Unbearable Cage (The Grizzly Next Door 3)

by Aya Morningstar

  “Yeah,” Cage said. “Let’s cross our fingers for Schlager to win.”

  The fight erupted. Mal charged before Schlager could build up any momentum, and he dove feet first into Schlager’s gut. Both feet connected cleanly, and Schlager hunched over but brought his hands up in time to defend. Mal leapt off the ground with a rising uppercut, and Schlager just barely deflected it.

  Schlager kicked at Mal to build space, and without warning, he charged. Despite his size, he gained momentum in just a few steps, and suddenly his shoulder crashed into Mal. Both men fell to the ground, but Schlager was on top.

  Mal got his hands up between Schlager and himself, which meant Schlager couldn’t get a clean grip. Schlager was good at charging but weak at pressing his advantage once he’d grounded his opponent, and Cage could see Mal grinning as Schlager grouped ineffectively. The time in round one bled away, and though Mal was pinned down, Schlager couldn’t do any damage or get Mal even close to submission.

  Mal’s going to win, Cage’s bear said. We get to fight!

  Cage caught himself grinning.

  The next round began, and Ren gripped Cage’s arm tightly.

  Schlager charged and charged, and Mal dodged and dodged. No clean hits.

  Cage noticed Schlager slowing down. He was getting tired, and Mal was intentionally wearing him down.

  Schlager stomped the ground and charged again, and Mal moved as if he were dodging left. Schlager went wide left while Mal stood still. It was a feint. Mal swung around with a roundhouse and slammed Schlager in the back but backed up before Schlager could retaliate.

  Mal repeated this trick two more times, varying which side he feinted to. On the third attempt, Mal feinted right, but Schlager didn’t fall for it. He ran straight forward.

  At the last moment, Mal’s foot flew up as he fell back. His heel connected clean into Schlager’s balls, and Schlager crumpled to the ground.

  Shit. Was it a total knockout? To the balls?

  No. Schlager kept one hand cupped to his damaged balls but snatched at Mal’s leg with the other.

  Mal stomped his heel down onto Schlager’s wrist, pinning it.

  Idiot! Submit!

  His sperm factories are gonna get broked really bad!

  With Schlager’s wrist pinned down, Mal kicked him five, six, seven times in quick succession. Blood and sweat was flying through the air.

  “He can’t submit!” Ren said “His wrist is pinned down!”

  Cage saw Schlager’s free hand move as if it were going to submit, but Mal stomped and pinned it as well. He bent down so his knees rather than heels were immobilizing Schlager, and then he began punching Schlager’s face until it went from pale white to dark red.

  Some shifters—just a handful—rose from their seats in protest, and a couple even tried to burst into the cage and stop Mal, but men that Cage recognized from the night he got fired from his bouncer job rushed in and started brawling the protestors.

  Preventing submission like this was not against the rules. It was very, very frowned upon, but in this situation Mal would get away with it, Cage knew. Few people wanted to stop this fight and put into question who would advance. They wanted to see Mal fight Cage, so they’d let him get away with this.

  Cage felt an urge to rush down and try to stop Mal as well, but he couldn’t risk leaving Ren alone in such a dangerous situation.

  “Someone stop him!” Ren screamed, tears streaming down her face.

  He had to act. Cage stood and willed himself to act. He’d risk the bookies’ fury—again—but he couldn’t watch Schlager die like this.

  Before he could take a step, however, Schlager’s body convulsed and then fell still.

  Mal threw up both hands and growled. He was covered in the blood of his dead opponent. It was dripping down his face and matting his chest hair.

  He looked in Cage’s direction, pointed straight at him, and mouthed two words: You’re next.

  CHAPTER 18

  REN

  Ren had begged him to flee. She didn’t have a job here anyway, but then she remembered Lisa. She’d always hated Cage for abandoning her, so how could she ask him to do it again? Lisa wouldn’t run, and she wouldn’t be afraid either.

  So she chose to believe in Cage. He was a stronger fighter than Rhino—she still just thought of him as Rhino—and he knew Mal’s dirty tricks. Cage had begun sparring with Mickey, and they were working out a strategy together to beat Mal. She had to believe he could win, because her doubt or fear could cast a real shadow over Cage and take his head out of the game.

  She was getting good at self-defense now, and watching so many of these shifter fights had helped her understand the practical applications of various holds, stances, and escape techniques. She never wanted to fight in a competition like that herself, but she felt confident she wouldn’t be walked all over if someone ever threatened her safety again.

  Ren was hitting the punching bag while Cage and Mickey sparred, and afterward they were all totally exhausted. And hungry.

  “Let’s get some falafel!” Mickey said.

  “Falafel?” Cage asked. His face looked like he had just smelled a fart. “How about...meat?”

  “It’s high in protein,” Mickey said, “and if you’re still hungry afterward, they have some really good kofta there.”

  “What the hell is kofta?” Cage asked.

  “Meat,” Ren said. “It’s meat.”

  “Okay,” Cage said. “Sounds good.”

