twisted up like a sexy pretzel. "What happened to Steele?"
Kody looked over at me, but Archer just used that distraction to his advantage. He flipped Kody over, twisting his huge, tattoo-covered body around, snaring Kody's arm and bending it up the length of his own body, hyperextending the joints.
I winced and tried really, really hard not to notice how Kody's shoulder was all squashed up in Archer's crotch. Fucking hell, I needed to get laid. Again.
"Ah, you fuck!" Kody yelled, but didn't tap out. Archer just grinned and leaned back further, to the point I thought for sure Kody's arm would break.
"Tap out, bro," Archer taunted him. "Madison Kate already knows you've lost this round."
I rolled my eyes but folded my arms under my breasts and glared.
"Someone answer my fucking question," I snapped at them both, ignoring their stupid pissing contest. "Why the hell has Steele got bandages all over him?"
Kody groaned in pain and finally tapped out. Archer released him, and the two of them rolled away from one another on the padded blue mats while Kody rubbed his shoulder.
"He's fine," Archer told me with one brow cocked. "He just needed a few painkillers, and they always knock him right the fuck out."
Fury and fear were building inside me to the point of painful, and my nails bit deeply into my palms. "Painkillers for what?" I demanded through clenched teeth.
Archer just stared back at me like he wasn't going to tell me simply to piss me off.
Thankfully, Kody had a few more brain cells to rub together and rolled to his feet.
"He just caught a bit of gravel rash," he told me, casual as all fuck. "It's really not much worse than a bad graze but needs bandaging and rest so he can heal without it scarring."
I blinked at him. "Bad grazes don't fucking scar, Kodiak!"
He grimaced. "Really bad ones do."
Archer scoffed. "Steele's fine, Princess. Quit your fretting. Besides, don't chicks dig scars or some shit?"
"Probably not that many scars, dude," Kody muttered under his breath, then turned back to me. "Look, he just didn't want to worry you until after our doc had cleaned it all up and bandaged his arm. But then we might have slipped a couple of sedatives into his scotch, and he passed out before he could come and explain to you himself."
I needed to blink a couple more times in sheer disbelief. "You... what the hell were you thinking? You don't mix sedatives with alcohol! Kody, what the fuck? You could have killed him!"
Furious and stunned at their stupidity, I threw my hands up and stalked out of the gym.
"Babe, wait up." Kody chased after me, catching my arm with one of his gloved hands. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Trust me. We would never put Steele in danger deliberately; he's more than a brother to both of us."
"He's right," Archer drawled, leaning one of his heavily muscled shoulders on the doorframe. "We only take risks with high-speed car chases and shootouts. Drugs and alcohol are strictly under doctors orders." His voice was heavy with sarcasm and his glare accusing.
Mother fucker. He blamed me for whatever had happened to Steele, no question in my mind.
"What happened this morning?" I asked, my voice catching on my own turbulent emotions. "You clearly found the guy." Otherwise how did he get my knife back?
Archer unstrapped his gloves, tossed them behind him into the gym, then ran a hand over his long, dark stubble. "We found him. And his backup."
My brows shot up. "And?"
Archer shook his head. "And nothing. They didn't last long enough to tell us anything useful."
My heart stopped. "You killed them?"
Archer tilted his head to the side, ignoring Kody's sound of protest.
"That a problem for you, Princess? Who knows what they had planned for you. Would you have liked being sold into the flesh market? Or kept in a cage for months until your father caved and paid some insane ransom? Or, hell, I dunno, maybe let loose in an abandoned amusement park and then hunted like a fucking deer?" He grew more and more incensed with every word until he was practically shouting them at me. "They're lucky they died the way they did, and I didn't get my fucking hands on them. Believe me, it was more humane this way."
With a disgusted sneer at me, Archer stomped back into the gym, and seconds later the heavy thud of fists striking a sandbag reached us.