them to his sides, and crossed them over his chest again. “Sorry about your last fight.” He held up a hand. “Unless that's an offensive thing to say. Shit. I—”

“It's fine,” I said, even though it wasn't. Part of the reason I was staying at Krista's was so I didn't have to talk about that damn fight ever again.

“Zane,” Axel said, his voice all growly and deep. “Do you think you could get a hold of yourself? I pulled this woman in for fighting in the street. Jeremiah bit her.”

Zane frowned and glared at Jeremiah. “You bit Julie Jacobs? What the hell were you thinking?”

“She punched me,” Jeremiah said, his voice whiny. “And then she kicked me. Then she—”

“Enough,” Axel roared loud enough to shake the iron bars of my cage. He shifted slightly to focus on Zane. “Since you seem to know so much about our prisoner, maybe you can fill me in.”

Zane straightened his shoulders and pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket. “It might be easier if I show you, man. You're going to want to see this.”

He tapped a few buttons on his phone and brought up something, hopefully not a replay of me getting my ass handed to me in my last fight. He leaned in to Axel and held the phone up to him. “She's a UFC fighter, one of the best. And she was in that movie, you know the one where all the superheroes team up to save the planet from a meteor strike carrying the DNA of killer aliens?”

“I didn't see that movie,” Axel said, clearly irked.

Zane looked over at me and winked. “Our alpha is a tiny bit out of touch with the outside—”

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