Page 17 of Filthy Beginnings

So no, seizing the pretty omega and running wasn’t an option.

Neither was buying her outright since he didn’t yet have that kind of ready cash flow.

Which left him with only one path: do what he’d come here to do. Win the tournament.

Because there was one fact he knew for sure: he was not leaving this planet without her.

Even now, rage, possession and need twisted through him, a primal drumbeat in his blood.

He was one hundred percent certain that if he peered beneath the thick leather cuffs at his wrists he’d see the dark black lines that signaled a rare fated-mates connection.

She was fucking his and his body knew it.

“You think they’ll kick us out?” Tail Guy, talking again.

“No.” He wouldn’t allow it.

“Gotta love your confidence.”

“Get used to it.” Especially since Damien had already decided to help the guy make it through to the final sixteen fighters.

Another laugh. “Gladly. Maybe it’ll rub off. I’m Crex, by the way.”

“Damien—”

“Skolov.” A sneering voice from outside the laser bars took over Damien’s introduction. “Fourth of the notorious Skolov brothers. Outer-planetary ice vermin. Wanted by the Federation for petty theft, racketeering, illegal fighting, and a slew of other charges.”

Damien grinned. His reputation preceded him, per usual.

Turning toward the speaker, he stared down at the silver-haired space worm on the other side of the bars. Egan Avitus, the face of the tournament and a higher-up lackey in the consortium bureaucracy.

The same fucker who’d watched the omega dance from up on that observation deck.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” Wrapped in a flashy dressing gown, cape, and too many rings, not a slicked silver hair out of place, the bastard oozed smug. A wall of hulking security guards stood right behind him, including the green skinned, tusked Alphahole who’d shocked him repeatedly.

Damien stepped closer to the bright laser bars at the front of the cell. “I’ve plenty to say. But I let my fists do the talking.”

Egan lost a bit of his poise. “Typical thug.”

“And you’re not?” Damien thought of the female. The cage, the hot lights, the hopelessness he’d sensed from her. When he’d signed up for the tournament, he’d been so focused on the money, he hadn’t considered the rest of the bounty he’d gain once he won. He was now.

The desire he’d sensed inside her was as beautiful, rich, and vivid as the colors sparkling across the crystal cage and over her skin.

She was extraordinary—and his.

No one else would touch her.

And all the fuckers who kept her penned up would experience an excruciating death.

“I’m an entrepreneur.” Unaware his fate had already been decided, Egan kept on talking. “I make the consortium and the Brotherhood money, and I’m good at it.”

Damien followed his instincts. “Which is why you’re going to open the pen, let me out, and send me to the barracks so I can prepare for the fighting trials.”

Egan’s lips thinned. “What would make you think that?” He ran his spindly, jewel-covered hands down the length of his purple cape as if he could smooth his frustrations as easily.

“Because winners draw more tickets and more tickets means more profits and visibility and if you know who I am, you already know I’ll make you plenty of money.”

“Cocky bastard.”

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