Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) (16 page)

Iron Gym smelled like sweaty jockstraps, Bengay, and something indescribable that Harper could only assume was testosterone. It was a strange, disconcerting combination. Harper found herself taking shallow breaths to avoid the worst of it.

She sat next to Riddick on the bleachers in front of the sparring ring as they watched two of the Lykoi fighters practice.

“Do you think either of them is the guy you’ll be fighting tomorrow?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No way. That smaller guy is a werewolf, and Romeo said the guy who beat him was human. Kind of. The bigger guy is—”

Harper winced as the werewolf caught the bigger guy with an uppercut to the jaw. The bigger guy flew out of the ring almost comically, reminding Harper of an old Looney Tunes cartoon she’d seen as a kid.

“—a buffoon,” Riddick finished, lip curling up in disgust.

She looped her arm through his and leaned in so that she could smell him—Tide laundry detergent, soap, and warm, hot male skin—instead of the stale air around her. “Maybe Romeo was wrong about when the guy practices.”

Just then, she felt Riddick stiffen beside her. She glanced up at him and followed his gaze to the locker room door, where a second pair of fighters had just exited, heading toward the ring.

Harper knew immediately that she was looking at the fighter who’d beaten Romeo, the guy who was scheduled to fight Riddick the very next night. And Romeo had been right.

This guy was no ordinary human.

He moved with a fluid, predatory grace that Harper had only ever seen on…well, Riddick. And even though the guy looked completely relaxed and at ease, something about his purposeful, economical movements let her know he was well aware of everyone in the room and was ready to take on any and all takers.

The other guy appeared to be some kind of shifter. Not a wolf; he moved too slowly. Had to be something bigger, heavier. A bear, if Harper had to guess.

As they climbed into the ring, Harper noticed neither man bothered with headgear, tape, or mouthpieces, which probably accounted for all the testosterone in the air. Only a couple of mule-headed, dumb-assed Neanderthals would spar bare-knuckled, risking injury for nothing more than practice.

The two fighters bumped knuckles once before separating and falling into their respective fighting stances. The shifter, who Harper decided to call Yogi, immediately charged Mr. Semi-Human, who dodged out of the way so quickly all she saw was a blur of movement.

Yogi was thrown off balance by Mr. Semi-Human’s sudden burst of speed and ended up stumbling head first into the ropes. Mr. Semi-Human grabbed a fistful of Yogi’s hair and tossed him back into the center of the ring.

Yogi snarled, but didn’t charge again. Instead, he circled his opponent, who hadn’t yet shown one emotion on his face. Harper wasn’t sure why, but she found that completely disturbing. What was the guy? A T-100 cyborg or something?

The two fighters started taking jabs at each other, but Harper found her gaze drawn back to Mr. Semi-Human time and time again. There was something really familiar-looking about him.

He wasn’t overly tall. Maybe five-ten, five-eleven. He was obviously very strong, but didn’t look particularly muscle-bound, either. There wasn’t anything about him that looked especially supernatural, and yet, he obviously wasn’t human. He exuded what could only be described as
otherness
.

If Harper had to guess, she’d put him in his late fifties, which seemed kind of old for a fighter. But even so, he was aging very well, she supposed. His black hair was thick and only a little gray at the temples, and his olive skin was smooth and unlined, which meant she’d either misjudged his age, or he didn’t smile much, if ever.

Given the complete and utter lack of emotion he’d shown thus far, she’d guess the latter was true.

Just then, Yogi caught him with a sharp jab that sent him sailing back into his corner. The ropes caught him and bounced him back with enough force to drive him to his knees. That’s when he looked up at Yogi, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth, and Harper saw actual movement in his face.

He smiled.

It was a terrible, frightening smile that told Harper the shifter in the ring was in serious trouble.

Harper sucked in a sharp breath, fighting the urge to yell a warning at Yogi to get the hell out of there. This guy was a complete psycho. No one took a hit like that and smiled.

