H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (82 page)

I flew over Cooper and landed behind him.
The confused beast had no idea where I had gone. Too bad for him; I
high-kicked the wolf in the back of its head, sending him into the
side of the cage. I jumped on his back and rode him like a bull.
The crowd went nuts. They loved it. Wow, they were a fickle
group.

“Ride him, Josiah!” one guy yelled. So ride
him, I did. I rode his back and just stayed with him like he was a
mechanical bull in a country bar and was trying to stay on to win a
basket of barbecue chicken wings. He tried knocking me off, but I
was too strong. I covered his eyes, much to the delight of the
crowd. In a matter of seconds, I had won this crowd over, at least
some of them.

Another group began chanting “Cooper!
Cooper! Cooper!”

But another was chanting, “Reign! Reign!
Reign!” I had to admit, I loved that second chant a lot better.

Damn, it felt good!

From Cooper’s back, I grabbed him around the
waist and rolled him over in a Greco-Roman spin move. I tilted him
over, making sure his snapping, ferocious mouth wouldn’t bite me.
The crowd went nuts. They probably had never seen a vampire willing
to get this close to one of these beasts. Well, they had never seen
me, and I was going to give them a show for the ages.

I let Cooper go and taunted him by flying
around the ring. He tried chasing me, biting at me, clawing at me.
I was having a good time. I figure at least five minutes had gone
by and it was time to punish this wolf.

I elevated ten feet over the beast. I dove
down feet first and drop-kicked him in the face with a force that
was as brutal a kick as I had ever delivered.

I heard the poor wolf yelp. He was
disoriented and I took advantage of it. I did an eight-punch
combination, with my last one being a cross between an uppercut and
a hay maker.

The wolf fell backwards. The crowd went
berserk chanting my name. Cooper was done. He tried to get back up.
But fell down. The medics dove into the ring and cuffed the beast
and carried him off in his cage.

I watched and felt the noise of the crowd.
“Reign, Reign, Reign.” I had easily given that werewolf its first
loss in a manner of minutes. I had arrived in a big way.

I walked out of the ring and gave a
high-five to some of the richest people in the world. As I reached
the door, one of Romero’s body guards said, “Romero wants to see
you.”

I figured he would. I had just given a show
for the ages.

When I got to Romero’s suite, he was alone.
I guess he knew the score by now. If I hadn’t tried to kill him by
now, I wasn’t going to do it anytime soon.

“Impressive,” Romero said.

“I thought so,” I said. “I have six more of
these fights and then Tommy’s match?”

“Yes,” then, if you’re willing… we can
renegotiate.”

“For more fights?”

“Why not, you seemed to be in your element
out there.”

I smiled, “Maybe.”

“You loved it, didn’t you?” Romero
grinned.

“It was a good time. I’ll just leave it at
that. When is the next one?”

“In two weeks. I’ll work on getting you a
better opponent.”

“I’ll see you in two weeks.” I left his
suite and signed a couple of autographs on the way out.

Yeah, this was fun.

Chapter Twenty-five

Over the next three months, life was
interesting, to say the least. Lena had reached the point where she
couldn’t transition. It would put her and the lives inside her at
risk and under no circumstances would I allow her to do any type of
risky behavior.

I had finished my seven fights and each one
was even more epic than the next. I was a huge fan favorite, and
yes, I loved it.

I had checked in with Tommy and his injuries
had healed and he was training like a mutha. That was good. I
wasn’t sure how I was going to fight Tommy. I knew if it looked
choreographed, it could negate the whole deal we had with Romero. I
was a man of many secrets these days. Tommy had no idea I was going
to be his final fight on his epic night. I figured it was best not
to tell him. I had done a lot for him and he was just going to have
trust me once we got in the ring.

The other secret I was keeping was that Lena
had no idea I had been sneaking off being king of some underground,
billionaire, immortal fight club. I knew I needed to tell her. I
just couldn’t figure out the best way to do it.

Her pregnancy wasn’t going very well, she
was sick all the time. It was hard on a Mani woman to be carrying
two human babies. It was doing a number on her body’s
chemistry.

