Page 12 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Hugo

T he She-Bear was ferocious. She landed a hit to my lower ribs. If she didn’t break them, she certainly fucking bruised them.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to get air. Everything hurt. I was too old for this shit.

What the hell were her knuckles made of? Titanium?

When the bell rang to end the first round, Rose opened the gate and walked in, dropping a stool beneath me before I landed on my arse. She reapplied Vaseline to my brows and looked at my face with concern. That was definitely not a great vote of confidence.

“ Merde , why am I doing this again?” I asked her.

My face felt like it was twice the normal size.

Worse yet… she was watching me getting beaten. I had seen her.

My Calissandra, live and in technicolor. She was like Perseophone in the darkness of the Underworld, luring my gaze to her.

Reminding me why I would follow her anywhere.

“Welcome to the Sideshow,” Rose said with a low chuckle, looking over her shoulder.

The Sideshow was a specific area of the Circus, or British MI6. A clandestine, secretive, organization of which Philippa Fox may, or may not, belong… ah, Hades. She belonged in it, if not ran it herself. I was sick of secrets and lies, even of the government kind.

Rose touched my face with her fingertips, assessing for swelling. I winced.

There was a lot of swelling.

“Did you get a chance to say anything to her?” Rose asked.

“Between her beating me to a pulp?” When would I have had a chance to speak to her privately? “No.”

We both looked at my opponent, and how she glared at the men in her court.

The She-Bear looked directly at her team with a ferocious anger. All except the girl whose face was obscured by a scarf wrapped around her head, and her hair which was strategically placed to hide her features.

“Those are definitely guards, not coaches,” Rose said.

The She-Bear’s malicious gaze told the four men who surrounded the girl that they had better not piss her off.

She was angrier at them than she was at me. I found that gratifying. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to turn her into an asset after all.

“How do we approach them?” I asked, wondering how the rest of this plan was supposed to work.

“Assuming she doesn’t kill you,” Rose winced, as she touched the side of my face that I was sure was turning blue. “It’s not unusual for fighters to go out for drinks afterwards, together. Sportsmanship and all that.”

“No shit?” I tried to fight a smile that cracked my lips, they were so swollen.

There wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t in fucking pain.

“I used to do it all the time,” she shrugged. “It was a good way to soothe hurt feelings.”

“I know what you like to do after a fight,” I chuckled, feeling the cut on my lip expand as I tried to fight a smile.

Oh, she had a merry time with my friend, Alastair, before the two of them were officially together.

After a fight, I swear, neither of them would be walking upright for a few days.

“Was that how you soothed your opponent’s feelings? ”

She blushed, then smacked me on the shoulder. I winced, as she hit a tender bruising spot. But the bell rang, and she helped me to my unsteady feet.

I looked across at the mountain of an opponent. Then to the little girl on the sidelines. Was that her lover, perhaps? Were her guards threatening her girlfriend?

“Your woman is in the audience, as I’m sure you know,” Rose said beside me, quietly, as if anyone was close to ear shot. “Fight like you’re doing it for her.”

Rose began to turn away, then stopped.

“Stop just short of winning, though,” Rose reminded me, looking over into the other corner. “I think I was right when I said she had a concrete reason to win. And I…”

She didn’t want me to win because she thought that the She-Bear, or the girl in her entourage, would bear the price of loss. She didn’t want to cause them harm. Neither did I. Rose didn’t want it because she had a good heart. I, on the other hand, knew it wouldn’t help me make contact.

“I’ll do my best to not die, while also not winning,” I grumbled.

And a small part of me did not want to embarrass myself in front of the object of my desire.

I’ll have to thread this delicate-as-fuck needle.

Rose placed a hand on my shoulder and tilted her head with a look of complete sympathy before she exited the octagon.

The She-Bear turned around, her silver bikini shining in the lights. Her arched, long brows knotted down over her nose in a ferocious scowl, her lips curled back, baring her teeth.

Blood coated her front teeth from when I had decked her in the mouth - it was practically a lucky shot since I had spent most of the time just trying to survive.

The whole not winning thing might be easier than I thought.