Heartless Angels

Chapter 33 – Oakley

Chapter 33 – Oakley

After winning. I turn to see how my friends did. Cassie won her match. Unfortunately, so did Lisa. You win some, you lose

some, I guess.

In the final set of round three, Je rry, Harry, and Mary fight. Je rry makes quick work of An nalise, who was ranked 31st. He

a well-placed kick to An n alise’s knee and pushed it out of socket. She was unable to continue the fight and Je rry was

declared the winner.

Mary also finished her fight pretty quickly, knocking her opponent out with a staff strike to the temple. She was da mn lucky

she didn’t kill him. Even though she made it through the round, she still got reamed out by Trainer Ethan. She was kind of shaken up by Ethan’s words when she walked up to us, but we quickly got her into our routine to stay warm and keep our joints

loose.

The major upset in this set was Harry. He lost to Meredith, the 38th rank, when she wrapped her nun chuck around his sword and pulled it out of his hand, swinging around with the other nun-chuk and smacking him in the head. Harry was so dizzy

that he was unable to continue and had to go to the infirmary to recuperate. I think Lisa might have been even more heartbroken than Harry by his performance, because she wasn’t able to go with him to the infirmary. Dude’s gotta stop getting

hit in the head. It’s gonna start causing permanent damage..

Again, we take a short break as they reset the fighting rings and to allow wolves to heal. This time, there will be two sets of groups, each group containing four pairs. My bestie Lisa and I are in the first set and Cassie, Jer ry, and Mary are in the second

set.

I’m fighting Keith, the 16th rank, this round. He’s a big, burly guy who favors close range weapons. He tends to choose short swords and axes, with the ax being what he always chooses first. It’s a great weapon and it can cause a lot of damage. But it also requires a lot of strength for it to work and that strength isn’t always the best match with stamina. If I’m fast, and have him swinging at air, he’ll be done quickly, and I can go in for the proverbial kill.

a rope. Keith wants to go for close range, I’ll show him close range. I’ll be so close, I’ll be like a second

I choose knives and a rop

f ucking skin.

When the whistle blows, I automatically go on the defensive. Keith is already gearing up to swing at me and I’m looking for

an escape and any tells that he might have. It isn’t long until I start to see them. He takes a giant breath before he swings his ax, letting it whoosh out as he swings. I just have to time it right. If I can get under the swing. I can stab him. His ax needs more space whereas the rope and knives that I have are for up close and personal. It’s gonna be hard for him to do anything once I’m within his swing. Same with the short sword that he’s carrying.

I let him swing three more times, taking in his timing, before rushing into him. I’m almost hugging him when I catch the hand that is holding his ax with both of my hands. Using my knife, I slice across the back of Keith’s hand and down into his wrist, cutting the tendon that controls his thumb and making him drop the ax immediately. His scream barely registers as I continue

the fight.

My knife and hand are now too slick with blood for them to be much use. I drop the knife, rubbing my hand down my clothing as I grab the rope from my belt, and block Keith’s reach for his short sword. Instead of grabbing the rope, I realize that I reached to the wrong side and find a knife hilt in my hand instead. Pulling out the knife, I thrust forward, trying to get his

stomach. Keith steps to the side, causing the blade to put a deep slice into his side. I continue the slice down to his hip and cut off his weapons belt, making it so that he doesn’t have a weapon at the ready.

Kicking the weapons out of Keith’s reach in case he makes it to the ground is a good thing, but it also costs me precious econds Peith tries to punch me. I manage to block the hit that would have surely knocked me unconscious, but the force of

Chapter 33 Oakley

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the impact knocks the knife from my hand.

This time, I reach for the rope, but it gets stuck and tangled on the Velcro that’s holding it in my weapons belt. Keith takes advantage and punches me directly in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me. It comes out in a great gasping whoosh and it’s all that I can do to get the rope from my belt as I fall to the ground. Thank the Goddess that I had the foresight to kick all of the weapons out of Keith’s reach before this moment because he follows me to the ground and only has his hands to fight me

with. Though those meaty paws are intimidating enough.

Keith falls on top of me, straddling my hips and prepares to punch me into unconsciousness. What he didn’t anticipate was me getting my hands up in time to fight him off. I block the first few punches with my forearms which I can already tell are bruising. Keith attempts to pry one of my arms away with one hand while punching with the other and that’s his mistake. Between one punch and the next, I wrap his one wrist up in the rope and catch the other as it comes down to hit me, yanking hard to the side and using the combination of his momentum and mine to pull him off of me.

I pull a knife out of my weapons belt as we roll, bringing it up under his chin, as I stretch his tangled wrists up as high as they can go so he doesn’t have the ability to swing them. I lay my b*dy flat against his, wrapping my feet around his thighs so that I

have control of his motions there and will move with him.

Keith looks me dead in the eye and I can see the knowledge there that he is caught. He gives a couple of token struggles,

but each time the knife digs further into his n*eck and I don’t give him much ability to move.

He stares at me, frustrated. “I yield,” he huffs out.

I immediately move off of him, but keep the pressure on his wrist. He’s losing a lot of blood that way and I’ve made a makeshift tourniquet for him. I keep the pressure until the medics tell me that I can let go and then I go to the side where Ray is

waiting for me with a wet and a dry towel and a bottle of water. While cleaning off, I turn to see that Lisa has also finished and

won her fight. The other two are finishing up as well. Within a few minutes, the next set is up. All three of my best friends are in

those fights

As we wait for the other fights to finish and the fighting circles to be reset, Ray insists that I have my ribs and arms checked

out, given the almost instantaneous dark bruising and swelling on those areas. The medics quickly find that I have fractured

ulna bone in one arm and one of my ribs is broken. Everything else is just bone bruising, which sounds innocuous, but hurts like

a bitc h. The medics wrap my ribs and put ice on them and put a hard binding on my forearm. Then they give me a shot of endorphins to speed up my healing abilities. Luckily, we have lunch after this set of fights. I’ll have about two hours to heal.

Ray insists on sitting behind me so that I stay upright, which is what’s best for my ribs. He holds the ice to my ribs and pulls

me close to him.

“You did great out there, baby. I’m so

proud of you,” he says, k*ssing the top of my head. The feeling of sparks move all over

my b*dy and I can’t help but relish the feeling. I never got any of this with Levi. The only time that he ever touched me was to hurt me. I love the feeling of Ray’s touch and how he dotes on me.

There is such a stark difference between my two mates. It makes me sad for what I could have had with Levi in my own

pack with my own family. Not because I miss Levi, but because I miss my home. I’m not sad for who I left behind, but for what could have been had I not been a descendent of the Moon Goddess and had been a regular wolf.

But if that were the case, I wouldn’t have met Ray and I wouldn’t have made the friends that I’ve made. It’s been so long

since I’ve had wolf friends and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

I’m so caught up in my own head that I don’t even notice that Mary, Jer ry, and Cassie are fighting until all three of them are

in relatively quick order. All three won their fights. Looks like we’ll all be fighting again after lunch.

I look at the tournament bracket and what I see gives me pause. Not only will all my friends and I be fighting in the next

round, burgerry and Mary will be fighting each other. One of them isn’t making it through the next round.

round burgerry