I had defeated four werewolves and three
vampires in the ring over the past twelve weeks. My vampire matches
were really one-sided. None of them had a chance against me. In my
third Mani fight, my opponent looked so terrified I put him out of
his misery real fast and knocked him out in fifteen seconds. Romero
didn’t like it, but all my fights couldn’t be world class. One
thing was for sure, the weekend belonged to me.

Weekdays, on the other hand, were the time I
was putting together my army, or lack thereof. Unfortunately, I had
a weak batch of Mani men who were willing to fight the good fight.
They had heart, and in the end, heart wins battles. But warriors
also win battles, and I didn’t have many of those.

I put together a training regimen that would
make an MMA fighter exhausted. If they didn’t have natural
instincts as fighters, they would at least be the best-conditioned
ones. My crew was slowly coming around, but I knew it was going to
be awhile until they could take on the likes of Krull’s men.

It was a week until Tommy’s “Night of the
Seven Deadly Sins’” fight. In each fight, Tommy’s opponent would
represent one of the deadly sins, just like Romero and I had
discussed. I knew it was very ‘Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman’ but it
was a damn good marketing strategy. I heard he was selling tickets
at $500,000 a head for that night. Why anyone would pay that kind
of money was beyond me, but then again I wasn’t a billionaire who
had money to burn.

Romero and I had actually taken our
communication into the 21st century. We had been emailing each
other for the last six weeks. And I wasn’t the most computer-savvy
person.

This is why I had no idea what I was walking
into when I came into my bedroom. Lena was sitting in front of the
computer, going through my emails from Romero.

“What are you doing?” I asked Lena. She just
stared at me and didn’t say a word. She just looked at me with
confusion. Finally, she said, “Are these emails a joke? Who is
Romero?”

I walked over to the computer and turned off
the monitor.

“Josiah, what is going on? Have you been
seeing Tommy and arranging some kind of MMA fight in Mexico?”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“I don’t care what it is. Why haven’t you
told me anything?” Lena was really upset.

“You never asked.”

“What kind of answer is that?” Lena yelled,
at me.

“Look! You never even asked what Tommy
wanted that night I saw him at his cabin. So, I just figured you
didn’t want to know.”

“I didn’t ask,” Lena said. “Because I
thought if it was important enough you would have told me about it,
especially after all that we have been going through these last few
months.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Bullshit. You wanted to keep Tommy and I
separated.”

“Huh?” I said. “What is that supposed to
mean?”

“You have been seeing Tommy for months. You
still think after all we have been through that something might
happen between him and I. So much so, that you had been living a
double life. You still don’t trust me. Even after visiting the
Deity. You still don’t trust me.”

“It’s not like that, Lena. I swear.”

Lena sat up on the bed and was beside
herself. She looked exhausted. I walked over to her and wrapped my
arms around her. “I trust you, Lena. I really do.”

She shrugged me off and said, “You have been
fighting, too? Why?”

“I had to.”

“Bullshit. You’re Josiah Reign, you don’t
have to do anything you don’t want to do!”

“In this case, I did. Tommy was in some
serious trouble. We’re talking million-dollar trouble.”

Lena got up and went to her room. I followed
her in there. “Get out, Josiah. I am so disappointed in you. I’m so
hurt that even though I’m carrying your children, you still don’t
trust me, like I’m some kind of out-of-control school girl.”

“I’m sorry, Lena. There was just so much
going on. I didn’t want to worry you. You have to believe
that.”

“Just get out of my room. I need to be
alone.”

“Really. It’s going to be like that?”

“Josiah, I need some space. Just give me
that.”

I walked out of the room and went up to
mine. I laid on my bed and just felt awful. I probably should have
told Lena at some point. That had to be the worst way for her to
find out, through a freaking email.

A couple hours had gone by and I decided to
check in on Lena. I knocked on her door and there was no
answer.

Finally, I yelled out to her, “Lena! You in
there?”

Still, no answer.

“She left, Josiah,” Yari yelled, from the
living room.

