Free Captivated (Talented Saga #3.5) by Sophie Davis Page B

mental
abilities were weakening, or this kid had the strongest will I’d
ever come across. He fought the hold I had on his mind, breaking
the connection in time to jump out of harm’s way.
    I was on my feet in the blink of
an eye. One advantage of my small stature was that it made me
agile, and much quicker than my larger opponents. For a third time,
I dove into my opponent’s mind. My efforts were wasted; a thin veil
shielded his thoughts, making them appear fuzzy and jumbled. I
considered pushing past the barrier, but the mental energy that
entailed would sap the physical strength that I still possessed.
While my other opponents had been fairly easy to defeat, four
back-to-back matches had left me fatigued.
    Self-doubt made me careless, and
in spite of the inner voice telling me not to, I doubled my mental
efforts to take control of his mind, bend him to my will. The
harder I pushed the more resistance I met. Soon, the curtain
separating our minds was a concrete wall, and no matter how hard I
tried, I couldn’t crack his mental armor.
    “Guess you’ll have to beat me for
real,” his mental voice chided, that
superior smile returning to his full lips.
    Anger, humiliation, and fear
warred within me. Four minutes, thirty-six seconds remained on the
clock. I needed to gain the upper-hand and I needed to do it now.
None of my other matches had gone the full seven minutes. I hadn’t
anticipated that this one would either and I wondered whether I
would last that long.
    Instead of trying to control him,
I let the anger control me. I launched myself at his mid-section,
sending both of us crashing to the mats. I rained blows on his
chest, his face, sides, anywhere he left unguarded.
    At first, the guy didn’t fight
back, favoring protecting his pretty-boy face over returning fire.
Unfortunately for me that didn’t last long. Our eyes met briefly,
his expression of incredulity matched my own. I may have
underestimated his Talents – I still had no clue what they even
were – but he’d underestimated my sparring abilities.
    While I continued to inflict as
much damage as possible with my fists, he wrapped his hands around
my waist and literally threw me backwards. I flew too high, too far
for him to have only used his physical strength.
    My own strength was waning, but my
resolve was steadfast. Still, I wanted to end the match before I
ran out of steam completely. I checked the clock – two and a half
minutes. Don’t waste it, I lectured myself.
    I scrambled to my feet, and only
partially regained my balance before that invisible rope was back,
yanking me to the ground. I used my telekinesis to send him flying
before he could get too close. I prayed his head would hit the mat
hard enough to render him unconscious. That wasn’t the way I wanted
to win, not really. I wanted him to concede the match, but a win
was a win and I would take it any way, shape, or form it came
in.
    I stood, and searched the room to
find where he’d landed. I froze the instant my eyes landed on the
gigantic tiger stalking towards me. The animal’s teeth were
impossibly large and sharp as razors. It pawed at the mat, a bull
about to charge the matador.
    Understanding dawned on me and I
began to relax. There was nothing remarkable about my opponent; he
was a morpher, just like the last four. Well, maybe a dual Talent,
I amended, remembering the way he’d flung me across the room like a
ragdoll. I had little time to contemplate this conundrum further,
though, since the tiger was steadily gaining speed.
    I stood still as a statue. My
muscles clenched, reflexes at the ready, and waited for the animal
to lunge. The moment he leapt, I leapt, meeting the attack head-on.
We collided in mid-air, his breath hot as it fanned across my face,
his claws sharp as they slid down my arms. When gravity brought us
back to the mats, we rolled together, both of us fighting for
control. The tiger had a hundred pounds on me, but I wasn’t above
playing dirty; I