Ladies Prefer Champagne Alpha Male Romance Mega Bundle (15 page)
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Authors: Champagne Jackson
“Those are the ones to watch out for.”
“The ones who train abroad?”
“No,” Kristoph said with a grin. “The ones who don’t look like much.”
My heart leapt into my throat at the thought of Kristoph getting hurt. I grabbed onto his hands and pressed them both to my stomach.
“Be safe, love,” I whispered. “Remember… You’re not just fighting for yourself now… And you’re not just fighting for me…”
“I know,” he replied, his eyes gazing hard and long into mine. “I’m fighting for him too.”
“That’s right,” I whispered, pulling him in for one last, hot kiss. I loved tasting his tongue, tasting his lips, feeling his passion… It gave me chills.
A makeshift ring had been assembled in the bar. It wasn’t much but it would function. The bookies had taken bets and just about everyone was betting against Kristoph—of course, he was a no-name stranger and here were two seasoned fighters going against him. Who wouldn’t take that bet?
But that was just the way we liked it.
The first fighter came out strong, wailing away, all fists. The match was operating under standard MMA rules—so punches, kicks, and all kinds of grappling were allowed. This guy knew what he was doing and he knew how to use the rules to his advantage.
But he was no match for Kristoph. I could tell that Kristoph was playing with him, giving people time to place more bets, letting them bet that he would lose. The poor fools didn’t know how burned they were going to end up…
It was about two minutes into the first round when Kristoph decided, apparently, to finish the game. I could tell he was getting bored. He liked fighting—but not like this. Not when there wasn’t anything interesting to it.
The other fighter came at him hard and Kristoph shot out, catching the poor bastard by the legs and picking him up. He flung him up in the air and then, my werewolf landed on top of him with a sickening crunch. The fighter tried to grapple Kristoph, tried to wrestle his way out of the situation, but it was clear already that there was no way for him to get free…
A few quick, well-placed strikes from Kristoph’s big right hand ended the fight, with the fighter, a former contender, now nothing more than a has-been, a pile of bloodied, broken teeth and nothing else.
They dragged the poor bastard away and Kristoph shot me a grin. We were halfway to a big payday. I rested my hand on my belly. And well on our way to a new life…
We had been going back and forth for weeks about what to name our son. Kristoph still didn’t place much stock in names, after all, so it was hard to convince him that it was something we needed to talk about. Finally, though, I got him to understand that I would not have us making up our son’s name on the spot.
We were considering Dante, based on Kristoph’s favorite poet, or Jessie… But even I, I who wanted to plan everything out till the last moment, to the tiniest detail, even I knew that we would only know our baby’s name when he arrived.
The next fighter came out. He was unimpressive but I knew, based on Kristoph’s warning, not to underestimate him just because of that.
As soon as the fight began, he started circling Kristoph in a way that made me uncomfortable. What the hell could he be planning? This was scary…
I wanted to say something, but I knew that would only distract Kristoph. Besides, there was no one he couldn’t beat…
Still, I found myself running my hand over my belly, praying to God that Kristoph would come out of this alive and unscathed…
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” the fighter growled, his nose twitching. Kristoph’s face twisted into a determined grin.
“I knew it was you when you entered the room… I smelled you.”
The fighter’s eyes flashed.
“Is that your woman over there?” he asked, hungrily. Kristoph nodded shortly. A dull, shocked silence had come over the room.
Now, the fighter began to transform, growing, getting taller and taller. I screamed as I realized what was happening, pressing my hands to my belly in fear, as if that would somehow protect the baby.
The other fighter was a werewolf.
In seconds, he had transformed. And he was coming straight at me! I tried to escape but the bar was too crowded. I was pinned to the ground in seconds.
“Your wolf killed my father a long, long time ago…” the beast growled, its voice more like an animal’s than a man’s—truly the most terrifying and disconcerting thing I had ever heard. “And now it’s time for you to pay for his sin…”
He raised one huge, clawed hand over my head and I squeezed my eyes shut, saying a silent goodbye to Kristoph, and to Kristoph’s son—whom I would never know.
But the fist never came down.
Instead, I opened my eyes to see the werewolf in the clutches of another—Kristoph—struggling and screaming as two hairy, clawed hands slowly squeezed the life of out him.
A moment later, Kristoph dropped the spent corpse of the wolf and began to transform back into a man. He took me by the hand.
“Are you alright?”
“Me? Yes, Kristoph, I—“
“And the baby?”
“Fine, I think.”
“Good… Then let’s go…”
As we rushed out of the shocked bar, Kristoph squeezed my hand, letting me know that he would never let me go—that he would always be there for me, to protect me, to protect our family.
I squeezed his hand back.
