Free Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet by Darynda Jones Page B

himself instantly. His expression hardened, his corded muscles tensed,
     and the guy he had folded into a full-body lock yelled out in pain a split second
     before he tapped the floor of the cage, indicating his surrender.
    It must’ve been hard for a man like that, clearly a seasoned fighter, to tap out,
     to admit defeat, but the pain Reyes inflicted had to be excruciating.
    And yet Reyes didn’t stop. He didn’t let up. A makeshift referee ran into the cage
     as the guy tapped again. The pain twisting his features had me cringing inwardly,
     but Reyes’s eyes wouldn’t leave mine. He stared, his sparkling gaze angry, his jaw
     set as he tightened his hold even more. The ref was going crazy, trying to drag Reyes
     off the opponent. Two other men rushed into the cage, but they didn’t have nearly
     the enthusiasm the ref did. They approached more warily as the crowd roared in excitement.
     Begged for blood. Or, well, more blood. The man’s pain was too much. It pulsed in
     sharp, liquid waves through my veins as surely as hemoglobin did.
    I lowered my head but not my eyes and whispered, “Please, stop.”
    Reyes released the man immediately and fell back on his heels, a salacious warning
     glimmering across his impossibly handsome face.
    He didn’t want me there—that much was obvious—but it was more than that. He was angry.
     He who’d set me up just to watch me fall. He who could bite my lily-white ass a thousand
     ways to Sunday was mad at me. Of all the nerve.
    The opponent lay on the canvas wheezing and writhing in agony. That last little exertion
     on Reyes’s part must’ve damaged something. Reyes ignored him. He also ignored the
     ref, who was pummeling him with verbal warnings, and the guy who started to put a
     hand on his shoulder for support before thinking better of it. Jumping to his feet,
     he strode out of the cage like he had somewhere else to be. Cheers and congratulatory
     whoops abounded as he navigated through the crowd. He ignored those, too. Thankfully,
     the crowd had enough sense to move out of the way when he got close.
    He swam through it with ease, then ducked inside a door that led to a large, boxy
     construction in the far corner. Offices, maybe. The trainers helped the other guy
     to his feet and led him away in the opposite direction while a custodian mopped blood
     off the mat.
    My feet followed where every eye led. To the rooms in the corner. I shoved past the
     feral crowd and lovelorn women. Several of them hovered near the door but didn’t dare
     go inside. The fact that the door was completely unguarded surprised me. Another guy
     walked out, shorter and stockier than Reyes, his hands wrapped in tape, his fists
     at the ready as he shadowboxed his way to the cage.
    And the crowd went wild.
    I stepped through the door into a type of industrial locker room. Not the kind in
     gyms, clean and bright, but the kind in old factories, dingy, dark, and dirty. Three
     rows of the metal units cut the steam-filled room in half. On the left were several
     walled offices and a desk. On the right—
    “And they want you to make it last longer.” A male voice echoed toward me from that
     very direction. “We talked about this, remember?”
    I followed it, walking past the lockers until I came to an open area with benches
     and a couple of tables. The showers were past that, and someone was apparently taking
     advantage of them. Steam billowed around Reyes as he sat on one of the tables. A man
     who must’ve been his trainer stood in front of him, wrapping his hands in white tape,
     just like in the movies. His jeans hung low on his hips, showing just enough of the
     dip between hipbone and abdomen to weaken my knees. Bandages and more white tape adorned
     a shoulder and encircled his ribs, and I fought to tamp down my concern. As for the
     rest of him, his coppery skin stretched with fluid grace over a solid frame of hard
     muscles and long sinewy curves. He was simply