Page 44 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
There were three more rounds. Ren lost them all, but none were easy for Jax. The alpha had to work for every take-down, every control, every submission. And in the last round, when Jax tried a clinch, Ren drove a knee into his thigh that drew a growl and slipped under his arm.
“Damn, blondie.” Jax was out of breath. He was sweating just as much as Ren. He slumped down onto the tatami with his legs spread and his arms on his knees. “Your instructor knew what he was doing.”
Ren collapsed beside him.
His chest was heaving up and down at a brutal pace. His quads were trembling. His hands were red and swollen beneath thebandages, and a bruise was forming on his left forearm where he’d blocked the last hook. It felt good.
The word struck him as so strange that he repeated it in his head as if it were another language. Good. It felt good. His muscles were shattered, the air scratching at his throat, his heart pounding against his ribs as if it wanted to burst out. All of that was his. He had chosen all of that.
“Tomorrow at seven,” Jax said.
Ren turned his head. Jax held his gaze, and beneath the sweat and heavy breathing was something Ren hadn’t seen on an alpha’s face in a long time: respect.
“At seven.”
The kitchen smelled of beef stew and fresh bread. Ren sat on the stool at the far end of the island, the one furthest from the door, just as he had done since the first night. Habit. Control. Always knowing which way to make a getaway. Jax was already devouring his portion with fervor. Rocco hadn’t shown up. Neither had Zev. Brody walked in through the side door with the phone pressed to his ear, hung up without saying goodbye, and served himself a plate without looking at anyone. He sat down across from Ren. And then he saw it. Brody’s spoon stopped halfway between the plate and his mouth.
His gray eyes, rimmed with red from the lack of sleep that Ren was recognizing as chronic, fixed on Ren’s left cheek. Right where the skin, thin and pale, showed a purplish bruise the size of a plum. Brody set the spoon down on the table. The metallic clang against the wood sounded like a gunshot in the kitchen’s silence.
“What’s on your face?”
Ren instinctively brought his hand to his cheek and then regretted the gesture because it gave away that he knew exactly what Brody was talking about.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Brody rested both open hands on the table. His knuckles were white.
“What is that?”
“A bruise.”
“I can see it’s a bruise. I want to know who gave it to you.”
Ren shrugged with an indifference he didn’t have to fake, because he was actually proud of every bruise Jax’s training had left him with. They were medals. Proof that he could still stand his ground.
“Jax and I have been training, you know that. Hand-to-hand combat. These things happen.”
The silence that followed grew increasingly tense. Jax, who until then had been eating with the carefree ease of someone who fears nothing in this world, looked up from his plate. He chewed, swallowed, and then looked at Brody.
“We were practicing, Kovac. He did well. He almost took me down.”
Brody said nothing. He pushed his chair back with a horrible screech against the tile floor. He stood up. He circled the island in three strides. The scent of raisins and walnuts that normally enveloped Ren like a warm blanket turned acrid, laced with something metallic that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The punch connected with Jax on the cheekbone. The impact was sharp, resounding, and brutal. Jax and the stool fellbackward, and the alpha landed on his back on the kitchen floor with a thud that made the glasses in the drainer rattle. Ren jumped to his feet, his heart racing, his hands clenched on the edge of the island.
And Jax laughed.
Not a nervous or forced laugh. A deep, belly laugh that came from deep within him, lying on his back on the cold tiles with a reddened cheek and his arms spread wide. He laughed as if Brody had told him the best joke of his life.
“Seriously, Kovac?”
Brody was standing over him. He was breathing with his jaw clenched. The flares of his nostrils were quivering. Ren could see his pulse throbbing in his neck, fast and violent.
“I told you not to touch him.”
“It was practice.” Jax was still lying there, not bothering to get up. He was smiling with blood on his teeth. “The kid needs to train. Or would you rather that the next time someone chases him, he doesn’t remember how to smash their face in?”
Brody opened his mouth to reply, but the kitchen door swung open and Rocco walked in with a paper bag under his arm. He stopped a step inside the doorway. He looked at Jax on the floor. He looked at Brody, standing there with clenched fists. He looked at Ren, frozen by the island. He assessed the scene with the same expression as someone who finds a puddle of coffee on the countertop.
“You guys need to sort out your own shit.”
