“And I really don’t want to know how you know that,” Remy said. He exited the truck and helped Addie descend.
Remy had a quiet strength, fine blue eyes, and a body that a woman wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Not only that, he had a sexy accent, and he was a gentleman. Addie should fall for him, not a huge white tiger with three cubs and abandonment issues.
But Addie knew it was too late. While she could admire Remy, like him, and knew she’d probably have fun with him, as soon as she thought about Kendrick—his green eyes, his white and black hair, his quiet watchfulness—all others faded before him.
Addison had been caught in Kendrick’s gravity, like a wandering star pulled into the glory of a supernova. Potentially lethal, but her end would be spectacular.
Remy seemed to understand this. His look was resigned as he went arm-in-arm with her and Bree toward the arena.
Shifter fight clubs favored abandoned barns or hay shelters, Bree said—they liked places with roofs to keep the light from being obvious to passing aircraft. They liked places hard to get to, to keep the police away or nosy neighbors from reporting them.
This fight club was in an old riding arena with a giant metal awning covering it. The place had been part of a ranch that had raised show horses, gone broke, and been abandoned years before.
One-on-one battles were already in full swing when they arrived, the arena lighted by braziers in metal barrels and every kind of battery-powered lamp a person could carry.
Plenty of humans were here, Addie saw. Mostly men, but a good scattering of women, dressed similarly to Addie and Bree.
Addie looked around with interest that wasn’t feigned. Many of the Shifters were unclothed, men walking upright and arrogant, wearing nothing but the Collars around their necks. No one seemed to think this weird, so Addie pretended not to be embarrassed by it. She’d take their bareness in her stride, as everyone else did.
Female Shifters didn’t fight in the fight clubs, so Bree had told her. At least, not in the Collared Shifter fight clubs. Seamus had expressed surprised at this, saying Kendrick’s Shifter females fought just as hard as the males, for fun or otherwise. Having met Jaycee, Addie believed it.
Speaking of Jaycee, she was there. She’d let her hair hang long and wore a shirt with a mandarin collar to hide the fact that she didn’t have a Shifter Collar. She paid absolutely no attention to Addie, nor to Dimitri on the other side of the arena, or Tiger, who’d walked in alone.
Addie saw that all Shifters, and humans too for that matter, gave Tiger a wide berth. They didn’t always do it consciously—whenever he walked by, humans and Shifters alike drew back and did not engage his attention.
Tiger didn’t seem to notice this, or care. His golden eyes in his hard face took in everything, including Addie, as though he memorized all in his path.
Shifters were crowded around a fight going on at the far end of the arena, and Bree led them there. In a ring marked out by a single layer of concrete blocks was a giant of a man with very short black hair and brown eyes. He fought, in human form, against a man who was part wolf, part human.
The beast had a wolf’s face, glaring gray eyes, a human-shaped body, and clawed hands. He and the man struck out, fought, punched, and wrestled, seemingly without rules. Five Shifter men hovered around the inside of the ring, watching the fight. The refs, Addie concluded.
The man-wolf furiously attacked his opponent—at the same time the larger man shifted to an enormous bear.
A Kodiak, Addie saw in stunned amazement. Holy shit, he was big.
The Kodiak roared. The wolf-man changed into a full wolf and leapt at the bear’s throat. The wolf was much smaller than the bear in this form, but very fast. The bear swatted at the wolf, the Collar around the bear’s neck emitting a shower of sparks.