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“Will you stay fucking still and take one punch?” she snaps.

“No,” I reply dryly.

She makes a small noise of frustration, breathing heavily. I wait for her to attack again, but instead she pauses. When hereyes brighten, she gets this look on her face that I’m sure spells trouble.

“You know I’m actually really hot. And sweaty,” she drawls, using her hand as a makeshift fan.

My eyes narrow as she places a hand against the zipper of her top.

“Don’t you dare!” I growl.

She simply smirks, a playful glint in her eyes as she starts to pull it down.

“Cassandra,” I hiss, rushing towards her.

I know I’m being baited but too pissed off to care. I place a hand over hers, stopping it’s movement. Which gives her ample chance to rear her other hand back and punch me in the jaw.

I rear back slightly, a little surprised by the force of her punch despite knowing it was coming.

She’s stronger than I expected her to be. I’m impressed.

When she tries to go in for another punch, I catch her fist in my hand.

“That’s enough, sweetheart. You don’t want to ruin my handsome features.”

“Get over yourself,” she mutters but she’s grinning.

Her eyes are light and clear and despite her sweaty, tired appearance, she looks better that she did this morning.

“Do you feel better?”

She nods, “Yeah, this was actually nice. I got to release some tension.”

“That’s good, sweetheart. I’ve got something else to help you. Something that’s almost as good as fighting.”

“What?” she questions warily.

“Watching an actual fight,” I reply, grabbing her hand and helping her out of the ring.

Once we’re both on the sidelines, I nod once towards Killan and another one of my capos. They don’t hesitate to enter the ring. And soon enough their fight begins.

A part of me had been worried Cassie would be thrown off by all the violence. She could have hated it. But most of me knew she wouldn’t.

Try as she might to hide it, there’s a part of her that enjoys this. The darkness of it all, the blood. It’s why she’s well-suited to be my wife. Why she belongs to this world.

There’s this look in her eyes as she watches the fight. Intrigue and curiosity mixed together. That passion she said she’d been missing in her life.

That same exact passion I need her to awaken in me as well.

Killan ends up winning the fight. We eventually leave the training halls after watching one more fight. Cassie’s practically dead on her feet by the time we exit the doors. But she’s pretty excited about what she witnessed. She’s also managed to garner the praise and affections of my men who were all too ready to fall for her charms.

And while I’m happy she’s thriving, I’m a little irritated by how many of them she talked to.

“You’re sulking,” she says, reading me as we walk toward the main house.

“Am I?”

“Yes. Why?”