Payne didn’t hit like a girl, whether it was with her fists or her feet or her entire body. She was more like an SUV, and as much as his ball sac would have preferred otherwise, she got him but good.
With a curse, he ass-over-elbowed and back-flatted like a little bitch. Not gonna stay that way, however.
And that turned out to be a problem.
As he fell into thin air, he was reminded of the way he’d yard-saled off the bed at the loft—and his inner ignition switch got tripped: True aggression came out—in the blink of an eye, this was not about training or keeping up his skills or getting some exercise. The war instinct was unleashed between him and his sparring partner.
With a growl that reverberated throughout the gym, he caught Payne’s upper arms in a punishing grip and turned her tables, ripping her off him and slamming her facedown into the mats.
She was a solid female, well muscled and deadly—but she was no match for his strength and size—especially as he straddled her and snaked his arm around her neck. With her throat in the crook of his elbow, he locked his free hand on his thick wrist and leaned back into the choke hold.
Lessers. Enemies. Tragic deaths that changed the course of his life—and others’.
Distance from his mate. Sexual frustration. Suspicion Beth was keeping something from him.
Chronic frustration that downshifted quickly into an anxiety load that never left him.
Fear. Unacknowledged, well buried, and poisonous.
Self-hatred.
Against the dark backdrop of his blindness, everything went white, rage taking over when it had no place to go. And the effect was to give him far greater power than his muscles and bones already had: Even as Payne’s fingernails bit into his forearm and she struggled in the manner of a death throe, nothing registered.
He wanted to kill. And he was going to—
“Wrath!”
As with Payne’s defense, whoever was yelling his name didn’t matter to him. He was locked on this path of murder, all sense of what was happening lost to the—
Someone else came and started yanking at him as that name-hollering thing got louder.
Beneath him, Payne was submitting, the fight slowly leaving her body, that eternal stillness exactly what the rage in him wanted. A little longer was all it would take. A little more pressure. A little—
A loud, repetitive noise sounded right in front of his face. Over and over and over again, like a bass drum, the beats perfectly spaced. The only thing that changed was the volume.
It increased.
Or maybe it was gradually cutting through his fury.
Wrath frowned as the racket continued. Lifting his head, he stopped squeezing so hard for a moment.
George.
His beloved, docile golden retriever was directly in his grille, barking loud as a shotgun, sure as if he were demanding that Wrath cease and desist right this moment.
All at once, the reality of what he was doing flooded into him.
What the f**k was wrong with him?
Wrath released his hold, but he didn’t have a chance to jump free. Whoever was pulling at his shoulders took over, tearing his heavy weight off the female fighter.
As he landed on the mat on his back, the retching and heaving breaths of his opponent mixed with the curses of whoever else was with them—as well as a soft whimpering.
“What the f**k are you thinking!” Now someone else was in his face. “You nearly killed her!”
Putting his hands up to his head, a cold sweat bloomed over every square inch of him. “I didn’t know…” he heard himself say. “I had no idea—”
“Did you think she could breathe like that!” It was Doc Jane. Of course—she was down in the clinic and must have heard the barking or …
And iAm was with them. He could sense the Shadow even though the guy was as usual not saying much.
“I’m sorry—Payne … I’m sorry.”
Dear God, what had he done?
He abhorred violence against females. The problem was, when he was sparring with Payne, he didn’t think of V’s sister as one. She was an opponent, nothing more, nothing less—and he’d had the bruises and even a broken bone or two to show that when it came to her, no quarter was asked for nor given.
“Shit. Payne…” He reached out into the empty air, smelling the remnants of her fear as well as the scent that came with impending death. “Payne—”
“It’s okay,” the female said hoarsely. “Honest.”
Doc Jane muttered a number of foul things.
“This is between me and him,” Payne ordered her sister-in-law. “This is not your—”
As a round of coughing cut her off, Jane snapped, “When he nearly strangles you, it sure as hell is my problem!”
“He was going to let me go—”
“Is that why you were turning blue?”
“I was not—”
“His arm is bleeding onto the mat. You telling me your fingernails didn’t do that?”
Payne caught her breath. “It’s fighting, not Go Fish!”
Doc Jane lowered her voice. “Does your brother know exactly how far this is going?”
As Wrath added his own cursing to the fruit salad of F-words, Payne growled, “You are not to tell Vishous about this—”
“Give me a good goddamn reason why and maybe I’ll consider it. Otherwise, no one tells me what I can and cannot say to my own goddamn husband. Not you, not him—”
Wrath was sure she was shooting a glare his way.
“—and certainly never concerning a f**king safety issue about a member of his family!”
The silence that followed was marked by rising aggression. And then Payne barked, “How many bones have you set on the King? How many stitches? Last week you thought I’d dislocated his shoulder—and at no point did you feel the need to run to his shellan and report it. Did you. Did you?”
“This is different.”
“Because I’m female? Excuse me—maybe you’d like to meet my eyes when you use that double standard, Doc?”
Christ, it was as if his mood had infected both of them. Then again, his actions had started all this. Fuck …
Rubbing his face, he listened to them go back and forth. “She’s right.”
That shut them both up.
“I wasn’t going to stop.” He got to his feet. “So I will tell V and we are never doing this again—”
“Don’t you dare,” the fighter spat before falling into another series of coughs. As soon as she recovered, she went back to being in his face. “Don’t you f**king dare disrespect me—I come here to fight with you to keep my own skills up. If you took advantage of a weakness, that is my fault, not yours.”