Free Challenge: A Contemporary MMA Romance: Oni Fighters Book 3 by Natalie Gayle

crying. It wasn’t who I was at all.
    Right then, nothing in my life felt right.
Seth
    Nothing felt right—not bad, just not right. Was I awake or was I dreaming?
    Why did I feel like I should be doing something? I just couldn’t remember what. The fog kept getting in the way. “Move fog—move.”
    Why wouldn’t it move?
    I should be doing something—shouldn’t I? The warm darkness wouldn’t let me up, it had me in a hold I couldn’t break—couldn’t figure out the counter-move, couldn’t see or feel where I was being held to form a plan.
    So tired and my limbs felt like they were rooted to the earth.
    Too heavy to move. Couldn’t make them understand they needed to do something—should do something. What? Why weren’t they working?
    Voices faded in and out. I should have spoken. Couldn’t speak. Voice wouldn’t work.
    Soft touch felt good, felt right, familiar—soothing.
    The darkness was beckoning me again. So tired…couldn’t fight it.
    “Seth.” I heard my name. What? Who?
    Need more sleep…so tired.
    Mmm, warm soft, so sleepy
    Maybe later…maybe I wouldn’t be so tired…

6
    Sophia
    “ C ome on , Soph, make it count. You’re running at half speed. This the best you’ve got?” Xander’s voice drilled into my brain as I tried to pick up the pace and the power on the combination punch, kick drills, as we were training together at Onigashima.
    I’d done nothing exercise wise for the last few days, but I was dead tired even though I felt restless and irritable.
    “Yeah, that’s it; better. Keep your guard tighter.” The guard was always the first thing that went when fatigue hit. “Come on. One more round then we’ll call it quits. We’ve gone hard.”
    It was true, and totally normal. Our motto at Onigashima was to “train hard to fight easy.”
    The last drill was agony.
    “Nope. Not finishing on that, Soph. Land that rib kick like you mean it.”
    My breath was coming in huge, ragged pants and sweat was burning my eyes. Perfect. Exactly what I needed. I just wished I had more energy to give. The mind was willing, the body was feeling the fatigue.
    I drew back my leg and made sure I gave it full hip rotation, then let fly with everything I had, plus some.
    “Yeah! That’s more like it! One more…come on.”
    “Ahhh!!! You always want more,” I yelled as I repeated the process and jammed that kick in hard.
    “Just want to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Okay, take a break and hold the pads for me.”
    He didn’t have to ask me twice. I fastened the large, hard leather belly guard that swamped just about all my torso. Then, I slipped my hands through the elastic restraints on the Thai pads and settled them down my forearms.
    I really enjoyed these one-on-one sessions with Xander. Since Eden had married Xander, things between us had changed as well. These private training sessions were common and the line he so strongly enforced regarding his relationship with students had essentially been rubbed out where Tori and I were concerned. I guess it made sense. We were now technically his sisters .
    No longer was I a student; now, I was family. That provided me an even greater level of automatic respect around the dojo. Although, I didn’t care for it that much. I’d worked hard to earn people’s respect for my dedication and focus to training and learning. That was the sort of respect I preferred rather than the by-association kind.
    With respect came responsibility. I felt the pressure to present a good example for the other students, particularly to the lower belts.
    I did love that I was now at a level where I could workout and train with the likes of Xander, Dane, and Seth. It was one thing to train with them, a total other to hold your own doing it. That was where I’d reached of late. I wasn’t deluding myself by thinking I was in their caliber, just that I could put up a good show and was getting better for training more with them. If you wanted to get better, you needed to