H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (11 page)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“They died in a car accident, along with my
sister.”

“Josiah, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t know, don’t worry about it.”

“No, I pressured you into telling me about
it.”

“You didn’t pressure me.” I jumped up and
sat on my hood. “I wanted to tell you about it. Really.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I don’t talk about it much, if ever.
I just felt as if you are someone I can...” I shrugged, “I can open
up to, I guess.”

“I am, Josiah. I want you to know that.”

I hesitated and then decided to tell her.
“It was our senior year. I was on my way home from the gym, and I
got a call from Tommy. Tommy had been dating my sister. He got the
call first, since his was the last number my sister had called on
her cell. He told me that they had been in a terrible car accident
on the 91 Freeway, and all three were at the hospital. I remember
just dropping my phone and flooring it to the hospital. They were
dead before I’d got there. All three of them.”

Lena covered her face with her hands. “Oh my
God, Josiah. I am so sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t hear about
this in high school.”

“You didn’t hear about it because I didn’t
tell anybody. I didn’t tell a single person in high school. To be
honest, this is the first time I’ve ever talked about it.”

“But surely you and Tommy talked about
it.”

I shook my head.

“You haven’t talked to anybody about
it?”

I shook my head again.

“Never?”

“Never.” I said. “Not one time.”

“Wow, that’s pretty heavy. Why me? Why
now?”

“I just felt safe enough to tell you.”

Lena reached over and held my hand. She had
tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Lena. I’m all right. It was a
while ago.”

Lena let go of my hand. She then got up on
the hood and sat next to me. She rested her head on my shoulder,
and we sat there in silence for a little while. I appreciated the
silence. I felt particularly comfortable around Lena. She had a
gentle way that was being masked by a tough female exterior.

I sat back on the hood and laid on my back.
“The sky is spectacular. The stars look phenomenal tonight.”

Lena leaned back and cuddled into me. It was
nice. For the first time in my life, I felt secure. I felt a
release come over my body and tears drip from my eyes. I didn’t
make a sound. This moment was perfect. This woman was perfect. She
was these things and... she wasn’t mine. The thought of Yari—Yari
naked—swam into my mind.

God, had that actually happened tonight?
What would that be called anyway, a ménage à quatre?

I didn’t know, but I did feel weird lying
there with Lena and soaking in her tender touch when I had been
with not just one, but three women just a few hours earlier.

Anyway, we eventually got back to the party,
and when I pulled in, Atticai, Yari, and the guys seemed to be
waiting for us.

I opened the door and got out of my truck,
expecting the worst. Lena got out on the passenger side. Atticai
walked right up to me, looming over me like Lurch from the Addams
Family, only paler.

“Josiah, when did you get here?” Atticai
asked.

“Huh?” I asked surprised. “I saw you
earlier.”

“You did?” Atticai walked up to me and put
his hand on my shoulder and stared into me. Yes, into me. It
appeared he was trying to look deep into my soul. Then again, maybe
he honestly could. Maybe vampires were telepathic. Or maybe I was
just losing my mind. Anyway, he did this staring thing for a while,
looking at me intently with zero expression on his face.
Eventually, he nodded and smiled.

“We’re all good here,” Atticai said, to whom
exactly, I’m not sure. “Hey, Josiah, do you mind taking Lena home?
We’ll take Yari back.”

“Um, sure, no problem,” I said.

Yari walked up to me and gave me a long,
seductive hug. “You had quite a night,” she said. “The girls and I
had some fun with you and apparently you still needed a little
dessert.” Yari glanced over at Lena, perhaps implying something had
happened between us.

“Nothing happened, Yari,” Lena responded.
“We just went for a drive. We weren’t going to wait around for you
guys to finish whatever it was that you were doing.”

“Oh, you know what we were doing, Lena.”
Yari smiled rather sadistically at Lena. Yari then turned to me and
planted a long, passionate kiss on my mouth. I was stunned. I
didn’t resist, and decided to go with it.

“And there it is! Territory marked!” Wyatt
said, laughing.

Atticai smiled at me and simply said, “Be
careful, Josiah.”

