Bearing It All (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (18 page)

“Ralphie!” Marlin shouted. “Talk! Your lips, they move!”

“R – right, sorry, yeah, uh, we got three of them.” Ralphie had a pencil on the draft of the card, and was of course, trembling. “Kowalski, and The Butcher and—”

“I don’t give a shit who else,” Marlin said. “Crag’ll fight all three of them. Fuck it! Give these yodeling morons a show, huh?”

He slapped Crag on the back. As his short, repulsive owner’s hand thumped against his muscle, Crag tensed, wishing he could take Marlin on for once.
Hell, that’d be the best show I can imagine
, he thought, grinning inwardly.
Ring his neck, throw him around the cage...

He let his fantasy get away from him for a minute and started squeezing his hands together, imagining Marlin’s squishy, jelly-like head between them.

“What the hell is it with you and the grinning?” Marlin asked, stopping in his tracks. “You look like some kind of lovesick idiot. I need you to put on your killing face tonight, get me?”

“Killing...” Crag furrowed his brow again. “It’s just a fight though. If I give it my all, I’ll kill those guys. I’ll beat ‘em up, but I’m not gonna kill anyone.”

“You will if I tell you to,” Marlin snarled. He grabbed Crag’s shirt and yanked, forcing the big man to bend over.

Marlin’s breath was sweet with the cigars he chewed all day, and a little sour from the constant stream of whiskey that went down him. “You listen to me, Crag, and you listen good. I know all your secrets, right? I know all about the two hundred grand you owe me, and about how you threw a fuckin’ temper tantrum and ran away from football.”

Crag squinted, but stayed silent.

Marlin slapped him across the face, leaving a red mark, but no pain. “Don’t think I won’t drop you off the side of the world on our next trip. I’ll leave you in the middle of some nothing-ass town and you won’t have a penny to your name. I’ll ruin you, get it?”

“Yeah,” Crag said. “I get it.”

That time, when Crag smiled, it was because
he
was hatching a plan.

As Marlin stepped away, and Crag made his way back to the lockers where he was going to finish taping up and getting ready for the hell that was about to explode, he couldn’t help smiling.

He reached inside the breast pocket of his loose-hanging flannel and fished out his phone. His finger hovered over Violet’s number on the call log. He wanted to tell her he was thinking about her. He wanted to hear her voice again, just to calm his nerves a little.

In his life, his rage took him over plenty of times, but he’d never met anyone who could calm him down.

Until Violet.

Smiling, he put the phone back in his pocket.

There wasn’t any reason to hear her voice. He’d tease himself a little longer, Crag decided.

He took a deep, lung-filling breath.

It wasn’t even a question anymore. He thought about Violet, his little fox.

He’d chase her, because that’s what she wanted. But there wasn’t a chance in the world that he wasn’t going to catch her.

Again.

That thought – that one thought – brought such a calm serenity over Crag Morgan such that he’d never felt before. He had no idea what it was, why he felt it, or anything else. But he
did
know that he wasn’t ever going to lose the little fox.

No matter what it took.

Crag squeezed his fist. For some reason, he felt like he was going to enjoy tonight. He just hoped that when he started to see red that he could pull it back. He’d always been able to stop himself before, of course... but all it would take was one time, one glance, one word from Marlin at the wrong time, and...

Well, he preferred not to think of that. Once more, his finger hovered over the picture he’d snapped of Violet at his cousin’s apartment when she wasn’t looking. He touched it, and stared.

Her eyes, that curious, wonderful purplish-blue that had hooked him like a drug the first time he stared into them... the delicate line of her cheekbones, and the soft curves of her hips. He took a deep breath and willed his heart to stop pounding.

Then, he reminded himself that he’d be with her before long.

Before long, he’d hold her hand, he’d kiss her again, and they could make love under the stars, in her bed, in the car – he didn’t care. Maybe, Crag thought, maybe they could maybe someday curl up in a place they could call home.

He was getting ahead of himself, sure. But he knew it, and honestly, Crag didn’t care. He’d made up a whole life inside his head that was just for him and Violet. A perfect world where there were no Marlins to yell at him, where there was no anger to pound in his temples.

