Reaching Answers (Artemis University #8) - Erin R Flynn Page 0,119
Weak. Guess your daddy needs to take care of you too, huh? We can’t have you off-leash walking all around to cause trouble for your family.” I ducked as he came for me again. I realized he’d still been healing because then his third hit actually had something behind it.
But nothing like mine.
I gave him an uppercut that knocked him off his feet, his eyes full of shock as he pushed back up. “See, this is what happens if you don’t intentionally keep women weak. We’re not. You cheat and don’t give them the same training as men and then bark and rant how they’re useless. You engineer it that way by keeping them in kitchens and teaching them fucking knitting and then they can’t fight.”
I spun on my foot and landed a beautiful kick to his stomach that made him double over. I changed legs to give him enough time to get a breath before slamming my knee up in his head, blood spurting all over for the cameras to catch.
“But clearly all your bitching and hysterics were a front to hide how weak you are and that women scare you.” I studied him. “You sound like a closet case. One of those crazy ass humans who are so far in the closet, they lose their minds from denying who they truly are and try to hide it by going so ultra conservative and prudish in the hopes no one will notice that it’s insane.”
Steam about came out of his ears at the suggestion he was gay and he tried to punch me. I grabbed his wrist and yanked it behind him, hurting him but careful not to break his arm or dislocate his shoulder.
I wanted this fight to last a while. I had a lot of issues to work out with this asshole.
“Pathetic. Someone even suggests you might be gay and you flip. Seriously? You’re that fragile you take it as an insult? I think everyone in the LGBTQ community just fucking cheered you’re not one of them.” I shoved him away and smirked at him. “How’s that respect you’re teaching me? Going well?”
He rallied, kicking it up a notch for the next series of hits.
Well, attempted ones. I blocked them all with ease which severely pissed him off from the way they kept coming faster and faster.
I reached past one block and thumped him in the forehead with the heel of my hand, smirking at him when he couldn’t hide his shock I’d gotten the drop on him. “Come on, deep down we both know you won’t win this. You can’t seriously think you have a chance, right? I mean, you bark and bark your nonsense because you assumed my guards wouldn’t let me walk into this.”
“I assumed you would know your place and never be so insane as to come after an adult male.”
I snorted. “I train with Nathan Larson. I beat him all the time. Everyone talks about it. I’m sorry your ears don’t work, along with your brain, but it’s also well known I train with Trigger Rothchild because I’ve worked up through all the levels of the Rothchild clan’s training program. I’m at the level of the big boss. The head of the clan. You were never going to be a match for me. I’m not even breaking a sweat.”
And he was. A drop of it ran down his cheek in that moment just to prove it and set off his temper to another level.
Carson was trained though. He wasn’t the normal rich slouch. I was fairly sure he went to Artemis and Coach Khan had probably paid attention to him as a male shifter. But the elites had been badgering everyone to go easier on them, give them breaks, and with that meant lowering the bar.
Setting the new standards well below what they used to be.
So Carson still didn’t make the cut compared to who I was used to squaring off with.
Every few times I blocked his attempts, I threw out a hit of my own that actually landed. I fractured a rib or his cheek. I grabbed his hand and broke a finger instead of simply blocking. Little things he would heal from as a shifter.
Until his energy was completely wiped and then he wouldn’t. A few more hits there, a broken arm there, and we went longer than human prize fighters could without all the dancing around. We also didn’t take breaks.