I walked into the living room and Yari was
lying on the couch. “Where did she go?”

“She got in one of the cars and went for a
ride.”

“How long ago?”

“Probably two hours ago. She was pretty
discreet about it. I noticed because she sounded pretty determined
to leave in a hurry.”

“I’ve got to go find her,” I said.

“Did the two love birds have a spat?” Yari
snickered.

“Not now, Yari. This is more serious than
you think.” I left through the front door. I decided to transition
into the eagle and go scope the area and look for her.

I looked everywhere and Lena was nowhere to
be found. I checked Tommy’s cabin, Yari’s townhouse, even
Flatlands. Tommy wasn’t anywhere either. A part of me started to
feel extremely jealous, thinking there was a chance they were
together.

I looked for Lena for the next 24 hours
straight and she wasn’t anywhere inside a 100-mile radius of
Victorville. And I couldn’t find Tommy either. This wasn’t good.
This wasn’t good at all.

Chapter Twenty-six

It was the day of my fight and it had been
48 hours since I’d last seen Lena. I was going to be fighting that
night. I needed rest. Yari, Cyrus, Hector, and Wyatt had been
looking for Lena as vigorously as I had. She was nowhere, not even
a hint of her. Nothing. I was absolutely sick to my stomach
thinking about it.

It was going to be hard for me to focus and
I was just praying she was okay and had found a safe place no one
knew about to clear her head. I didn’t want to fight tonight, but I
had no choice. I just needed to trust that she was safe.

Lena was weighing heavy on my mind, but I
needed to get this done. I needed to clear mine and Tommy’s
debt.

I got to the arena and to say my head wasn’t
in the game was an understatement. I decided to go into the holding
area and see if he was even there. There was a part of me that
thought he and Lena had split town. There was no sign of Tommy in
the holding area.

“Hey, Josiah,” Militia, the vampire that
fought with us a couple months back said, “Looking for Tommy?”

“Actually, I am,” I said.

“He’s in Gary’s trainer’s room.”

Of course he is. I should have checked there
first.

“Thanks, Militia. Are you watching the fight
tonight?” I asked.

He smiled and said, “In a manner of
speaking, yeah.”

Didn’t quite understand what that meant, but
I needed to go see Tommy before his first fight. I entered the
trainer’s room and Tommy was sitting on the trainer’s table. Gary
was looking him over. Tommy looked up at me and grinned.

“How do you feel, Tom?” I asked.

“Like a million bucks,” he said, winking at
me.

“You better, you’re going to be pretty
exhausted before this night is over.”

“Have you seen the card?” Tommy asked.

“Nope,” I answered.

“Romero is leaving some of the matches as a
mystery. He won’t even tell me who I’m fighting in a couple of the
fights. He is a total douchebag.”

I nodded my head, knowing Tommy was going to
have one of the biggest shocks of his life when I entered the ring
in that final match. I wonder who else Romero was keeping a
mystery.

“Josiah,” a deep voice said, from behind me.
I turned around and it was one of Romero’s goons.

“What is it?” I said.

“Romero wants you to watch the fights from
his suite.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

“He told me to make sure you come with
me.”

Seriously, was he really going to power-trip
me after the millions and millions of dollars I’d just made for
him?

“Tell him,” I said, firmly, “that I’ll come
up there when I’m good and ready.”

The goon stared at me and I gave him a look
that pretty much demonstrated my defiance. I looked at Tommy and
said, “Before I go watch this circus, I need to ask you a
question.”

“What is it?” Tommy asked.

“Has Lena come to see you?”

Tommy looked at me, surprised.

“Has she?” I insisted.

“Josiah, the last time I saw Lena was that
night at the Flatlands.”

I looked him in the eye and I knew he was
telling the truth. Tommy wasn’t a liar. He likes to omit things,
but he wasn’t a liar, if asked straight out.

I nodded my head. “Good luck, Tom!”

“Who needs luck when you got these?” Tommy
flexed his muscles and kissed each bicep individually.

That’s my boy! Nobody loves themselves some
Tommy more than Tommy himself.