Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Stella lifted the glass and let the bourbon touch her lip without taking any of it.
The boots were killing her already. Two bartenders worked the bar, one at each end.
Three servers in matching black uniforms moved between the bar and the guests with trays of drinks.
Two guards were visible from her stool, one at the door Blaze had gone through and one at the front door.
A third man she clocked as a guard in a polo shirt and jeans stood near a third door.
Fresh blood, sharp and metallic, had filled her nose since the first round. The sound of the fight was fists on flesh and the scuff of bare feet on concrete, a grunt that carried over the music, the slap of a kick landing.
The door at the back of the warehouse that had been closed all night suddenly opened.
Stella looked at it once and let her eyes slide off it the way Blaze had taught her.
A woman came through the door. She was very young, wearing a black bodycon mini that ended high on her thigh, a deep V at the chest that showed most of her breasts, and stilettos that looked painful to walk in.
Stella took in the smell of the woman as she passed.
Cheap vanilla perfume. Under the perfume, the smell of a rabbit shifter.
This must be one of the captives. The woman crossed the floor and circulated through the knots of guests.
She smiled when she was smiled at. She was then intercepted by a man in a suit jacket who put his hand on her hip and said something into her ear.
She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
Stella’s hand went very still on the glass. The bear was fully on its feet now, pressed against the inside of her ribs, telling her to cross the room.
She did not move.
She lifted the glass slowly and drank, the bourbon hitting her tongue without registering. She let her eyes go past the woman without resting on her. She made her face impassive and bored.
Do not react.
The second bout started. The crowd shifted back toward the pit. The first woman went back through the door and a second came out. She started a slow walk through the crowd toward the buyers’ corner.
Stella’s eyes found her without permission. She didn’t look at the face first. She looked at the height. Then the shoulders. Then the small twist of the hip when the woman threaded between two men.
Nell.
The bear slammed against her ribs hard enough that Stella’s whole body jolted on the stool. Her hand tightened on the glass.
She dropped her eyes to the rim of the glass before the recognition finished landing. She let the recognition move through her while she was looking at something else, like Blaze told her. She breathed once.
Don’t do that again.
She set the glass down and watched Nell out of the corner of her eye. She’d lost a lot of weight, and her clavicles cut sharply across her shoulders. Her hair and makeup were done in a way Nell would never have. She was in the same bodycon mini and heels as the first woman.
Nell crossed the floor toward the older men in the dark suits, the knot of buyers Stella had catalogued in the first round.
One of them held out a hand. Nell let him take hers and let him pull her against his side.
The man put his hand at the back of Nell’s neck and turned her face up to his and said something. He kept her there. Nell smiled.
Her inner bear roared.
One wrong move and you’re both dead.
Nell stepped away from the man and continued her circuit through the buyers. She didn’t look up. She didn’t scan the room. Stella wanted to walk across the floor, pick Nell up, walk her through the front door, and get the hell away from here. But Stella did not move.
She lifted her glass and let the bourbon touch her lip. The second bout ended with a roar from the crowd. The brown bear had won. The smooth voice on the PA called the third bout.
“Jake Russo, twenty-three and four out of Reno. Marcel Rouet, eighteen and two out of Vancouver.”
Blaze stepped into the pit, barefoot on the concrete. The harsh white lights overhead carved him into muscles and scars and lines of ink on his bare chest. The fight started.
Rouet moved first, light and quick. Blaze kept him in front of him without chasing.
A knee caught Blaze in the ribs on the right side, and Stella’s whole body went cold.
Blaze gave ground, and Rouet came after him.
The crowd reacted around her, and the two men taking bets near the back of the room moved faster between groups.
Blaze covered his head and took the next two hits on his arms. He ducked the third and got in close, chest to chest, where Rouet’s long limbs didn’t have room to swing.
Blaze pinned Rouet against the cinderblock wall and started hitting him in the body in short hard motions.
Rouet tried to twist free, but Blaze didn’t let him.
The buzzer ended the first round. Blaze sat on the cinderblock wall. Ryder leaned over and gave him water. Blaze didn’t look up. He didn’t look for her.
The buzzer sounded again.
Blaze came out pressing.
He closed on Rouet fast and put him on the concrete inside the first minute. The crowd reacted with a sound Stella felt in her stomach. In a flash, Blaze was on top of Rouet, hitting him in the face relentlessly. Stella heard Rouet’s nose break. Blood went everywhere.
The floor manager stepped in and put a hand on Blaze’s shoulder.
The instant the hand touched him, he stopped.
He sat back and let the floor manager pull him off.
The bruise on his right side was darker than it had been a round ago, rising in a way that looked really bad even through the dim lights.
Blaze wiped blood from his face with the back of his arm.
A smooth voice called the bout for Russo.