  The falafel place was small and packed. There were more tables outside, but it was cold, so a lot of people were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, eating some delicious-smelling fries and curries. Ren wanted to try the falafel, but everything else smelled so good, and she was so damn hungry. Maybe she could just freeload a little bit of everything Cage ordered. He always ate enough for five men after he sparred or fought.

  Shortly after walking inside, she noticed both Cage and Mickey tensing up. They were talking to each other in hushed tones, and she couldn't make out what they were saying.

  “Ren,” Cage said, “I’m going to walk you home now.”

  “We haven’t eaten yet,” she said. “Everything looks so good.”

  “Ren,” he said, but then she saw.

  A man with a handful of fries looked over at her and then up at Cage.

  She recognized him immediately. The mugger.

  “That’s him!” she said, pointing.

  “Fuck,” Mickey said as the mugger jumped from his chair.

  French fries flew everywhere, and the mugger shoved a pudgy man right into Cage. Cage caught the man, and the mugger dove between Cage’s legs, slid across the floor, and leapt back to his feet, sprinting out the door.

  Cage was slow to react, but Mickey was on him. Ren rushed after them, and Cage was right behind her.

  The two men disappeared into the shadows of the park.

  “Stay close to me,” Cage said.

  They were walking right into the park. Where she was mugged. And the mugger was in there.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said. She willed it to be true. She couldn’t be afraid now.

  “I know,” Cage said, grasping her hand. “But still, stay with me.”

  Ren could sense how much she was slowing him down.

  “Cage,” she said, “we’re—”

  “Get on my shoulders,” he said.

  “That won’t be any fast—”

  She heard his clothes tearing, and then they burst into shreds. A full-sized grizzly bear stood in front of her. Oh.

  She climbed up on his back, and she rode him through the park. They kept out of the lights, and Ren was thankful almost no one went through the park at night. She couldn’t imagine the reaction if they saw a woman riding around on a grizzly bear as if it were a horse.

  She bent down flat and grasped Cage’s fur as he sped up. In the distance she saw two panthers slashing at each other. Just shadows. From this distance they could be house cats, but Ren knew they w
eren’t.

  Cage ran faster still, and Ren squeezed with her legs to secure herself. The panthers saw him coming, and one—Mickey—rushed ahead and cut off the mugger’s escape.

  The other panther stood still, and as Cage neared it, it shifted back to human form.

  Cage roared as he approached, not slowing.

  “I’ll tell ya everything!” the mugger shouted.

  Cage dug his feet into the ground, and Ren felt herself sliding off him. She tumbled and flipped and flew into the air. She fell, but not onto the ground. She fell into human arms. Into Cage’s.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I knew I was going to catch you.”

  Her heart pounded, and she just nodded as Cage set her down. He stepped in front of her, putting his body between her and the mugger.

  Mickey had shifted back, and the mugger was pinned between the two men. He was cut off, and if he changed his mind and tried to run, they’d catch him.

  “You’ll tell me everything?” Cage asked. “So you’re not just going to fess up about mugging the woman I love? There’s more?”

  The mugger gulped, and Ren did too. The woman he loved. They hadn’t said that yet...and he hadn’t thought about it just now. He’d just said it, because it’s what he felt. It’s what she was to him.

  “Well,” the mugger said, “ah, you see—ah, man, I’m sorry about the mugging, lady—”

  “Ren,” Cage said. “Her name is Ren.”

  “Ren,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ren. I didn’t even wanna mug you! I usually do banks, stuff like that. Just a few weeks ago I hit up the bank in—”

  “We don’t care about the banks,” Cage said.

  “Right,” the mugger said, bobbing his head up and down. “So this dude I don’t normally work with...he’s a dude you know...Malachai Metzer. Anyway, he approaches me because he knew my cousin way back when. He offers me a lot of m—shit, I mean, I mean he threatened me. There was no money involved here. So anyway, he says if I don’t mug Ren, make her seem in danger and lure you out”—he pointed to Cage—“he said he’d mess me up just like he messed up my cousin and that human chick way back when.”

  “What human chick?” Cage and Mickey ask in unison.

  “Elizabeth, Linda, Lisa? I don’t remember her name.”

  “It’s Lisa,” Cage said. “You’re saying Mal was behind what happened to Lisa?”

  “Ah, shit, man. It’s just a rumor!”

  “You just told me,” Cage said, and with her hand on his back, Ren could feel his muscles tensing and his fury building, “that Malachai directly mentioned that he ‘messed up’ your cousin and my sister.”

