Page 19 of Ruthless Salvation

“What?” I tugged on her shirt to get her attention.

“Let’s get a little closer,” Micky said even louder.

“You sure? It might be better to stick near the back.” That would make it easier to cut and run. I had put the suggestion out there, knowing it was in vain.

“Are you kidding? We didn’t come all this way to stand at the back! I want to see the testosterone dripping off them.”

I’d figured as much.

She finally settled on a spot about halfway to the ring. We watched three fights over the next two hours. I was relieved to see that illegal fights didn’t necessarily mean gruesome. The same rules professionals followed seemed to apply, and the referee didn’t tolerate any abusive behavior. I’d been a tad worried it would be some sort of fight-to-the-death Mad Max style.

While that particular fear subsided, my anxiety over watching Torin fight magnified by the minute. It was one thing to be a spectator when two strangers pummeled one another. Watching someone I knew possibly get knocked unconscious sounded more and more horrifying. I wanted boundaries between us—I didn’t want the man dead.

And to make matters worse, the crowd was swimming in alcohol. The lack of a concession stand hadn’t stopped anyone from drinking. Even Micky had pulled out a jewel-studded flask at the start of the second fight. Booze-laden breath was all around me. Everyone had steadily grown louder and more animated. By the time Torin “the Streak” Byrne was announced, my chest felt tight with the threat of a full-out panic attack.

The crowd came alive as Torin and his opponent, Joe “Razor” Roman, each walked to the ring. Cheers. Angry slurs. Fists waving in the air for any number of reasons. Micky ate it up. She bounced on her toes and added her voice to the mix while I stood stock-still, my heart wedging itself between my ribs.

Terror, fascination, and a heady dose of lust combined in a cocktail of emotions that spiked my bloodstream until the room around me spun.

I’d never seen Torin without a shirt. His muscled body was perfection, but anyone passing him on the street could tell that much. What had me speechless was the jagged expanse of a lightning bolt tattooed across his back. I’d expected the tattoos on his arms to continue onto the rest of his body, but that wasn’t the case. The single piece of artwork on pristine skin reminded me of a Grecian statue marbled with a catastrophic crack.

“I knew he’d be hot, but sweetJesus,” Micky hollered next to my ear. “You okay? You look a little funny.”

“Yeah,” I answered distractedly. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight of Torin as he loosened up, his tightly coiled muscles visible even to those of us thirty feet away. “The intensity’s just … a lot, you know?”

“I feel you. It’s got me so fuckin’ horny.”

I turned to gape at her, but she was already hollering something about “rip his fucking arms off.”

What had I been thinking when I agreed to this? Coming here was such an epic mistake.

I wanted out, but we were walled in by bodies all around us. I scrunched my eyes shut and prayed it would be over quickly, then panicked that I hadn’t specified a winner, so I repeated the prayer with a caveat that Torin would win.

What if he doesn’t win? What if I have to stand here and watch him get pounded round after round?

My stomach dipped and rolled like a tiny rowboat braving an ocean storm.

A single ping of the bell pierced the air.

My eyelids wrenched open.

The two men circled each other the same as each pair of fighters before, but their predatorial movements stirred nausea in my belly this time. Torin’s opponent was similar in height, but his shoulders and arms were more solid with mass and muscle. He was covered in tattoos, his head shaved clean to the scalp, and he stared down Torin with a palpable hatred.

Torin bobbed lightly closer, coaxing out a swing from Razor. The two measured up one another with a few easy jabs. I started to feel a tiny tendril of relief before Torin took a solid uppercut to the gut followed by a mean right hook. He stumbled to the ring as the referee stepped between them.

Each time Razor’s fists made contact with Torin, tiny snippets of memory assaulted me. Furious blue eyes. White-knuckled fists. Fear. So much crippling fear.

I closed my eyes and begged the contents of my stomach to stay put.

For three rounds, the two went at one another, the crowd growing more feral by the minute. I wondered if their rabid cries had consumed all the oxygen in the room because I swore it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Despite the heated bodies around me, my hands were cool and clammy. And had the room gone quieter, or was that a ringing in my ears?

I desperately needed to get a grip.

Focus on Tor. He’s okay. He’s alive. He’ll be okay.

I stared at where he sat in his corner as though that link between us would somehow keep us both safe. I stared with such intensity, I could almost feel myself touching him. Maybe I had, in a telepathic sense.

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