Knowing he wasn’t getting out of the ring before this was over, the man turned and looked at his remaining partner, nodding his head. The other guy seemed to agree with the wordless communication, and both men rushed Tanner at the same time.
They split wide at the last second, coming at him from two sides at once. Tanner ducked the first bat swung at his head and kicked out, knocking that man back all the way to the cage fencing. The move left him open to the second guy coming in, and he got an arm up just in time to keep from getting his face caved in.
The thud of the aluminum club against his forearm cracked something hard enough for him to feel it, and the beast slipped out a little more as the pain overrode Tanner’s control. He tried to stop it, but his fangs slid out, and he roared in the guy’s face, fangs and all. To say the man was stunned was an understatement. Bastard just about shit himself. Guess Ryan never bothered to tell the men what they were up against.
The guy tried to swing at him again, but Tanner was too close for it to do much damage, and the weak blow bounced off his left shoulder. With a snarl, Tanner wrapped a hand around the man’s throat and shoved him across the ring to the far section of fencing, pinning him there as the beast inside howled for blood. Tanner fought against the urge as much as he could, and that hesitation cost him. The man slammed his knee into Tanner’s groin.
The pain was intense, but Tanner refused to release his grip on the man. Clenching his jaw, he brought his foot down on the guy’s leg. The man’s knee buckled as ligaments and tendons tore, and he screamed in pain as the will to fight anymore fled. Tanner’s hybrid wasn’t done yet, though. Lifting the man off his feet, he headbutted the guy, knocking him out cold.
Now his hybrid half was done with the man.
Tanner spun to face the last guy, only to get knocked backward by a three-hundred-pound giant running at full speed. The air exploded out of his lungs as the man drove him across the cage and slammed him into one of the support poles for the cage. The impact hurt like a son of a bitch and shredded his control that much more. Clasping his hands together, he brought his bunched fists down hard into the center of the big man’s back with a roar, stunning the collective crowd to silence.
You could have heard a pin drop as the big man fell to the floor, and a part of Tanner agonized over the thought that he’d almost certainly paralyzed the guy. Another part of him didn’t care. His hybrid half was getting closer and closer to the surface with every passing second. Much more of this, and he didn’t think he’d be able to stop the animal from completely taking over.
A pitiful cry from behind made him whirl around. The last of the five guys was over by one of the gates, the woman pinned against his body like a shield, his bat pulled up tight to her throat with both hands. Josh and the other male captive were writhing on the floor in pain.
The crowd remained silent as Tanner strode across the ring.
“Stay the fuck back!” the man warned, yanking the bat against the woman’s throat, making her gag. “I’ll kill her if you don’t!”
Tanner didn’t slow. The man would likely kill her no matter what he did. The guards weren’t going to open the gate until this was done, one way or the other.
The woman’s eyes bulged as Tanner got closer, but the look of trust in their depths stunned him. Reaching out, he caught one of the man’s hands in a crushing grip. Bones snapped as he wrenched the bat aside. The woman collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
Tanner jerked the guy to the side and punched him in the center of the chest as hard as he could. Air exploded out of the man’s lungs in a whoosh as he hit the gate behind him. The force of the blow cracked ribs and sternum and bent the gate all to hell. Tanner thought for sure he’d killed the man, but then he heard the thumping of the guy’s heart. The part of Tanner that didn’t want to kill anymore was relieved even as he realized that emotion was likely to be short lived. None of them were out of this yet.
Taking a deep breath, Tanner slowly turned around to see Josh helping the woman off the floor and leading her over to the side of the octagon. He might have just saved all of them, but that didn’t stop the kid from looking at him in terror. Tanner couldn’t blame the kid. What he’d done probably didn’t look a whole hell of a lot different than what the men did who’d beaten Josh up when he’d first been captured and forced to fight.
Around him, the crowd stamped their feet and cheered again, though Tanner wasn’t sure whether it was because they’d enjoyed the fight or were hoping Tanner would finish off the last men he’d beaten.
Tanner glanced up at the luxury boxes and realized Ryan wasn’t in the suite with Nguyen anymore. Was it too much to hope that he’d bet against Tanner and was even now drinking himself into a stupor over losing?
The gate on the far side of the cage opened, and Tanner turned to see Ryan standing there with a dozen guards. Eight of them kept their weapons pointed at Tanner while the rest led Josh
