Page 43 of Voracious

It turns into a scream when Viktor moves the dial.

“Fuck!”

My arm spasms from the force of him gripping my hand and I can’t get out of it as he continues shouting, “He’s a sadistic little shit!”

Ana kicks him. “Stop being mean to him.”

“Yeah,” Viktor says lightly as he slowly moves through the different settings, “stop being mean to me.”

“Val,” Tali forces through clenched teeth, “grab your fucking son.”

He’s fucked up even more by attacking the one Vartanov everyone is protective over. No one stops Viktor as he sits on the sofa, leisurely flicking through the levels like he’s changing channels to find something interesting to watch.

I have to peel his fingers off mine and Ana takes pity on him as I do. She grabs the control and turns it off. “There you go.”

He breathes out in a line and closes his eyes. “Thank fuck.”

One thing no one in this family is capable of doing is keeping their mouths shut and the main culprit opens his mouth.

“It’s not even that bad,” Vlad says, uncapping a decanter.

His wife is the only one brave enough to argue with him. “So, you do it then.”

He continues pouring his drink and she dares, “Or are you scared?”

Vlad looks over his shoulder, then at the decanter in his hand as though he’s trying to come to a decision. He shrugs to himself and adds another shot before he turns. “I have a high pain threshold.”

“So do fucking I!” Tali argues, “That shit is different.”

He rips the sticky pads off his abs. There are red patches on his skin and he attempts to rub them away as Inessa waits for Vlad to take his place. As soon as Vlad is stood in front of her, she undoes three of his shirt buttons and slips her hand into the gap to place the pads on his stomach. “You can hold your husband’s hand like your brother did.”

“He’s not my fucking husband,” I grumble but Ana snort-laughs and I get distracted.

Vlad lazily sips from his tumbler without taking his eyes off his wife and he manages to maintain a normal conversation as they put it on level one. “Dima, what time’s the fight tonight? That might make me feel something.”

This isthe first fight where I want to burn every cunt alive. My prefight ritual involves staying in the changing room until my name is called, but I left the doors at the same time as my hellion. She’s single minded, her focus fully on her opponent standing opposite her until something gets her attention on the other side of the cage. Whatever it is has her raising her hand to stop the clack before it can sound, and my entire body goes on alert seeing her lips moves up.She never talks to herself when she’s fighting, but she isn’t antagonizing her opponent as she speaks to someone off at the side.

Her smile doesn’t lift her cheeks and there’s darkness in it as she opens the door and gestures to whoever got her attention. Two meathead cunts step forward and strip off to their boxers before following her inside the cage. They must know the person she’s supposed to be fighting because they slap shoulders and stand side by fucking side. The hellion is trying to fight three grown ass men who are all at least double her size.

I make it half a step forward when Vlad’s overbearing ass blocks my path. Gripping my shoulder to keep me in place, he keeps his voice low and signals for the fight to start.

“She’s a Vartanova.”

She’s Ana, not anything else. She doesn’t need to fight them alone or do anything alone because she has me. As though shecan gauge my intent, her fake eyes land on me, jaw clenched, and one shake of her head has me staying still.

As soon as the clack comes my body stiffens, it doesn’t relax seeing her go on the offensive for once. She doesn’t allow them to take a shot first and the cheers come when one of them gets her in the ribs. It’s hard enough to cause her to stumble but those fake eyes harden as she looks towards me. I’m going to kill her myself. She shakes her head and does the worst thing possible by pushing her back against the metal cage wall. There are three of them, she’s trapped and further immobilizes herself by clinging to the mesh with one hand as all three lay into her. The cage jolts and I can’t see who gets shots in, but her legs are moving.

She manages to use them to steady herself as she pulls herself up and grabs the knife from the pillar and I can finally fucking breathe. I expect her to slit their throat but she’s a psycho, I know she’s a fucking nutcase, yet I expect different. All three men take a step back, the cowards, and she laughs. Her head falls back, and she drops down to her feet still laughing and showing the psychosis runs in her veins as she throws the knife at them and rolls her shoulders, readying for their attack.

She’s a psycho, a hellion. But she is mine. No one gets to hurt her and I’m vibrating with rage as the round comes to an end before they can do anything to her. She’s better than them, easily without a shadow of doubt she’ll kill them, and everyone can see it.But I still move forward to drag her ass out kicking and screaming. There’s no if, she will definitely be murderous, but she is not fucking fighting.

The second round starts sooner than it should, and the two fucking meatheads rush forward, pinning her down. She thrashes, trying to get out of it, but they hold her limbs to the canvas with one of them pressing his knee into her stomach. It all blurs, the crowd disappearing, and the image of my hellion lost and restrained gets closer. Someone moves behind me, butI can’t see anything other than the anguished memories on her face. The cage rattles with the force of me climbing over and the only fucking thing I keep sight of is Ana as I get them off her.The one with his knee in her stomach presses more of his weight down as my fist meets the back of his head but the other man holding her down is removed.

There’s no crowd, no sound. There’s no one else as she stands, and my knuckles split, hitting bone, with my eyes still fixed on my hellion. All her rage is channeled into her fists as she picks off the last opponent and the gurgling brings the rest of the room into focus. I look directly in front of me and there’s no face, so I open my hand, letting him drop to the canvas with a heavy thud. There are people holding their hands over their mouth and nose, some have left to throw up and there’s blood everywhere. Three unrecognizable dead men lay in front of me, and my entire body is covered in a mix of blood and sweat. But there are three of us alive covered in blood as Valentin stands beside Ana. His hand is on her shoulder as a claim she’s not to be fucking touched.

The hellion is pissed, she shrugs him away and leaves a bloody trail as she exits the cage. She’s going to burn my house down while I’m asleep. For some fucked up reason, I want to smile knowing she’ll have to come into my room to do it. Maybe it will be a personal kill, she’s not the type to want to keep her hands clean. Ah fuck, if she chokes me I’ll kiss her with my dying breath because her hands will be on me.

The crowd parts as I leave the cage and I go to clean up before my fight that was actually scheduled. Vlad instructs the guards to clean the cage so that will buy me the time I need. He narrows his eyes at me and then in the direction Ana went and I follow her bloody footsteps. She’s already gone into my changing room and she’s waiting for me. Her fist flies before her cursing as soon as I open the door.

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