Ready to Bear (19 page)

“I gotta go,” Billy said. “Kyle has some experience fighting, too, that is more recent than mine, and Tony offered to give me some pointers on werewolves. Where are you going to be sitting? Up in the suite?”

“I’ll be down here on the floor,” Thea said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Billy said, frowning.

“I knew you – and probably Eric, too - would have an opinion on this topic, but I’m going to be as close to you as I can,” Thea said. “Try putting me up in the suite, and I’ll find a way down here. That’s just the way it is.”

Billy shook his head. “We’re clearly going to have to start establishing some ground rules in this relationship.”

“Yep. The first one is Thea is always right and gets what she wants.” Thea smiled at him sweetly.

Billy chuckled and then he pulled her into him. She shivered again, but this time it was from the desire that she felt when his lips found hers. Their kiss held so much in it. Anticipation, anxiousness, a sense of hope. They said everything they needed to say to each other with that kiss. The one thing that Thea hoped hadn’t been said, though, as she watched Billy move out of the ring, was goodbye.

Billy wasn’t sure how he had managed to pull off a perfectly straight face with Thea. In all actuality, his limbs had started to burn just before she appeared, and an ache was starting to throb behind his eyes.

As soon as he got into his locker room, he sat down heavily on the bench and dropped his head into his hands. When Kyle entered the room a few minutes later, Billy started to stand up and almost fell over.

“Whoa,” Kyle said as he helped Billy back to his feet. “This is a bad sign, isn’t it?” Billy was grateful that it hadn’t been Eric who saw his moment of weakness. He didn’t think he’d ever live that one down.

“I’m all right,” Billy said. “Just a little woozy, but I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be fine, “Kyle said. He held up a small bottle of pills. “This is something that will take the edge off. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who has already had one of Dr. Clarkson’s cocktails today, but I don’t think you probably have much choice.”

“What is it?” Billy didn’t want to put anything else in his body that could affect his mind or his reflexes. He was feeling slow enough.

“Does it matter?” Kyle opened the top and shook out a pill. “If it gets you through the next few hours and keeps you alive, I think it’s worth the risk.”

“Thea is worth the risk,” Billy said as he held out his hand. He took the pill and knocked it back without another word.

“So tell it to me straight,” Kyle said. “Is this a skirt you’re chasing with Thea? A conquest to get Eric all riled up? If so, it’s working like a charm.”

Billy let his bear growl in response. “It’s not like that.”

Kyle shook his head with a sigh. “Shit. So it’s like
that
. That might be worse.”

“If, by
that
, you mean that my bear is saying she’s my mate, then yes.” It felt good finally to say the words out loud.

“You don’t ever think the bear might be wrong?” Kyle asked.

“If you believe the shit they tell us when we grow up, the animal is never wrong. Not about stuff like that.” Billy wondered if Kyle was asking for a specific reason or just simple curiosity. “You upped security like I asked?”

“Yes,” Kyle said. “Everyone who buys a ticket is going to have to have their fingerprint scanned for all known clan alliances. We’re not letting in anyone who has an Osten clan association, save for any that might come with Joshua.”

“I ought to just pick off his ass before the fight even starts,” Billy said.

“And lose face for yourself and your alpha in front of four hundred shifters? That seems unwise.”

“This whole honor code that happens between clans is a tradition that I think we should all agree that we can lose,” Billy said.

Kyle shrugged. “That’s part of what we’re trying to do here. We don’t want to abide by the old ways. I think we’ve made that pretty apparent.”

“Some rules are worth keeping,” Billy replied. He had to admit that he was curious about this particular Urban Dweller more than the others. Kyle had enrolled in the Army and was drafted just a few weeks after graduating from prep school. Billy knew that it wasn’t that strange. Kyle’s father had been a five-star admiral and served a top post in the recent administration. What was odd was thinking how a man who had come from that kind of background and spent fifteen years in service to the country, had come home and gotten tangled up with Eric and Tony in their illegal dealings.