Atticai then kissed Lena lightly on top of
her head, and I had to admit that I now looked at their whole
relationship differently now that I knew they hadn’t slept
together. There was, in fact, something majorly asexual about
them.

I said goodbye to the rest of the pale-faced
gang and Lena and I got back into my truck and got out of there.
She was asleep by the time we hit the freeway. I looked over at her
quite a few times and just stared at her face. She seemed so
peaceful, so innocent. She certainly didn’t belong in that
world.

And what was that world? I didn’t know. And
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

An hour later, I dropped her off. I got out
of the truck and walked her to her front door. “I enjoyed talking
to you,” I said.

“Even if I am just dessert?”

“You’re more than dessert. You’re an
eight-course meal.”

She laughed. “Oh, really?”

I hugged Lena tightly. After a few seconds,
I loosened up to let her go, but Lena held me even tighter. So, I
continued holding her. We stood out there and hugged for another
five minutes. It wasn’t a sexual hug. As a matter of fact, it was
the opposite. It was just two people who had found each other. Two
people from completely different backgrounds who discovered they
have a true connection. Finally, we released. As we did so, I
kissed her forehead.

“Thank you, Josiah. Thank you for
everything.”

Lena went inside her house, and I stood
there and stared at the front door. What a night. I had sex with
three women and fell in love with a fourth.

Chapter Fifteen

The next week was all about preparing for my
fight with Tommy. I tried to keep my mind off Lena, but I had never
genuinely felt these kinds of emotions before. I knew I couldn’t
deal with them right now because it would only be a distraction. I
needed to do what paid the bills.

On the Friday before the fight, we had our
weigh-in in Anaheim. I easily made weight, as did Tommy. Tommy
looked surprised to see how in-shape I appeared in such a short
amount of time.

I didn’t hate Tommy, and this was going to
be the hardest part about the fight. If I beat him, Tommy would
lose a chance at the title. If I lost, it would be an enormous
setback for me, one that I might never come back from.

In the sport, you’re only given a couple of
shots to prove yourself to the Commission. And if you get a chance
to fight someone of Tommy’s caliber, well, that someone needed to
take advantage of it. And that someone, of course, was me. I needed
to knock out Tommy.

It was the night before the fight, and I was
going to bed earlier. I went to my room and found Daphne sitting at
my window. She turned her head slightly and looked at me with what
appeared to be a concern in her sharp eyes. Or maybe I just needed
sleep, since I was seriously exhausted. I went over to the window,
bent down, and stared at her. I looked deep into her hawk eyes,
which I found oddly comforting. Daphne dipped her head in a seeming
nod, as if to say: “You worked your butt off, buddy, now go take
care of business.”

“Don’t worry about me, Daphne,” I said.
“I’ll make both of us proud.”

And with that, Daphne flew off. I crawled
into bed and was out cold in seconds.

* * *

The next day, I took things easy. I met up
with my trainer, Mike, at 4:00 p.m. My fight was scheduled to go at
6:30. It was the third fight on the card.

In the locker room, Mike and I went over a
few things.

“Just keep your head in the fight. If you do
that, you’ll beat him.” Mike said to me, while he taped my
knuckles.

We did our usual pre-fight routine, practice
moves, going over pointers, stretching and loosening up, and before
I knew it, it was time.

Mike and I walked out of the tunnel. I had
to admit it was weird, not having Tommy in my ring corner for
support. It had been the next best thing to having my dad, or an
older brother. I walked out into the arena. Tommy was already in
the ring. His eyes were locked on me. I refused to look at him. I
didn’t have to do that to get psyched up. I would let him exhaust
himself, mad-dogging me.

The announcer introduced both of us, and I
headed to my corner. I looked into the crowd. There were about
fifteen hundred people in the stands. I scanned the crowd to see if
anyone I knew was out there. Sure enough, sticking out like a sore
seven-foot thumb was Atticai. In fact, the whole gang was with him.
Surprisingly, Yari and Lena were sitting next to each other. I made
eye contact with Atticai. Atticai pointed to Tommy and drew his
finger over his throat. Was he serious? I didn’t enter the ring to
hurt anyone. At least not permanently.

I looked at Yari—and, man, she looked sexy
as hell. I could see her red lipstick from the ring. Lena looked on
with concern. Our eyes met, and she smiled. That was what I
needed.

