“Hey, beautiful,” Keir greeted with a casual wave. He rolled his shoulder, unable to fight off the wide grin tugging onto his face. “About time we got to do this again.”

It’d been a while since he got to face you in the ring. Usually Keir dragged you off for a spar no matter what you said. And then that usually ended with the two of you locking lips. The cycle would repeat again and again. Keir loved it. Kissing you, hitting you, whatever it was, it made him feel alive again. He chased that adrenaline high constantly.

The crowd screamed around them, cheering for him or you or booing you both. Keir didn’t care. His attention was solely focused on you, on the way your scent changed at the same time his did, on the rise and fall of your chest with every breath. He wanted to ask if you liked this as much as he did. Keir could spend eternity here with you trading blows.

“Hate to see your pretty face all busted up,” he continued. The match would start soon. Unlike most of the boxers here, Keir didn’t have a sponsor. He couldn’t care less about how much money he made. Some nights he’d lose every single fight and end up sleeping in random places; on better nights he got to drink himself to sleep in a shady motel room. Everything he owned was secondhand, sometimes fished out of dumpsters. Keir was barely living and he didn’t care. This was better than anything else. “So make sure you get a good hit in, okay?”

Keir tapped his glove to his cheek. “Right here, baby.” He wanted to feel alive tonight.

He didn’t know if you had a sponsor. Huh, he’d never thought to ask. Now that he was staring at you and thinking about it, Keir didn’t know much about you. You were alpha, not boring, hit hard, and willing to make out with him when he got bored. That was all he needed to know. He didn’t care about a potential tragic backstory. Nobody happy came to illegally fight in some rundown building. Maybe he’d ask you after this. You were the most interesting person here.

Keir hated boring fights. The alphas or betas or whatever that were obviously being forced to fight because they owed a debt. They’d tremble and cry all over him. Pathetic. Most of them had taken loans from yakuza and then were sent there. A lot of them didn’t make it out of their first fight alive. But not you. You were special.