Cat and Company Read Free

had clearly lost. They could have hauled him back onto the pad and kept him for another fight, yet the crowd had demanded the kill.
    The cold climbing up Brant’s ankles felt like the chill of deep space creeping through the metal. It matched his mood.
    He shifted, testing his footing on the metal grid. He flexed his fingers.
    “You ready for this?” Connell asked in his ear.
    “Shut up,” Brant said. He was going to need every scrap of concentration now. Over on the other side of the hold there was a surge of people surrounding a core of men as they progressed to the catwalk that had been slid out to the edge of the pad. The current champion was entering the ring.
    Brant braced himself. His heart was running too hard. He was already breathing too fast. If he didn’t calm down he would start hyperventilating, then it would all be over.
    Bedivere was pushed out from among the entourage onto the catwalk and Brant sucked in a fast breath that stung as it whistled down to his lungs. He barely recognized him.
    Bedivere was naked just as Brant was, which meant that all the scars and bruises and old wounds were visible. His body was a crazy quilt of violent history. The really scary part was his face…and his eyes. As he walked out onto the pad he sized up Brant. There was no recognition in his red eyes. None.
    “Glave save me!” Connell whispered. “That’s really him?” The distress in his voice was clear through the microscopic transmitter. “What have they done to him?”
    “If you do what you’re supposed to, we’ll find out,” Brant murmured, trying to move his lips as little as possible. “Now shut up, will you?”
    The catwalk retracted, leaving the two of them alone on the pad, facing each other. The crowd started chanting and for a moment Brant couldn’t make out what they were saying. His heart was pounding too heavily in his ears.
    Then he heard it.
    “Kil- ler ! Kil- ler ! Kil- ler ….!”
    Bedivere didn’t circle around, psyching himself into the fight. He leapt without warning, his big hands out to grab whatever part of Brant he could latch on to. The handlers who had taken Brant’s money had warned him. “Don’t let him get both hands on you. You’re fucked if you do. He’ll drop you over the side. Show over.”
    Brant dodged and backtracked, aware that the edges of the pad were sharply limiting his ability to fall back.
    Bedivere drove forward relentlessly and his fingers closed around Brant’s arm. Brant wrenched his arm out of Bedivere’s grip, rammed his fist into his stomach and spun away.
    He had aimed for the liver and had connected squarely. He had felt his knuckles sink into Bedivere’s flesh and ram up against the organ beneath. It was a classic disabling strike, designed to stress the liver and spread all the bile and toxins the liver processed back into the body. It made an opponent sick and weak almost instantly.
    Yet Bedivere was coming after him, his eyes filled with madness and fury.
    Fear coiled Brant’s guts “Where are you?” he demanded.
    “Coming!” Connell cried.
    “I’m not going to last—” He ducked as Bedivere swung his fist then made himself roll fast to get out of the way of the vicious kick to the side of his knee that Bedivere had masked with the fist swing.
    Brant’s back scraped over the metal grid as he rolled. He jumped back onto his feet as fast as he could. Bedivere wouldn’t let an opening like that pass.
    Bedivere was already bearing down on him, his hands outstretched once more for the fatal double grip. Brant ducked and spun out of the way and the crowd hissed and roared its disapproval. They wanted combat and Brant wasn’t giving it to them.
    “Where?” Brant demanded.
    “Other side to you,” Connell said. “I’m in place.”
    Brant studied Bedivere as he turned around and headed back toward him. “I don’t know if I can reach you.”
    “Try,” Connell said. “Play dirty if you have to.”
    “I already gave him my best dirty