Jaxon
Ifucking love fighting.
It’s been a while since I’ve been here. The air is thick with the smells of blood, sweat, and cigarette smoke, the shouts of the crowd louder than the groans of the men in the ring and the heavy thud of flesh meeting flesh. It’s intoxicating, invigorating, and if I had my way, I’d probably never leave.
My world is a lie. It’s fake, full of people pretending to want things they don’t really want, forcing themselves to do something they don’t want to do, being who they aren’t until they finally achieve the things they’ve been told to desire. My whole life, I’ve been surrounded by people who only care about three things—money, power, and sex. There’s no room for free will, no room for dreams beyond what we’ve been told to want.
No room for love.
I found that out the hard way.
I’ve never really cared about money. Everything I’ve ever really wanted I could have on my own if I worked hard enough for it. Power only corrupts the people who have it. I’ve seen that firsthand. And as for sex?
It’s been a long fucking time since that did anything for me. Since I got any real pleasure from it. A physical release isn’t all that great when there’s nothing behind it, when the woman you’re sticking your cock into means nothing to you besides being a warm, wet hole. For a long time, sex has been nothing to me other than a slightly better pleasure than my own hand and a necessary part of being in the crowd I run with.
Until her.
Just thinking about Athena is enough to give me a raging hard-on that won’t quit. I’d tried my best to ignore her, at first. I’d always known I wasn’t meant to win the game, and I didn’t want to. I knew she was going to end up Cayde’s or Dean’s. So there was no point in wanting her. No point in getting invested in the outcome of something that I couldn’t possibly win.
But then I went after her that night after that fucking terrible hazing ritual for the pledges, and something changed. Sitting in that diner with her, I felt something that I hadn’t felt in years. Something that I know is dangerous, that gets people hurt, or worse.
Real, deep, meaningful attraction. I wanted her, not just to fuck, but to talk to. To hold. To spend time with.
To keep safe.
I know how fucking impossible that is, though.
I’d known I was in trouble after we hooked up that night. I’d known she was drawn to me too, that I was someone she could actually fall for, just like she was for me. And I’d known I needed to put a stop to it, fast.
Which is why I did the exact opposite of what I promised her.
I punished her. I got off on it. And I’d be lying if I said I forced that arousal, if I wasn’t harder than I’ve ever been in my fucking life watching her squirm and cry and moan in pleasure as I brought that cane down on her pulsing little clit.
I’ll never forget that orgasm. I’ve come to the memory of it a dozen times since.
I thought that’d be enough to warn her away from me. To make her hate me, to kill any chance of her pursuing me instead of one of the guys who were always going to win no matter what, even if it meant pushing her too far, hurting her, breaking her.
But it wasn’t. She wanted me. Enough to offer me her virginity—and unwittingly, the keys to the kingdom.
God help me, I almost fucking did it. Telling Athena, no, knowing I was sending her to someone else’s bed, hurt more than I could have ever fucking imagined it would. I’d laid in bed that night, rock-hard and aching, wanting to jerk off but refusing to because I knew it wouldn’t help. And in a way, I’d wanted to punish myself for what I’d done to her. Sending her to the devil when I could have had her for myself.
I still fucking want her. And I’m still punishing myself. I could have walked out of the room a few days ago when Dean and Cayde stretched her across the desk and made an example of her. But instead, I just sat there and watched, cock throbbing and balls aching, while they used her.
I can see what they’re doing to her. Turning her into something depraved, awakening desires in her that she never knew she had, but not bothering to ease her into it. Not bothering to take care of her afterward. Just using her and then throwing her aside until they want her again.
I’ve spent my entire life with these two men, growing up next to them, practically their brother. I know what Cayde’s been through. I know the weight of the expectations placed on Dean. But that doesn’t excuse what they’re doing.
And I know that by just standing aside and watching without actually doing anything, I’m still a party to it. I’m still enabling them instead of trying to stop it—because how would I? I can’t stop centuries of tradition on my own.
Or maybe I just don’t care to.
That’s why I’m back here tonight, standing off to the side in my boxing shorts and nothing else, waiting for my turn in the ring. It’s hot in here, humid with the press of so many bodies crammed together. There’s nothing sanctioned or legit about these underground fights that the biker gangs put together. There are no real rules besides “don’t kill each other,” or at least try not to. And that’s why I like it, because here I can shed every rule and responsibility and trapping of respectability and just be what I am deep down.
A primal, instinctual beast. Someone who wants to fight, and fuck, and win. Someone who wishes he could beat every man here to a pulp, then get on his bike and go back to the house and take Athena, go so far away with her that no one will ever find us, stop on the way and strip her down and fuck her until she screams my name over and over.
But if I did that, we’d never be able to get far enough away before they came for us. Betraying the families like that, running away, stealing a pet, breaking the rules, denying the victory, there are real consequences for that.
I’ve already seen what happens when someone tries to defy them.