HerCreed-ARE-epub (7 page)

“Uhh,” he said.

She quickly breathed him in and then let go. “Sorry. Just super excited, and nobody else to pounce on.” She played it off as no big deal. Just because she still would have hugged him if there had been a stadium full of people to choose from meant nothing. Next to nothing? Whatever. Semantics. Sort of. “Where do we start?” She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet barely able to contain her excitement.

“You have to pick your Gladi-Raper name so we can build a persona around you.”

She’d been thinking about it for—years, but she had something to ask first before she chose. “Can I ask a question before I tell you what I’m thinking?”

He nodded once, the muscles in his jaw already working.

“Why Gladiators?”

“Simple. That concept is very similar. Train under different houses. Ludus. Take on a new name. Fight to win honor, glory and free-for-all sex. It’s dirty and animalistic and hot. Winner take all.”

“Sex and violence,” she offered.

“Exactly. We each fight for sport. Distraction. It’s delicious. Bloody. So, what do you want to be called?”

“I. Am. Spartacus.” She danced around him and yelled it again. Jumping up and down, she laughed, happier than she’d been in a very long time.

He almost smiled.

Almost, but just glared harder at her instead.

She finally stopped. “So. Can I have it?” She batted her eyelashes at him again and waited.

He tilted his head a bit to the side, staring at her.

Felt like inside her.

She fought the need to fidget.

“Why?”

“Why did I pick the name? Or why should you let me have it?”

“Both. And I want the truth. You give me anything less, and I’ll name you the Trash Collector.”

That
look in his eye. He meant it.

She nibbled her lip and thought very carefully about her words. Wanting to be honest was tempered with her need to protect herself. And her past. “He was captured by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He fought for his freedom for all of the right reasons, and a few he had no control over. He never forgot what he was fighting for. Not ever. And she never lost herself no matter how many people tried to take her self-identity from her. Him, I meant. From him.”

Looking at the mat, she tried desperately to keep her emotions in check. Attempting not to say too much didn’t work at all. Glancing to one side and then the other, she made sure he was the only one aware of her loss of composure. Him seeing was bad enough. He’d probably use it as an excuse not to fight her since she was being a total girl about nothing but a name.

“And?” he prompted.

She wiped her bangs off her forehead with both hands. Surreptitiously getting rid of a tear that had slipped free was purely coincidental. “And what?” Getting any more emotional did nothing for her. Wanting to slink away and hide from his all too seeing gaze sounded much more along her lines of a good time.

“And why should I let you have it?”

“Easy. No one else will fight harder to earn it. No one else here has wanted to be a Raper longer than I have. And no one else will put their all into making you proud.”

Fuck
. Could she not shut up? Rubbing her lips together, she waited, determined not to say another word.

His eyebrows pulled low. “And how long have you wanted to fight in The Cage? I don’t remember seeing that in your dossier.”

“A long time. A very, very long time.” Warmth spread inside her chest as he stared at her. “I actually can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be here.” Very true. Evasive, but very true.

For a few moments longer, he studied her, and then finally he nodded.

“Umm… So is that an,
I understand and you’re ridiculous, suck it up girl
? Or an,
I’d be honored for you to have that name to represent the Rapers
? Just so I can decipher your nods in the future.”

His lips twitched, and he actually gave into the impulse to smile.

Fuck, he wrecked her when he grinned like that.

“How about, the name is yours, and we’ll see how the rest falls into place.”

Tears stung her eyes again, but she laughed and kept them from falling. “Deal!”

He either knew how close her emotions were to the surface or was completely oblivious and moved right onto the next topic. “Are you stuck on your hair color or do you want to change it?”

“Uhh… Hmm…” It came so close on the heels of her reunion with her feels, it took her a minute to process what she thought. “I’ve always kind of wanted to be a blonde. Never wanted to do it myself though. Afraid I’d end up looking like Oscar the Grouch.” She made a horrified face. “Or all my hair would fall out. Red!”

He snickered. “I’ve got a friend at one of the salons in town. She’s awesome. If you want to go with blonde highlights or something, we could make that happen.”