“It just goes to show that we need to make new ones that make sense for the way the world is now,” Kyle said. “We don’t need to join forces. We need to just understand the rules of engagement. Lukas has nothing to fear from us if he’d just leave us be.”

“I don’t think he’ll be able to do that,” Billy said.

“Then, at some point, things will end up being less than friendly.” Kyle’s response had a note of finality to it that Billy had feared ever since booking his ticket to Copper City.

“Okay. I guess that’s that,” Billy said.

Kyle gave him a brisk nod. There was a knock on the door, and Tony entered the room. He looked out of place in his three-piece suit. Tony would likely follow in his father’s footsteps one day. Tony’s father was a senator who was serving his tenth term in the administration.

“People are starting to arrive,” Tony said.

Kyle pulled out a roll of boxing tape, and Billy held out his hands. As Kyle began to wrap them, Tony started to give Billy the rundown.

“I’ve watched footage from the last four fights that had shifters who we believe were related in one way or another to the Osten clan,” Tony said. He saw Billy’s raised eyebrows. “We tape all the matches. Sometimes we’ve found that a day or two later, a sore loser will try to challenge the match. That stopped pretty quickly once they realized that we catch it all on video. Usually, they tried to do something dirty, and they get called on it. Automatic disqualification from any future shifter matches here at Urban Dwellers.”

“You run a first-rate operation here,” Billy said, not able to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“I’m surprised you’re interested in any tips at all. From what I know, you’ve fought more than your fair share of shifters. In fact, I’d say the wolf was your most common opponent. You didn’t have any problems then. Of course, you didn’t have the Greyelf legacy bloodline to worry about then, did you?”

Billy wasn’t surprised that the men knew about his past. It wasn’t something that he had exactly tried to keep hidden, but it wasn’t anything he publicized either. It was something that a man like Sheriff Monroe had considered an asset. But before he had been able to take the council member job, Markus had sat him down and had a long talk about his past before affirming his appointment. Billy understood then why Sheriff Monroe had been so insistent about therapy. It proved to Markus that he was a changed man.

“It’s been quite a while since I’ve done anything like this. I’m rusty,” he said.

“And Joshua is new,” Tony said. “The earliest read I can get on when he made his transition was a little more than six months ago. He’s going to be brash and excitable. Think about how you were six months after your first phase, and multiply that by psychotic.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” Billy said grimly. “So any idea who sired him?”

“There are more than a few old-timers out there who probably would have done it for him at the word Greyelf,” Tony said. “The Osten clan isn’t as well-organized as it used to be. I think since Lukas came out with his kumbaya ‘all shifters love each other, come join me’ bullshit, a lot of the newer generation have been moving toward him.”

“Maybe some more good will come out of this then.”

“That doesn’t help you at the moment. You know now the effect that a scratch can have. You need to do everything you can to avoid his teeth,” Kyle said.

One of the bindings bit into his skin harder than he expected, and Billy let out a low growl of pain. “Easy does it, there,” he said.

“It’s not like they’re going to be in place for long,” Kyle said. “But maybe it can save you from anything more than a couple more flesh wounds. You don’t have the luxury of time or trying to wear him down. You have to go for the clincher, and shut him down at your earliest opportunity.”

“Got that,” Billy said.

“Our security check should be able to keep out any lurkers from the Osten Clan. We’re going to offer them free drinks in the VIP lounge if they show up,” Tony said.

Billy looked at him with another raised eyebrow. “You really think that’s a good idea? How do you know that isn’t their plan all along? Get a nice big group together and then storm the arena?”

“We’ve got other measures in place if something like that were to happen. Don’t sweat it,” Tony said with a smirk as he and Kyle exchanged a look.

There was something that Billy was missing, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He was starting to feel the effects of whatever it was that Kyle had given him. It felt as if he had an ice bath dumped into his veins, which normally would have freaked him out, but in this instance it took the boil in his blood down to a controllable level.

“Has Joshua gotten here yet?” Billy asked. He wondered if the first time he was going to see the man again would be in the ring.

“He sent very explicit arrival instructions,” Tony said. “He knows about our garage that is normally reserved only for top level VIPs who want to enter and exit the building without anyone seeing them. He’s going to come in through that entrance.”

