I jerked down the zipper of my hoodie and shrugged it off. Then I was tossing it onto one of the benches, and striding toward the octagonal ring. “We’ll see about that.” When I’d entered it, I crooked my finger at Jonah. “Let’s do this.”

“You think you’re fighting me?”

“You’re the enforcer here. Hell, your father is uber enforcer of the bigger picture Infidels.”

Jonah shot Asher a look. “You still sure it was a great idea to allow her access to all that data? That’s not public knowledge, brother. I mean, not the part about my old man.”

“She’s not the public.” He grinned at me, then started unbuttoning his black dress shirt. He shrugged it off his shoulders, then tossed it to Jonah, who caught it easily. His black bracelet and his Rolex were next, along with his wolf’s head pendant. Jonah, being the dutiful bastard that he was with Asher, came forward and Asher placed them on his palm.

He kicked off his fancy shoes and socks, and then he was striding toward the ring.

I took him in, his black jeans riding low on his hips, his hard, defined abs flexing with his every sure movement, his pecs like freaking rocks. But most of all, the black snake tattoos swirling down the length of his torso that looked like they were slithering as he moved. Their heads met at his waistband, the two of them looking like they were trying to devour one another, locked in an eternal battle that would never end because they were forever inked in that pose.

Was it a metaphor for him and his father?

He entered the ring and settled a few feet from me.

As he did, moving around, his body turning, I started at the sight of his scars.

So many scars.

The lash marks all down his back had me sucking in a breath.

Someone had actually whipped him? It was much more brutal than the light strokes he’d given Jonah during their play. No, these were something else—they were clearly borne from torture.

There was even what looked like a bullet wound there in his upper back.

As he moved, I peered closer to see more gashes and the raised flesh of burn scars in and around his snake tattoos. It seemed like he’d had them inked to hide them, to make them blend in so they weren’t noticeable from a distance.

There was also a nasty jagged scar by his ribs—a stab wound.

God.

“Aurora!” he snapped when I just stood there staring at him.

I blinked out of it, then unlaced my boots and pulled them off, then tugged my socks free, and tossed them over the chain-link walls. They landed with a thud on the other side.

“You really think this is a good idea? You were watching that night your enforcer and I got into it, you saw what I’m capable of.”

Jonah grinned as he came to stand outside the ring, folding his arms across his chest and settling in. “I’m intentionally seen as the muscle. It’s best when our enemies underestimate us in certain ways. And we make sure each of us is seen in a particular light.” He lifted his chin at Asher. “He’s the most accomplished fighter. By miles. I’m all power and ferocity. He’s the skill. And a ruthless bastard, to boot.”

I took his words in, then eyed Asher. “What’s this going to prove? You’re already aware I can handle myself. If this is another one of your games, at least give me the rules up front.”

“That’s the thing, Aurora. It’s not a game. Approaching it that way will be your end.”

“You think I’m in over my head.”

“What I think is that you’ve trained your sweet little ass off for the last three years—physically and mentally—to ensure that you wouldn’t be when the time came. You wanted—actually needed—it to be the case so badly that you may have convinced yourself of it. We’re here to make sure it’s not just a delusion of grandeur.”

I growled low in my throat at the insult of it.

“If you really thought that, you wouldn’t have brought me in on this. You would’ve just used me for my connection to Revenant through your own underhanded means without the team-up factor.”

He didn’t speak to it. Instead, he crooked his finger at me and challenged, “Come at me.”

The urge to act as the aggressor, to lay into him, was right there at the surface, ready and willing to go.

And that was when it hit me.

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