“Normal?” I spat through gritted teeth. “I must have failed your test then, huh? Is that why you’re here now? You finally figured out I’m as screwed up as they come.”

“No, baby. I failed the test.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I’m done fighting who I am. You belong to me.” He let go of my hands, reached into his pocket, and withdrew something. In the shadows of dusk, I could barely make it out, but once I did, my heart took off in a sprint. He held a syringe identical to the one he’d used the night he kidnapped me. God, how that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“You got your memory back,” I said, not expecting an answer because I knew it was true. He was darker, harder, no longer caged by the burden of amnesia.

“I remember everything.”

“Then you remember that I was okay with being yours.” I eyed the syringe, and a hint of fear busted through my defenses. “Why the drugs?”

“You don’t wanna be awake for where I’m taking you.” He pulled the cap off and held the needle a couple of inches from my neck. “Does that scare you?”

“No,” I said, clenching my jaw. I didn’t bother inching away from him, even if my skittering pulse gave away the lie.

“You realize I’m never letting you go, right?”

For a few heavy seconds, I failed to breathe. I’d hate him later, would rail and scream and sob until I had nothing left in me. But in this moment, the absolute ownership in those words cast me under his spell.

“You sure about that?” I tilted my head, giving him easy access to my neck, challenging him to mean his oath. To act on it.

“You can count on it,” he said, and then he plunged in the needle.

2. Champion - Rafe

2. CHAMPION - RAFE

This was the moment I normally lived for. The adrenaline rush of knowing I had him. The smell of sweat and blood in the air. The crowd that chanted Rafe “The Choker” Mason. I moved into a kick-jab combo, but the moves glanced off him like pesky flies.

So maybe I had him.

I always faced the chance of an opponent catching me off-guard, or even worse get one up on me. Tonight, both of those outcomes were real possibilities.

Alex’s name ricocheted in my mind, drowning out the crowd. There was nothing left in my head but her. No fight, no chaotic mob of people on the other side of the cage. Just Alex knocked out and tied up on my boat near this damn barn.

Fuck, I didn’t want to be here. But in all reality, Alex would be safer if I let off some steam before I woke her because getting lost in the silky texture of her skin while strung this tightly…that could be dangerous.