She nodded once. “Sounds scary slash fun.”

“Done. And length? I’d say—”

“Long. Short hair, and I will never meet. I think we’re allergic to each other. Like opposites attracting, but not.”

“I was gonna say, keep it long. Looks good on you. But you’re going to have to do something with it when you fight.”

“Agreed. Girls are hair pullers.”

“So are the guys if you get high enough in the rankings to fight some.”

“What about making it part of my entrance? One of the other female Rapers could come up and braid it for me. Pin it up. We could taunt the crowd a bit. Make out. Just a thought.”

He considered it for a minute, and then nodded. “And that was a,
yes, sounds hot
, nod in case you couldn’t decipher it.”

She smiled. “Appreciate the info.”

“Costume? Most of the Rapers go with Gladiator based themes. Not a requirement, but I like it better.”

“Me, too. I’d like super authentic. Leather bralet, or maybe even one that looks like metal. One shoulder piece. Mean looking. Forearm shields. Leather skirt that’s made up of panels. More show than actual cover. I’ll want to be able to still wear it with a strap-on when I’m fucking my prizes.” She bobbed her eyebrows at him and spoke with her hands, not needing any encouragement to discuss her costume. She knew exactly what she wanted. “And super high heels. Something that laces up my leg.”

“Gladi-Raper shoes.”

“Exactly.”

“And your female assistant could remove all of it down to a sports bra and boy shorts for you to fight in.” He looked over her shoulder as if he were working out all of the details in his head. “Her at your feet. Hot. Won’t be another fighter though. Don’t want any of the other girls looking submissive. Fucks with their image during their fights.”

“Oh, yeah. My bad. Didn’t even think of that.”

“No worries. I’ll bring someone in for it. Create quite the buzz when you have your own slave at your beck and call.” He looked thoughtful for a second, and then nodded. “Actually have the perfect person. She’s already friends with all the fighters, male and female, so everybody would be comfortable with her. People like her. She’s wicked dirty and would totally dig this. And completely submissive. You could do with her anything you wanted, and she’d thank you for it at the end.” With that he turned around and left the ring.

It almost sounded like he spoke from personal experience about her gonna-be slave girl, which made her want to vomit. So she tucked that into her never-gonna-think-about-it-again file. She walked to the edge and leaned on the ropes. “Hey, do you know who I’m fighting yet?”

“Her name’s Layla. And she’s an asshole.” He kept walking, pushed open a side door and paused. He looked back at her. “And just remember what they say.”

“Which is what?”

“You never forget your first.”

With a nod of his head, he was gone.

When the door slammed, the auditorium was eerily quiet, and her fatigue from earlier had all but vanished. Moving to the center of the ring, she threw a few punches at her soon-to-be rival.

“My first,” she whispered to the empty space. First fight, first asshole fucked—she didn’t know which he referred to. Didn’t care. There would be quite a few cherries popped in a few days, if she had anything to say about it.

“An asshole.” KC pictured her opponent on her knees, ass in the air, with KC’s strap on deep in her ass. Her clit tingled at the thought of taking her first victory fuck. “I can most definitely handle an asshole.”

Training.

She hadn’t just been training for a few weeks. Nor a few months. This night had been years in the making.

Hundreds and hundreds of days.

Thousands of hours.

Millions of heartbeats counting down to the moment she sat in the corner of The Cage with Creed at her back, his voice in her ear, telling her what she should do to plunder the woman facing off with her in the opposite corner.

Boomer told her the day before that Creed didn’t coach many of the Rapers anymore during the fights. Usually, he left that to Boomer, Jackal or Rage. Too busy growing the business, his attention was shanghaied in too many directions, and he didn’t want to fuck with a fighter’s focus so he stepped back.

But not with her.

She felt special and loved it.

And he was right.

Layla, whose fighting name was, The Torturer, was definitely an asshole.

KC had no clue how many bruises she was gonna sport the next day from the short redhead she’d been fighting. Her back was tight and she felt as though she’d pulled a muscle around a rib, and several of the hits she’d taken had ranged somewhere between unsportsmanlike and downright illegal. Even in their world. “She fights dirty.”

