Gage tried to get up, but the bear was too big. The bear continued smacking him around, making Gage’s face bloody, exposing some meaty portions of his face like the pink of a beef slab at the butcher's shop. The bear then leaned down, took Gage’s ear in his mouth, and then tore the upper lobe like he was tearing crust from bread.
“GAGE!”
Rylee’s screams were lost in the crowd's bloodthirsty applause. She whipped her head to look at the men who were supposed to be Gage’s friends, looking resigned to what was happening in front of them.
“Where is Ramos?” Rylee pleaded.
When no one spoke, Rylee grabbed Talon by the collar, screaming into his face so loudly that she splashed the shifter with her spit.
“Where is he?” she repeated.
Talon’s eyes were sad and moved to the left of the stadium. Rylee turned quickly and saw the small, vampire-like man sitting in a booth at the front of the match, his leg propped up on a table, watching the violence casually. Rylee ran down the concrete steps like lightning, shoving past people she didn’t know, who reacted to her by scoffing and cursing.
She didn’t give a shit. She needed to get to Ramos. She needed to tell him what she was feeling.
She arrived at Ramos’s booth, blocked by a lanky security guard. She tried to push past him, but the man grabbed hold of her, trying to lift her onto his shoulders by her waist.
“Ramos!” Rylee screamed. “Ramos, please!”
The man looked in her direction. He was surprised but curious. Rylee maintained his glare by bringing her hands into prayer motion, yelling at the top of her lungs at the smacking of the mat that made her entire body seize with fear.
“I’m his mate!” she yelled over the crowd. “I want him to claim me! I accept him as my mate!”
A few people stopped cheering and turned to see Rylee. The match continued beyond them, but the security guard had stopped, too, looking at Ramos for a response.
Rylee’s heart was palpitating in her chest. The truth had come out, and she hoped that the truth would surely let her lover free. Anything else that would come after would be an extra blessing.
Ramos raised his hand in the air, motioning for Rylee to come over. The security guard dropped her, and she ran to the elder’s feet, falling to her knees.
“What was that, my sweet?” the elder said with a smirk.
“You heard me,” Rylee hissed at him. “Gage is my mate. I am his. I want him to claim me, right here and now.”
TWENTY-THREE
GAGE
Gage immediately surrendered to the men who barged into the room. He could hear Rylee’s faint cries from beyond him, begging him not to give up. But in a way, he had done that long before this moment came. He had put his and Rylee’s status as mates on the back burner, knowing full well what the consequences were.
The fate that was befalling him was his doing, and his doing only.
Gage could barely hear the roar of the crowd as he was dragged into the ring. Everything went blurry, dull, and bleak as his opponent was announced and presented to him. It could have been anyone opposite him, a clown shifter for all he cared. He wanted to stand there and have the shifter rip his head off, take him from this life as fast as was physically possible.
But he had to give them a show. That was what he owed them for not following the crucial sacraments. His honor would be destroyed, along with his body, if he just let that shifter end his life in an instant.
So reluctantly, he shifted, then stood in a fighting stance. But the other bear shifter was ready for him, slashing at his face, charging, and getting him to the ground within a few seconds after the bell rang.
Gage felt like a punching bag, being pummeled by the bear and slashed until his bones felt soft beneath his skin. He tried fighting back, lifting his claws, and thrashing at his opponent, but it was no use. His heart wasn’t in it, nor was his body. He felt himself melting into the abyss, one that would hopefully soon cradle him in sweet death.
But a shrill, deafening sound overtook his comfort. The bear stopped smashing his face and then backed away into his corner. Gage was in a daze, rolling over to look out beyond the cage to see what was going on.
He could see three figures approaching the ring, the blur of the crowd jeering with as much confusion as he was feeling. One came figure into clarity as Elder Ramos, and another, a tall man who he didn’t recognize.
Gage had shifted into human form without realizing it, lying naked in the corner of the ring, his bones trembling in agony. He was able to make out the fuzzy vision of the third person walking into the ring, the one with the vibrating nervous energy that he knew intimately.
It was Rylee.
“Quiet down, my friends!” Ramos screamed into the microphone. The security guard threw a towel on top of Gage’s exposed body and then tried to force him to his feet. Gage growled at him and backed into the corner, on all fours, grasping at the towel tightly.