But before she could even open her mouth, Mr. Semi-Human shot to his feet and charged Yogi, hitting him in the stomach with his full weight behind the punch. When the shifter doubled over, Mr. Semi-Human grabbed the back of his head and forced it down into his knee.

Yogi’s nose shattered, blood spurting all over the floor of the ring. He dropped to his knees and tapped out, but Mr. Semi-Human didn’t stop. He punched Yogi again and again. Harper swore she could hear bones, cartilage, and tendons snapping under the force of the beating.

Only when Yogi could no longer raise his hands to cover his head did Mr. Semi-Human back off. But not before delivering one final kick to Yogi’s head that would’ve been fatal, had he been human.

“Shit,” Harper muttered. “This guy’s fucking crazy.”

Riddick didn’t say anything.

She glanced over at him and her heart rate kicked up. He was pale. Riddick was never pale. “What’s wrong?”

Still no answer. She followed his gaze back to the ring and found that he was locked in some kind of crazy eye contact combat with the psycho.

The psycho smiled again, and again, it was terrible. Haunting, even. Not the kind of smile someone would give a complete stranger.

“Do you guys know each other?” she asked.

Riddick swallowed hard, eyes still on the psycho. “You could say that.”

Oh, boy. A chill skated down her spine. “Who is he, Riddick?”

“He’s my father.”

Ken—he’d never been able to think of the old man as
Dad
—hadn’t changed too much over the years, Riddick noticed. He looked like the same emotionless piece of shit who’d dumped Riddick off with CPS when he was a kid.

Not that it mattered at this point. Given what he’d just seen, he’d probably been better off with CPS than he would’ve been with this crazy bastard.

“Oh my God,” Harper whispered, tightening her grip on his arm. “He’s coming up here.”

Great. The only person in the world he cared to shield from the fallout of his fucked-up childhood was about to have a front-row seat for what was sure to be the most dysfunctional family reunion in history.

“I fucking hate Vegas,” he muttered.

“We’re never coming back,” she promised solemnly.

His father took the bleachers two at a time until he stood just below them and knelt, elbows resting on his knees. “Gotta say, son, I never thought I’d see you again. Especially not here.”

“Small world,” he answered dryly.

His black eyes shifted to Harper. “And who’s this pretty lady?”

Harper stiffened beside him and Riddick said, “She’s none of your concern.”

He chuckled, his gaze never leaving Harper. “He always was a sensitive little thing. If I hadn’t put him in the system, he probably would’ve grown up to be some kind of Nancy-boy fruitcake. He should thank me, really.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure your ‘Father of the Year’ award was just lost in the mail.”

Surprise registered on his father’s face—-only Harper could surprise a sociopath, for God’s sake—for a split second before his cold grin returned. “Feisty,” he said. “I like feisty.”

Her brows flatlined. “That’s what they all say before I introduce their balls to their throats.”

Riddick interrupted whatever reply his father might have made by asking, “What do you want?”

Ken put a hand to his chest as if wounded. “Can’t a father say hello to his son without some kind of sinister motive?”

“No,” Riddick and Harper answered in stereo.

He looked terribly pleased with himself. “You can thank me for that mistrust. I’m sure it’s served you well in life. And with your mother, you would’ve grown into a coddled pussy instead of the fighter you are today. Thank God I was able to help you with that little life lesson.”

Harper made a move to stand up and Riddick yanked her back down, grabbing both her wrists in one hand. Knowing Harper, he suspected she had been ready to pummel his father before he even opened his mouth. Now, it was most likely all she could do to keep from killing him. And he loved that about her.

But the bastard really wasn’t worth it.

Riddick was surprised to find he didn’t really care what his father said now or had done in the past. He didn’t need him and never really had, he supposed. His words had no more effect on him than any other stranger’s would.

“Fighters aren’t really supposed to talk outside the Arena,” Harper said, her voice tight. “You could both be disqualified.”

Both houses were crazy paranoid, fearing collusion between fighters, so
disqualified
was really just a gentle euphemism for
killed
.

Which made him wonder: why was the old man willing to risk death to talk to him?