  The mugger broke out into a long-winded and breathless confession. “God, man, just don’t hit me, all right? I’m a robber, not a fighter! So way back then, Malachai tells my cousin that he’s rigged the fight and is gonna get rich—that there’s gonna be shitloads of money floating around and my cousin will get a fair chunk. He’s just gotta do one thing, and that’s get the incorruptible Cage Castor to throw the fight. So my cousin’s a stand-up guy—sort of—and so he tells Mal that he’ll put a good scare on her but won’t touch a hair on her body. Mal, like, grabs him by the throat and knees my cousin in the balls—you know that’s the kind of shit he does; you know I ain’t lyin’ here!—and he tells my cousin that ain’t gonna cut it. Says he needs to hurt her. Even with Mal, like, going all grizzly bear up in my cousin’s grill, he says he don’t wanna hurt some innocent lady…”

  “Your cousin is a piece of shit,” Cage said. His voice was ice-cold and on the brink of exploding. “Spare me the embellishments and tell me what happened, as it happened.”

  “Right,” the mugger says, “so my cousin’s a real piece of shit, as I was saying. So he tells Mal he’ll hurt this lady real good, but he says he don’t wanna killer her. Not because he’s a great guy or nothing, but just because he’s in real deep with a lot of crimes and stuff, so he don’t want murder on his rap sheet. Mal says it don’t matter if she dies, as long as she gets hurt bad enough to get you to throw the fight. So my cousin has this big-ass truck with a big-ol’ ‘fuck you’ bumper on it. He just starts ramming your sister’s car, takes her clean off the road...and you know the rest.”

  “And your cousin died in the crash?” Cage asked. Ren worried, from the tension in his muscles, that he would snap and kill the mugger right there.

  “Nah,” the mugger said. “He thought he’d killed your sister, so he comes running to me saying he’d fucked up real bad, and I was all like, ‘bro, you gotta go to the police and turn yourself in!’ but he wouldn’t listen to me, so he goes to tell Mal the job is done, just like he asked, and I ain’t never heard from my cousin again. Guy just disappeared. Everyone say Mal helped him disappear so he wouldn’t get caught, but I know my cousin’s dead. Mal don’t like loose ends like that.”

  CHAPTER 19

  CAGE

  Mal himself had rigged the fight.

  Kill him! his bear roared.

  Kill who? The cousin of the guy who did the deed? Who put his sister in a wheelchair? This guy was a shitstain, but that’s all he really was. It was Mal who was guilty.

  If Cage hadn’t fled, he may have heard all of these rumors earlier. He took a breath and cleared his head. No more “what ifs” or “could haves.” He needed to do the right thing now. He stared down at the pathetic panther and realized that the right thing wasn’t taking his rage out on this irrelevant pawn. He needed to focus his rage. Delay his revenge. Use it all to defeat Mal.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Cage said. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

  He heard Ren let out a sigh of relief behind him, and he turned to her.

  “I’m sorry that I let him—”

  “No,” Ren said. “I’m glad you let him go. I wasn’t afraid of him.... I was only afraid you were going to do something you’d regret. Something that I would regret.”

  Cage nodded.

  ***

  Cage defeated his last opponent before Mal in an icy trance. He’d felt nothing fighting him, and he’d grounded him into submission in the first round. It was a cool and calculated fight, with no big risks or flashy entrances. He had felt the crowd’s anticipation for a show, but he hadn’t given it to them. They’d have to wait. When he tore Malachai’s head off in the ring, they’d get their show.

  And Mal too defeated his last opponent, but in spectacular fashion. After killing Schlager in the ring, it had seemed impossible to top, but he’d snapped his next opponent’s neck. He’d done it just right so that his opponent lost only the use of his legs. Shifter healing would work its magic, and the opponent would walk again, but it was a clear message to Cage, received loud and clear.

  So Mal and Cage would fight in the championship, just as everyone had expected they would all along. Cage had been driven to defeat Mal and drive him out of town ever since he had decided to step back into the cage.

  But now he was going to kill him.

  “Come on, Ren!” he shouted. She was punching his palms like a punching bag, but it felt like mosquitoes biting rather than a real hit.

  Sweat was dripping down her body, and her movements looked rubbery. They’d been training for nearly three hours, but she didn’t complain.

  She hit him harder. “Good! I wanted to see a bit of fire before we finish. Always finish a session giving it your all.”

  She smiled, sighed, and fell down onto the mat, laughing. “God! That was intense. I can’t believe I lasted so long. I came so close to giving up and quitting, like, five or six times.”

  “What matters is that you didn’t quit,” Cage said.

  He lay down beside her and pulled the loose strands of hair out of her face. Her hair was all matted down with sweat. It was a total mess, but she looked beautiful either way.

  “The fight with Mal—” Ren said, but he cut her off.

  “I will win. I promise.”

  She furrowed her brow and then shook her head. “That’s not w
hat I was going to say. I was going to ask you what you plan to do.”

  “Win…” Cage said.

  “How?”

  “Ren,” he said, and he felt his voice taking on a pandering tone, but he couldn’t stop it. “A man like that...you can’t allow him to live. You heard what he did to—”

  “I don’t want to marry a killer,” Ren said. “I mean that. You’ll kill what I love about you if you do what I think you’re planning. In high school, I was afraid to talk to you because I thought you might have been becoming that kind of man. The kind of man who thinks it’s okay to kill. A man like Mal. Over these past weeks, you’ve shown me you’re not like that. Don’t prove me wrong now.”