As I stood in the corner, Mike rubbed my
shoulders and said in my ear, “This is it, Josiah. Tonight, Tommy
is not your friend. Tonight, he is someone who wants to rip off
your head. No mercy. Strike first and strike hard!”

The bell rang, and Tommy and I both ran out
into the middle of the ring and hit gloves.

We circled one another for about 30 seconds,
both trying to find an opening in each other’s stance. I noticed
that Tommy would lose his focus about every 10 seconds, as if
trying to regroup his thoughts or something. Weird what you notice
when you’re fighting someone, but you always look for any advantage
you can find. So, I counted off ten, and sure enough, his eyes
dropped a little, and I swung a hard right hand that landed on the
side of his face. He stumbled backwards a couple of feet.

“Watch his right hand!” Tommy’s coach yelled
out.

Too late, I thought.

That right hand would have been enough to
lay out anyone during a street fight. Tommy wasn’t just anyone. He
was strong as hell, and I was going to need more than one
punch.

He shook his head and came back at me. Then
we circled each other again. Once more, I counted off ten seconds
and threw a five-punch combination that ended with an uppercut that
landed directly on Tommy’s chin. Tommy fell to the mat. I jumped on
top of him and landed a series of punches. As I did so, Tommy
grabbed my knee and was attempting a submission move. I knew
better. I kicked it out. As I did, I hit my nose on Tommy’s right
thigh. It blurred my vision, so I decided to jump up and go back to
a neutral standing position.

I looked up and saw that we were three
minutes into the five-minute round. This was already the longest
professional fight I’d ever had. We circled each other some more.
Tommy’s attention was now in overdrive. He stopped whatever he was
doing earlier. Smart move for him. Now, I was going to have to
strike him without an opening. I lunged forward and threw a
powerhouse right. Tommy blocked it with his arms. He winced, which
meant that just blocking my punches was going to hurt him and wear
him down. Good for me. And so, that’s was what I did. I came in
throwing powerhouse rights and lefts. Tommy couldn’t keep up with
the barrage of punches. I saw an opening below and kicked Tommy in
his right thigh, sending his body spinning to the ground.

I heard someone in the crowd yell: “Finish
him off.” My instincts, of course, were to do just that. I jumped
on top of him and wildly threw rights and lefts. Tommy’s eyes were
rolling back. Why the hell weren’t they stopping the fight? Did
they want me to kill him? I slowed down and pretended to be
exhausted. Those assholes weren’t going to stop the fight because
they didn’t think that I was capable of knocking him out. I looked
down at Tommy.
“Don’t stop, Josiah.” Tommy said to me, his mouth guard muffling
the words, but I understood them. “You’re not even breathing hard.”
I held him down until I heard the bell. I went back to the
corner.

Mike yelled at me. “What the hell, Josiah.
Why did you stop?!”

“I was tired,” I said.

“You won that round. If you win this round,
you have it. Just don’t get soft!”

I sat there thinking about the last round.
Then, something dawned on me. Tommy hadn’t thrown a single punch.
Tommy was reluctant to hurt me. Tommy was refusing to punch me. The
bell went off.

Tommy and I circled each other. “You’re
going to have to punch me, Tommy. You can’t beat me unless you
punch me. You need to forget who we are. This is your fight. This
is your career. You can go toe-to-toe with me, but you will have to
strike, also.”

Tommy nodded—then lunged forward and threw a
hay maker. It landed across my face. I stumbled back.

I grinned, despite the pain. “There you go,
Tommy. Now it’s a fight.”

Tommy and I traded punches for almost three
minutes. My arms were heavy. I was getting pretty exhausted, and
for just a millisecond, I down let my guard. That was all that
Tommy needed. He sprung in and grabbed my legs. I fell to the mat.
He whipped around me. He was trying to get me in his famous
front-choke submission. Luckily, Mike and I practiced defending
this, but, damn, Tommy got a good hold on me. Tommy was strong.
Stronger than I remembered. He locked his forearm under my neck and
had it wedged in tight. I tried to fight it off but, I couldn’t. I
couldn’t breathe.