Chapter 30

Squatch.

Thankfully, there were so many dramas happening in the clubhouse when we returned, the spotlight wasn’t just on Kitty.

Best of all, my brothers had moved into the new clubhouse while we were gone. They’d even cleaned out my apartment and put the contents in my garage, so we went straight there from Chattanooga. The ol’ladies had put Kitty’s things into her closet, and I wanted to kiss them for showing with their actions how happy they were to have her here.

Our first night back, we sat in our new clubhouse and watched a live internet feed of Dementor’s Ember fight her way to a win in a roller derby match in Seattle, Washington.

Ten minutes after the match was over, I found myself breaking up yet another fight between prospects, and I made an executive decision that we couldn’t have both of these men in the club. I was pretty sure Mad Dog would agree with me, so I didn’t check in with him. If he had a problem with it, he’d tell me. I respected both the hierarchy and our friendship, and he knew it.

So, I lifted both men, one under each arm, and I glared at another prospect as I stalked to the back of the building. “Open the motherfucking doors. These two are going to fight it out, once and for all. Loser leaves the premises and never returns.” I raised my voice. “Prez, figure out the rules while we walk to the sparring room!”

I heard him behind me, saying only brothers needed to come, and everyone else should stay put. Kitty would worry, but I agreed with him. This was going to get ugly and she didn’t need to see it.

I stood the men up in the sparring ring and stayed between them while the room filled in around us. Mad Dog stood just outside the ring and said, “Loser hands over any patches and walks off the property tonight. He’ll never be welcome on any of our properties again. Not even as a customer. Winner pays a five hundred dollar fine for fighting in the clubhouse because I’m with Squatch on being tired of this shit. We don’t need hot-heads who can’t keep their fists to themselves. We’re a brotherhood, and yeah, sometimes we fight, but we also work our shit out.” He turned and met my gaze, then focused on the prospects. “Human form, no claws, no weapons. Jeans and barefoot. Empty pockets. If you kill your opponent, we’ll kill you and you’ll both be dead. Winner is the last man standing — fight until someone screams uncle, they’re unconscious, or they change. If you can’t hold your human form, you lose. If you change and keep fighting in animal form, you forfeit your life.”

He turned and looked at Frost. “I got a hundred on Freckles.”

Frost made a notation in a tiny notebook and nodded. Everyone else started placing bets as well. I’d be the referee, of sorts, so I didn’t place a bet. This wasn’t a fight with silly rules about where you can and can’t hit. Both men would have to be careful not to kill the other, which meant they couldn’t crush the other man’s windpipe without risking their own life as well. I would, however, be responsible for stopping the fight once one of Mad Dog’s stipulations came into play.

I could tell both men now regretted putting themselves into this situation. I didn’t scent fear, but neither man wished to be here anymore. Not quite remorse, but it was close.

“Whoever wins tonight is still a prospect, but no one’s going to vote you in unless you can prove you aren’t a hothead, and that you won’t get the entire club involved in bar brawls just because you can’t hold your fists when letting them fly isn’t called for.” I stepped back a little, so I could still intervene if they went for each other, but I could also look at both of them without turning my back on the other. “If either of you wants to hand over your patches and walk out, now’s the time. You don’t have to finish the fight if you speak up now.”

Both men shook their heads. Neither was going to walk away.

While Frost took bets, Clean moved the men’s shirts and boots off the mat, along with holsters and weapons. The men also handed over the contents of their pockets, and I checked to make sure neither had more weapons on them.

It took another couple of minutes for Frost to decide everyone who wanted to place a bet had done so, and he gave me the all-clear.

“This ain’t MMA or boxing,” I told them. “No rules but the ones Mad Dog already gave you.” I took five steps back and said, “Ding.”

Most of our sparring mats are just that — mats. This one had a small fence around it, and I popped over it and out once they got started. I was there to call it if someone cried uncle or got knocked out, or to step in and stop things if someone changed and kept fighting, but otherwise, there wasn’t anything for me to do. With this kind of fighting, there are no illegal moves, no place you can’t strike. If you fuck up and kill the other person, you die, too. Accident or on purpose, it didn’t matter. Both men were expected to have enough control to damage and injure without striking a killing blow.

Red wolf versus grey wolf, but in human form. Freckles would’ve had my money if I’d been betting. He looked like the boy next door in clothes, but when the shirt came off and his lean muscles showed in stark relief, he looked like someone you didn’t want to fuck with.

And as Mad Dog had foreseen, Freckles easily knocked his opponent out in less than forty-five seconds. He didn’t even make me step in and pull him off — he stepped back and held his hands up as soon as he realized the other guy wasn’t going to get back up anytime soon.

I looked at the winner, gauging whether I could ever vote him into the club. Ginger-red hair, green eyes, pasty-white skin, and freckles. I had a feeling people had been discounting him as a bad-ass all his life, but before we’d let him wear a Rolling Thunder cut, he needed the confidence to walk into a room without needing to prove he could kick ass.

“You need to change?” I asked him.

He looked at his right fist, which was red and raw, but not as bad as I’d expected. He opened and closed his fingers a few times, shrugged, and let his hand drop to his side, his thumb looped into his jeans pocket. “Nah. I’m good.”

“I’ll handle this asshole’s exit interview when he comes to,” Mad Dog said, looking at the man on the floor.

“I’ll hang out here with them,” Clean told me. “You can usher everyone else back upstairs, and then go hold your woman.”

* * * *

Kitty Squatch and I had decided he’d tell me everything, even if that meant I might have to lie on the stand if something ever went to trial. I didn’t respect the human justice system, so it wasn’t like I felt I owed it my honor.

So, he told me about the fight later that night, and we finally talked about him fighting my father.

“It’s harder to fight someone when you have to be careful not to kill them. I was careful with your father, but I don’t think he was trying to be careful with me.”

“No, he probably wasn’t, and I’m sorry for that. You have to promise me that if it comes to it again, you’ll value your own life more than his. I’d rather him die than you, if you have to choose.”

“If it comes to it, then I choose the same, Kitten.” He pushed a lock of my hair out of my face, and the gentle motion melted my heart. So much strength, aimed at me, so tenderly. “I don’t want you going to the ambush without me.”

My heart went from melted to almost racing, because I didn’t want to go without him, either. The agreement had been written out that I had to be with someone a year before they could go to the ambush with me, and that I’d go to the solstice and equinox celebrations. We also had to have formally mated in some way, by either his traditions, mine, or human traditions, which would mean marriage. My vest probably counted for that, but we hadn’t been together a year.

“His Majesty the Amakhosi is going with me,” I reminded both Squatch and myself. “Daddy can’t keep me. I’ll be safe.”

The muscle near his temple flexed. “And your Uncle Mike?”

I looked down and focused on the air going in and out of my lungs. I’d loved him as a child, but I never wanted to see him again. I wasn’t sure what I’d do when I saw him, and I was pretty sure it was important Squatch never end up in the same room with him.

“I don’t know, Squatch. I haven’t asked His Majesty.”

“I need you to do that, Kitten. I’m not sure you should go if he’s going to be there.”

I nodded and looked at the time. “Tomorrow. I’ll talk to Kirsten tomorrow.” I didn’t have the nerve to bring it up to His Majesty.