“Then stop toying with her and finish it.”

She halfway smiled and glanced over her shoulder at the man she wanted. Then she affixed her eyes on her target again. “What makes you think I’m playing with her?”

“I know how you move. I’ve studied how you fight the past few weeks. You’re a machine. Better than most. As if your ego needs another boost,” he muttered when she let him see her smirk. “I bet you’ve already picked apart each of her weak points and devised a handful of strategies on how to flip the odds in your favor.”

She smiled again, but didn’t turn around.

He held her shoulder and rubbed one of the tight muscles close to the top. “So I know you’re just fucking with her, and letting her think she has a chance. It’s an interesting ploy.”

Shaking her head, she stretched her neck and settled into the easy working relationship they’d seemed to find together the past few days. “It’s no ploy.”

“Tomato, tamato. Then what do you want to call it?”

“Her biggest problem? She’s too cocky. Thinks she can’t be beaten, and she’d gotten sloppy. So, I call it a derivation on the underdog property. Everyone loves a story of triumph. None of the people that paid to see the fights tonight has any clue who I am. None. I’m a faceless girl who’s about to get her ass handed to her. Well, you know what I mean.” She paused for a second and studied the other woman. The ref for the evening stepped away from the ropes, signaling the last break was about to come to an end. “But, tonight. In a few minutes. They will all know who I am.”

They both stood, and KC found her focus.

“And who are you, Gladi-Raper?” Creed was so close his lips brushed her neck when he spoke.

“I. Am. Spartacus.”

A bell rang, and Creed held up her mouth guard, just as The Cage began its descent to enclose them in, again. “When you fuck her, I want you to make her squirt all over the ring. And I want every last person in this auditorium to hear her begging for you to make her come. Understand, little girl?”

Facing him, she gazed into his eyes and bit her lip. “Yes, Daddy.” Taking her mouth guard, she may have licked his thumb. Remove
may
and
have
.

Just as the metal lowered enough to cut off their contact, he growled. The sound was low enough only she could hear it over the roar of the crowd.

Stepping forward, she drug just a bit, giving everyone the impression she was tired.

That was actually correct. But she wasn’t physically exhausted. She was tired of holding back. Tired of trying to be something she wasn’t.

She was a Raper. One of the best they’d ever see. And the cocky redhead eyeing her from a couple feet away was about to meet her match.

Centering herself to only the other fighter, she blocked everything else out with laser-like precision as The Cage finished its descent, sealing them into the ring.

“Fighter ready?” the ref asked her.

She nodded.

“Fighter ready?” he asked Layla.

She snarled or some kind of approximation of an answer.

“And…
fight
!” The ref moved just far enough away to avoid Layla’s foot as it almost collided with his face.

The other woman was an aggressive fighter, which had served her well, but she left herself wide open for defensive measures and offensive tactics to gain the upper hand.

KC blocked the kick and slammed her fist into the woman’s upper thigh. The blow knocked her off balance, and she went down. Rolling with it, she ended up on the balls of her feet, charging KC again.

Punches came at her in rapid succession, but now, they lacked power and follow through.

KC more than filled the void. Every advantage she’d cataloged since the start of the fight, she employed to gain a quick advantage.

One, two, three. Each hit met KC’s intended targets, and the other woman yelled in frustration.

Layla rotated her hip too far when she kicked, giving KC the exact opportunity she’d been waiting for. Using a heel-hook, KC swept the feet out from under the other woman. It was a perfectly executed takedown, and the other woman’s expression was priceless. A little bit of awe and a whole lotta panic.

The woman tried to turn over, but KC followed her down, pinning her head between her legs. Trying to escape was futile. KC had never lost a match with another when she had her thighs wrapped around her opponent’s head.

Layla tried to get her hand up to loosen KC’s legs, but KC just grabbed her hand hard. Locking her arm with a bit of a twist at the end put the last nail in the other fighter’s coffin.