“I’ll ask one more time what you want,” Riddick said. “Then, we’re leaving.”

Ken sighed. “We need to talk about our fight. Somewhere else.” His gaze flicked to Harper, then back to Riddick. “Alone.”

“The fuck you will,” Harper said through clenched teeth. “Why would he go anywhere with
you
?”

He ignored her. “Meet me in the bar at your hotel in two hours.”

Riddick barely suppressed a grunt. “We’ll have our chance to
talk
in the Arena. Until then, you don’t have anything I care to hear.”

Ken cocked his head to one side. “You don’t want to hear about your mother? About how she
really
died?”

“Cancer’s not especially mysterious,” Riddick said. “And you can spare me the details of that.”

“You were always a gullible little fuck,” Ken said with a shake of his head. “Sad, really. I never said
your
mother had cancer. I said mothers who go into the hospital with cancer don’t always come home.”

Harper sucked in a little gasp, and Riddick closed his eyes for a moment. Wow, that was low even for a bastard like his father.

After a few deep breaths, he said as calmly as he could muster, “I haven’t seen you since I was a kid, and when I do, we’re scheduled to beat the fuck out of each other in an illegal cage match run by the supernatural mafia—and it’s at this point that you mention my mother didn’t really die of cancer?” He raised his hands in a what-the-hell gesture. “Anything seem fucked up about any of that to you?”

“It does to me,” Harper mumbled.

Ken stood up straight and gave them a smug smile. “I’ll see you,” he said to Riddick pointedly, “in two hours.”

After he’d sauntered away as if he hadn’t just turned Riddick’s world on its axis, Harper turned to him with sympathetic eyes. “I knew your childhood was messed up. I guess I never really understood just how messed up it was. I’m so sorry.”

He blew out a sharp breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t be. It’s all in the past. The fact is that my mother’s dead. It doesn’t really matter how it happened.”

She nodded. “So, you’re not going to meet him?”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to meet him.”

A furrow creased her smooth brow. “Why? You just said it didn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter.
He
doesn’t matter. But are we really supposed to believe that he’s risking disqualification to talk to me about my mother, after all these years?” He shook his head. “No way. He wants something else from me, and we need to know what that is before we set foot into the Arena.”

Harper’s nose scrunched up like it always did when she was irritated. “I don’t like it. At least let me come with you.”

Over his dead body. “The less you’re around him, the better. Plus, he’s not likely to say much if we both show up.”

She grumbled something under her breath that he didn’t quite catch, but she shook her head when he asked about it. That usually meant she was plotting something. And when Harper Hall was plotting something? Well, shit was known to go off the rails in a
big
way.

“I mean it, Harper,” he said, injecting as much sternness into his words as possible. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

Over the years, there were men who’d pissed their pants when he gave them his stern voice and the sharp look that went along with it. Harper merely blinked at him, looking completely guileless.

“Of course,” she said innocently. “You’re in charge.”

That’s when he realized he was fucked. And apparently, his stern look and voice just weren’t what they used to be.

It really just wasn’t his day.

Harper adjusted her wig and slumped down a little further into the rental car’s driver’s seat. She glanced at her watch. Riddick’s father was due to show up in just a few minutes.

“Wanna tell me again what we’re doin’, Harpy?”

She glared over at Romeo, who looked absolutely ridiculous, scrunched down next to her in the passenger seat, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. Nothing conspicuous about a dude wearing sunglasses three hours after dark, no siree.

“We’re doing surveillance,” she answered.

“And who, pray tell, are we surveilling?”

“Riddick.”

Romeo rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Huh. Never took him for a guy who’d step out on you. I figured with his disposition, his options would be limited.”

Harper smacked him on the bicep with the back of her hand. “He’s not cheating on me, dumbass. He’s meeting with the final fighter—you know, the guy who kicked your ass?”

“Why?”

She sighed. Forestalling the barrage of questions he’d surely have after she answered his first, she gave him a brief overview of their meeting with Ken. When she was done, Romeo blinked at her owlishly.