A world where he didn’t have to fight except if he wanted to go to the gym and spar a few rounds. The world he’d dreamed up was a world where he could finally let his guard down. Be vulnerable, be happy.

What was the world coming to? Crag scoffed a laugh and swept his hair back away from his face, tying it into a short ponytail. A werebear who’d rather be vulnerable and cuddle instead of fighting and bleeding and roaring?

Even though, at right that moment, Crag couldn’t figure out quite what had happened to his mean streak, he did know one thing – just thinking about Violet made him happier than he’d ever been. Touching her? Kissing her? Making love to her again?

He had to put that out of his mind if he was ever going to manage to fight tonight instead of grabbing the guy he was in the cage with and dancing.

At that, he laughed.
Laughed
. How long had it been? He couldn’t even remember.

––––––––

W
hen the audience started roaring, Crag felt like
Crag.
The old, comfortable feeling of rage bubbled up inside him. Crag hid in his anger, hid when he fought. He didn’t have to be anything – didn’t have to be anyone. Didn’t have to feel, he just had to exist.

But for him, the fights were easy. He wasn’t scared – hell, he hardly even knew what fear was.

That is, until he laid eyes on
her.

Violet, his little fox, the girl he had decided he wasn’t going to let get away. He’d done that too many times, thrown away too many chances. Not this one. Not the one that mattered most.

Grinding his teeth together, Crag remembered how her lips tasted when he kissed them, how the sweat on Violet’s chest felt running down his. He remembered the way his heart pounded in his chest the first time he saw her, and he remembered how much it hurt to have to leave her behind – even though it wasn’t forever.

It was like a piece of him got torn away. After their run through the forest, after kissing her again, after watching her climax and kissing her while she contracted on his fingers and whimpered... losing Violet was the only thing Crag... Ash... whoever he was, had ever really feared.

When he was alone, being quiet with his Violet, his heart was still. It didn’t burn, he felt no rage. Then, he was Ash. But right then, as he was waiting behind the slipshod velvet curtain that separated the lockers from the front of the house, he was alive with a whole different kind of peace.

He squeezed his hands until his huge knuckles popped. The tape underneath his thinly padded gloves squeaked a little more, but his habitual fist-clenching made sure it was ready to go.

Marlin – that sleazy, nasty, greaseball – was out in front of the house hyping up the crowd.

“Ya buncha country clowns!” the crocodile shouted into the mic with his fake accent. “You never... and I mean
never
seen anything like this.”

He always did this. Said it got the audience warmed up and mad. And then when they got mad they bought more beer, then when they bought more beer they bought more “shit from the nacho stand” as Marlin put it so nicely.

Slapping himself on either side of his face, he really
became
Crag. On the one hand he loved his parents for calling him something so perfect for his two careers – the first one in pro football that ended so badly, and now the one in the cage that was going so well. On the other, he hated that for everyone in the world except two people, one of whom was five years in the ground, “Crag” was all he was.

This was a weird night. A really weird one. There was no one in the organization anywhere near as big or as powerful as Crag, but then again, there weren’t any other werebears. He’d managed to keep that particular secret between him and Marlin for all the years they’d been together, but... one day it was going to slip.

But tonight he was going on twice. He was opening the night which never happened, ever. Marlin never wanted to play his trump card right away. But tonight, he wanted “explosions” as he put it.

Tonight was the sort of night Crag hated the most, though he tried to put it out of his mind. The fights were in Kentucky tonight, North Carolina tomorrow. That’s a hell of a jaunt, and so whenever they did this in a town Marlin was relatively sure they wouldn’t be going back to, it was “fire sale” time.

Marlin gave local kids a cut of the money they brought in to steal wallets, pick pocket people, nab purses from underneath bleachers and bring him credit cards. Whatever didn’t get spent at the concessions or on beer or on crooked gambling schemes run by Marlin-employed bookies got taken by... being taken.

Crag hated it, but he’d never seen any reason to get out of the life. For a long time he just quit caring. Waking up in the morning left him with the taste of ashes in his mouth.

