He shouldn’t be surprised, though. Everyone knows how I relish the pain, relish the fight, the way my body aches after. It matches the ache in my heart, in my soul.
He lands another blow, and a choked laugh rumbles out of me. One that has him drawing up short, stepping away from me, arms raised not in a fighting stance, but palms open and pressed toward me, trying to ward me off.
“You okay there, mate?”
I spit a wad of blood and nod. “Yeah. Just grand. Let’s get on with it, yeah?”
Rodrigo gives a sharp shake of his head. “Get on with what? Me beating you bloody and you not fighting back?”
“I’ve fought back.” Not very hard and not very well. Everyone at the gym knows what I’m capable of when I’m at my best and it’s not this. Not even close.
Rodrigo shakes his head. “No, you really haven’t. And I’m all for letting you take a few hits to deflate that ego of yours, but I’m not into beating you just because you feel guilty.”
My spine snaps straight and a snarl curls my lip. “What?”
The alpha glances around the ring, taking in the spectators, all eagerly watching our exchange. With a sigh he takes one hesitant step toward me. “Look, we’ve all seen the show. We all know about Florence.”
“Don’t say her fucking name,” I grit out, more animal than man. “Never say her name.”
“You’re just proving my point, Grieves. You sent her away and now you regret it. You made a public commitment to Isadora Aureline and you regret it. And we get it, mate. We understand.”
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell him there’s no way he could understand. That he doesn’t even know the worst thing about the entire situation, that we sent our fated mate away, that we didn’t recognize her, didn’t keep her close and safe and provided for.
But he’s already moving on. “But we, none of us, are comfortable being the tool you use to punish yourself.”
I cast my glare around the room and most of them won’t meet my eye. “Is that so?”
Rodrigo swallows thickly and nods. “Yeah. When you’re ready to spar, when you’re ready to actually hit back, we’ll be here, but until then… I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a willing opponent.”
Frustration builds in my stomach. This is the only time I feel even remotely better. Here in this ring, with blood on mychin and cracked knuckles. He’s right, this is my penance, my punishment. And without it, I think I might go mad.
“And what if I were to command you to do as I wish, unwilling as you are?”
Everyone in the room stiffens. I can’t blame them. I have never used my position against them, against anyone. I haven’t felt worthy of it. And I don’t enjoy flexing that political power. I much prefer to use the power of my body, my fists.
“Then I suppose we would have to obey,my lord,” Rodrigo says after a long, drawn-out silence. He’s staring stonily ahead, body tense waiting for me to make my choice.
I know if I tell him to fight me he will. He’ll keep battering at me if I order it, but what kind of a monster would that make me? When I know how he feels about it. How everyone here feels about it, apparently.
It would be a punishment for them as well as for myself and I’ve caused enough pain as it is.
So even though my alpha is in no way satisfied that I’ve suffered enough for my actions, I give a tight nod. “Very well. I shall return when I’ve sorted myself out.”
Which will be never.
Without Florence there isn’t a chance of that happening.
“Grieves,” Piers says, as soon as I slip through the door of our suite of rooms in the palace. “We need to talk. Now.”
Five words have never sounded so serious, so dire. No, that’s not true.You are not our omega,is pretty fucking dire too.
“Not right now,” I grunt out before I bypass my pack, striding into my room with Forsythe hot on my heels. I tug my sweat and blood soaked shirt over my head and toss it directly into the bin. I’m not going to make the staff try to get that clean.
“You can’t keep doing this, mate,” Sythe says, leaning a shoulder against my open door, watching as I examine my injury in the mirror. “It's not healthy.”
I snort and that makes my nose ache. “I used to do this all the time, remember?”
Our prime frowns. “That was when it was a job, a sport you competed in. This is…” he runs his warm brown eyes over me, cataloguing every one of my injuries. Most of which I could have avoided. I just didn’t want to. “This feels like a punishment, Grieves.”