Born of Defiance

“Muscle? Please. Compared to you, I’m a flabby old female. I’m pretty sure your left biceps are bigger than my waist.”


Laughing, he sank his hand in her hair. “And these curls… they haunted me. All I wanted was to bury my hand in them and have you whip your hair over my chest.”

“So it was the curls and muscles that sold you, huh?”

“No. What sold me was the fact that when I logged in, there were no photos of you naked. Unlike the others, you were a real tara.” He traced her lips with his fingertip. “In all my life, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I wanted to talk to you. To see if you were as sweet and soft as you appeared.”

“Big letdown, eh?”

He shook his head. “You were so much more than I’d ever expected to find. I still can’t believe you’re here with me.”

She wanted to cry at the sincerity in his eyes. “Is that why you agreed to pay me your entire officer’s salary?”

He pulled back with a shocked gasp. “What?”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “I have to buy out the value of my contract with you from the agency. They sent me the bill for it. Fifty thousand a year, just to the agency? Are you insane?”

He looked away sheepishly.

Felicia wanted to choke him for throwing his money away like that. “That is what you’re paying, isn’t it?”

He cringed even more before he answered. “Actually, I’m paying seventy-five. The fifty thousand buyout was negotiated before the contract was drafted.”

For a full minute, she couldn’t breathe as those words fell against ears that didn’t want to believe them. “What?”

He nodded. “I had to pay thirty-five up front. And agree to seventy-five for the probationary period and first five years. And fifty for the next ten years, after that, provided you agreed to extend the contract with me.”

She slapped him with a pillow. “Are you mental? That’s over a million dollars for me! Oh my God. Talyn, you’re an idiot!”

He gaped at her.

“Well, you are! Who does that? Oh my God!” she repeated. But in her heart, she knew the real answer. A male who had no choice. One who was being gouged by those who could demand anything they wanted and his only choice was to pay or be alone. “I can’t believe you agreed to that.”

“I would gladly pay that and more for you, Felicia.”

She snorted at his sweet words. “That’s the stralen in you talking.”

“I wasn’t stralen when I signed the agreement.” He tucked the pillow behind her. “So how much do you need to buy out your contract?”

“A little over half a million.”

He sucked his breath in sharply. “How soon do you need it?”

“Fifteen days.”

Cursing, he winced. “I have three hundred and fifty left in a savings account.”

She gaped at that amount. “How? Officers don’t make that kind of money.”

“I had to prove to the agency that I could afford you and their fees. So I contracted for fights I’d have normally passed on, and put the up-front prepayments into savings, investments, and this condo.”

She felt sick as she realized what he’d been willing to do for her. “That’s the real reason you’re going against Death Warrant?”

He nodded. “And Iceman. Steel Jaw. The Mountain. Slayer.”

“Five fights?”

“Six, counting the one I already fought.”

“Talyn!”

“What? It’s what I had to do to get that kind of cred. For death-styled title matches, I get eighty-five thousand a fight, plus another twenty if I win. Normally I only get fifteen with a five-thousand win bonus.”

She fell silent as she did the math in her head. “So what you’re telling me is that in a death match, out of every two-hundred credit ticket they sell, you barely make four credits?”

“Three and two bits, after locker and cleaning fees. Then after I pay Erix and Ferrick, I clear just under a single credit. After taxes, I make half a cred.”

For putting his life and health on the line.

She couldn’t believe it. Shelf-stockers earned more. “Yet you’re the reason they sell out every fight?”

He nibbled at her salad with a nonchalance that made her want to beat him. “I used to make only three percent of that in the Open league. And I made fifty thousand less a fight before I won the Vested Championship. I’m very happy with what they pay me now. Trust me. I’m the highest-paid fighter in Ring history.”

Great. Not what she wanted to hear.

“It’s still not fair.”

Talyn didn’t comment on that as he swallowed a bite of food. “If I agree to four more title fights in the next six months, we’d have what you need to buy back the contract.”

She gaped at him and what he was willing to do.