Table of Contents
I grew up in a village, far, far away from this horrible market place and for years, we lived in peace. We lived in harmony—the kind of harmony you hear about in fairy tales. We were all people with dark skin there, far from the prying eyes of those who might persecute us for being different…
It had been a quiet day, and average day, near the end of the week and right before the festival of the Goddess, when our entire village took a rest from the nearly endless work of farming and plowing, mowing, reaping, and the like, to celebrate the accomplishments of the past year and, mostly, to thank the Goddess for sparing us from famine, flood, and any number of other horrible things that could easily have beset the village during the year.
My village normally has few accomplishments which we hope to celebrate—but many, many things which we’re happy to thank the Goddess for not bringing to bear on our heads.
My village is—or, rather, I should say… Was… Was situated at the end of a dirty, dusty road, not far from the edge of the Imperial Forest. Our people were almost solely farmers and loggers, with a few small-time artisans who practiced their crafts while tending tiny backyard patches of crops on the side. You could sprint from one end of the village to the other in less than a minute, to give you an idea of the size, how utterly insignificant we were.
The houses were all sticks and twigs, cobbled together with the aid of mud. My mother, who had grown up in a far nicer town many miles away, always cursed the filth of the village. But she had been the fourth daughter of a landholder who had fallen on hard times and when my father, a far-off farmer come to town for market, offered three goats in exchange for my mother’s hand in marriage, my grandfather accepted without a second thought.
The sound of hooves opened the day, distant and echoing in the early morning dew. Farmers stopped in the tracks, perking up their ears, wondering who could possibly be coming to visit us.
Yes, that is how naïve we were—we imagined that the sound of hooves charging towards us was the sound of visitors—not rapists and conquerors.
An hour later, the horsemen were upon us. Great, big, burly men, their hair all matted, covering in tattoos and scars and filth, whipping their horses and us, the villagers, alternately. They crashed into our lives, smashed down our fences, beginning already to set fire to our huts.
We ran out into the street bisecting the village, which turned out to be what they wanted. They gutted the men, grabbing them by the throats from their horses to steady their flailing bodies as they plunged spears and cruel looking sharp swords into their pulsating throats, forcing the blades down into their chests, blood gushing from noses and ears as they expired there in the dusty streets.
The young women were seized, of course. I was no exception. I had been gathering mushrooms with my little sisters and as we made our way back to the village down the long, winding forest road, we heard the screams and the groans of death and destruction.
And then, a trio of horseman appeared at the head of the trail, hungry looks on their faces as they saw us—young, nubile girls, all dark, dusky skin and dark hair, natural and clean, hanging down our backs.
In contrast, their faces were filthy, smudged with dirt and soot from their fires. Their armor seemed to have been cobbled together at random, with different pieces from different sets. They wore their trophies, I realized, the things they had taken from the men they had killed, pulled off their corpses… I was looking at riding, charging, horrific screaming monsters, mountains of armor riding their dusky, malnourished horses, ribs visible and nearly foaming at the mouth…
They charged and we turned tail, running into the forest as fast as our legs would take us. We screamed and I gripped my little sisters’ hands, dragging them faster and faster into the woods.
But it was no use. First they were behind us and then, they grabbed one of my sisters, before snatching up the other. By now, it was just me running, running myself ragged, panting and groaning as my lungs ached for air, as my legs screamed for rest. But I knew there was no way I could rest. No way I could stop and survive.
But the horseman was just playing with me. In the back of my mind, I knew this. I knew he could have overtaken me whenever he wanted. He wanted to see me run, to see me exhaust myself before he swooped in and grabbed me, compliant out of fatigue, whisking me off to my fate.
Finally, I collapsed, gasping for air, a muddled pile of sweat. I turned to see the horseman descending from his steed as I struggled to my feet. His big boot descended on my chest and forced me to the ground.
With the tip of his sword, he pulled up the edge of my simple peasant’s smock, sliding it up my long, smooth legs, made golden by exposure to our simple countryside sun, and up, further, to reveal my naked womanhood, crested with kinky dark hairs. No man had ever looked at me like this and I found myself burning with shame, embarrassed and terrified beyond belief.
I hated this.
I began to sob.
“Please, sir, please…” I whined, trying to cover myself without meeting that sharp blade, without catching it between my fingers. “Please, I’m… I’m a virgin…”
“A virgin, eh…” the horseman muttered. I saw the gears working in his head. What was he thinking about? Probably he was making mental calculations, but of what?
Of course—the price of selling my maidenhead at the market place. I’m sure I was worth far more a virgin than if he touched me. Finally, he sheathed his sword and reached down to grasp my arm, heaving me to my feet. He bound my hands with rough twine, and then through me over his horse, like nothing more than war booty.
As we walked through the town, seeing the burnt remains of the village, the corpses littering the side of our small road, the smell of blood and burning hit me. It nauseated me, and after a moment, my body simply couldn’t handle it anymore. I passed out.