“Why don’t we just grab him in the garage?” Billy asked.

“He’s prepared for that.” Tony pulled out his phone and pulled up something on the display. Then he turned it so that Billy could see it.

It was a close-up of Joshua’s face with the play symbol covering it. Tony hit the button so that the video played.

“My name is Joshua Bailey. I’m a wolf shifter, and I was recently attacked and wrongly accused by Sheriff William Miller of the Greyelf Grizzly Clan. I’ve challenged the sheriff to a shifter fight at Urban Dwellers tonight to clear my name once and for all. The match will be broadcast live, and if I don’t make it to the ring, you’ll know why. The sheriff and his alpha Lukas Kasper, have harassed me and smeared my name so nowhere I go is safe. But none of what they say about me is true, and I’m tired of hiding in the shadows. I hope you’ll watch me take matters into my own hands. I refuse to kowtow to a society that doesn’t fit with what shifters believe anymore. Join me, and all of the new Alpha Dogs Clan, tonight as we send a message to Lukas Kasper, and everyone in the world.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Billy said.

“I think the more relevant thing here is that he named his newly formed clan, Alpha Dogs,” Eric sneered as he walked into the room without knocking. “Yep, we’ve been forced into a live broadcast feed of the match on the internet. This shit has already gone viral.”

“Shifter matches are illegal,” Billy sputtered.

“An hour ago, my father called me to let me know that legislation was introduced to legalize shifter matches across the country as a newly recognized sport,” Tony said. “They’re using this supposed smear campaign as their platform for being able to fight back against all the existing clans that they’re saying have been trying to snuff those that oppose them out of existence.”

“Has the world gone crazy?” Kyle asked.

“No, it’s all being driven by one man,” Billy said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Tony said. “This guy has some pretty powerful allies if he was able to pull these kinds of strings.”

“He was nothing more than the puppet the last time,” Billy said. He stood up. “Well, I guess that means pouncing on him before he enters the ring is off the table.”

“If it was ever really on the table,” Kyle said.

“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Billy said. He looked at Kyle. “You going to be my second?” Every shifter match gave the opponents the option to have a second outside the ring to offer tips and guidance and patch up any wounds that were more serious in-between rounds.

“I can do that,” Kyle said. “We should finish getting you ready.”

“Eric, a word?” Billy asked. He cocked his head toward the corner of the room. Eric looked annoyed but moved toward the place where Billy indicated.

“What?” Eric said. “You going to tell me that my stepsister is your fated mate now?”

Billy blinked and decided that it wasn’t the best time to broach that particular topic. “Thea told me she wants to sit ringside.”

“Over my dead body,” Eric said. “She’ll sit in the suite with Alex.”

“I told her the same thing, but she was rather insistent,” Billy said.

“I can stay with Alex in the suite,” Tony said. Billy wanted to roll his eyes. It was impossible to have a private conversation in a small room filled with a bunch of shifters. “You can sit with her ringside, Eric.”

Eric growled. “I have no idea what the fuck she sees in you.”

“That’s progress, at least,” Billy said with a smirk. Then his voice turned serious. “If something happens to me, just don’t let her watch. Okay? I don’t think I could stand that.”

He thought he saw something soften in Eric’s expression, but then it was gone. He gave a curt nod and then he strode out of the room. Billy motioned to Kyle to keep adding the binding to his hands. He needed every bit of advantage he could get to keep away from Joshua’s teeth.

Thirty minutes later, the volume outside the room had increased to the point where Kyle and Billy had to raise their voices to talk to each other. Luckily, Kyle wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, and Billy didn’t have anything to say. His nerves had ratcheted up several notches, and he just hoped that the additional security precautions they had taken were enough to keep Thea and Alex out of harm’s way.

There was a knock on the door just as a light above the door flickered to green.

“It’s time,” Kyle said. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for the fight of my life? Every day,” Billy said. He felt the adrenaline begin to flow through his body. His bear was just below the surface, having been awakened by all the noise in the arena outside.

“Ready or not, here comes the bear.”