After Violet? Those ashes were gone, replaced by the taste of her lips, the scent of her hair. It was the first time in years that he had hope in his heart instead of anger.

After he flew into a rage and destroyed the entire team’s locker room, Crag had just run away from football. His agent kept trying to get him to come back for a couple of months – he kept saying that sort of thing just happens – but Crag wanted out anyway. He wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want microphones stuck in his face, or questions thrown at him like he was a gorilla at a zoo.

He wanted to be back in Jamesburg, in a quiet little house, on the side of his mountain. That’s all he wanted.

Except now, there was something else.

Some
one
else.

Crag wished he could see her. He wished that he could tromp out into that cage, feel the blood rush through his body, swelling his muscles and his ego. Then he’d stomp the shit out of whomever it was he was thrown up against. One guy, two guys, six, he didn’t care. He’d wade through an army if he had to if it meant he got to have his Violet.

It was stupid, he thought. Stupid to pine over some girl. But god
damnit
he felt like he had a real connection. One he hadn’t exactly had with anyone since his brother... but this was even more, even crazier. But still, he couldn’t stop himself.

He realized with a gulp that the next time he saw those gorgeous, pale, half-yellow eyes, those perfect hips, those beautiful curves, that he was going to tell her he loved her. If that wasn’t enough of a chase, he didn’t know what was.

Crag intertwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles by squeezing them together.

“Oh my God, look!” Marlin was shouting. “There’s a kid with a mullet halfway down his back! I ain’t seen one of those since the 80s!”

A round of boos and hisses was his reward. Something hit the side of the cage – probably a cup or a thrown beer bottle. Crag always thought the cage wasn’t really so necessary for the fights, instead it was just to keep Marlin safe from the audiences.

Still, they ate it up, and he wasn’t ever going to quit.

He saw the hand signal. Marlin had got them pissed enough that it was time for a frothing, screaming, rampage of a fight. He wiggled his fingers behind his back.

The house lights all shut off at once.

“And now,” Marlin crooned. “Something you’ll
never
see again. A man so big, so strong, that he’s pulled trees out of the ground. I know because I watched. But first, his opponents. Yeah, I said opponents, like more than one.”

Crag popped his thumbs inside his fists. He was ready. Even if he didn’t like everything surrounding the fight, this was a release he needed, one that he craved nightly. As much as he hated Marlin and everything else going on around the promotion, he had to admit to himself that he loved this part.

And no matter what, he’d be looking out in the audience and pretending he could see Violet.

Three names were shouted over the PA – The Butcher, Craig James, and a new guy called the Juggernaut that Marlin picked up on the road, in a little town outside of Stillwater.

Crag peeked out of his curtain and was pretty impressed with the new fighter. He was big, had a shaved-bald head covered with tattoos. He wasn’t
big
big, not compared to Crag, but still, he was way more impressive than the other two.

“But now,” Marlin began, winding up his voice like the goddamn carny he was. “Crrrrrrraaaaag Morgan!”

Crag narrowed his vision and flared his nostrils. He was ready, and it was going to feel good... but he wasn’t just fighting for himself. He had someone else in his mind. Someone he wished was watching him.

“And yes,” Marlin shouted, as Crag pushed open the curtain and raised his hands in the air before roaring so loudly everyone in the arena went quiet at the same time. “His name really is... Crag.”

*

T
he first two went down fast. The Butcher was out of shape. He’d been drinking too much, eating too many pancakes instead of pounding the heavy bag. He was never a match for Crag anyway.

Within thirty seconds of the bell sounding, Butcher came in hard. Crag juked left, and planted a fist in the little guy’s side. Butcher went for a head-butt to Crag’s nose. He caught just enough of Crag to make him bleed but nowhere near enough to hurt.

“Why do you keep trying that?” Crag said under his breath as he grabbed Butcher in close and planted a knee in his stomach. “You
always
try that.”

“Fuck you!” the little guy yelled. He smelled like whiskey. Crag liked whiskey well enough, but he hated it when it came out of people’s pores. He shot a glance to the audience, wishing he saw Violet, but instead caught an elbow in the side for his trouble.