Logan’s conscience was shrieking as his hands clasped around Marie’s waist before moving down to caress her hipbones, his fingers drawing tiny circles as he fought their imperative to go lower. Let her go, bub, you’re just PRETENDING she’s yours, it yelled at him, as his arms clasped her even tighter. Nobody said anything about pretending, he corrected, just that she’s to tell any bastard that bothers her she’s mine. And if she thinks it’s true, it is, the Wolverine roared triumphantly.
Her breathy admission had affected Logan more than he could have anticipated: he had been fighting Wolverine’s possessiveness for so long, he’d forgotten that Logan felt it too. Her casual acceptance of the fact had astonished him, destroying every careful argument he’d constructed to the contrary. Marie was his, and if she wanted him, he was hers. They could have that, without endangering his self-respect, or her innocence, Logan realised. Yeah, though – bringing her to a fight bar? Not good with the innocence, his conscience sneered.
Logan shook his head to silence the traitorous voice once and for all, and moved away from Marie, letting her know he’d received her message loud and clear. He couldn’t help but comment on the leather: she had to know how much it endangered his self-control. The first set of leathers had been an idle thought he’d had while buying her a helmet in his local bike shop. The second set? Logan reckoned he may as well have shouted “you’re my girl and I want you to look like it,”. Luckily, nobody but Marie seemed to be listening that day.
Chuckling at the thought, Logan opened the outer door for Marie, ushering her ahead of him. The roar of crowd hit them, and then the smell came up - first beer, then sweat, then blood. Logan saw Marie swallow in disgust, but for Logan, the atrocious mix of scents was familiar, almost seductive. The Wolverine pricked up his ears and came stalking out of his cave: Marie had put him on alert, but the fights … the fights were his. And if his mate was here to watch him prove his superiority, so much the better.
Ushering Marie through the inner door, Logan held her still for a second while the whole bar turned to assess the new arrivals. He wanted everyone in the place to see her, and then see him plastered to her back, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her hip. No words were necessary: his entire demeanour yelled possession.
The moment lasted a long few seconds before Logan nudged her forward and guided them to the bar. Signalling for the bartender, he ordered a half-dozen Molsons, and a bottle of Wild Turkey to chase them down. He was about to ask Marie what she’d have when she expertly flicked the top off the first of the beers to arrive and took a long sip.
“What, sugar? You think I could have you in my head and survive without Molson’s? I don’t think so,” she chided in response to the eyebrow he arched in enquiry.
“Well, I ain’t about lecture ya on underage drinking, kid. But go steady, ‘cause you need to keep your wits about ya tonight,” he warned. Marie was seductive enough without alcohol in her system: he wondered briefly what she’d be like without her inhibitions. You wouldn’t survive, his conscience retorted. Forget it, bub.
As the bartender delivered the rest of his order, Logan was pointed in the direction of the bar’s owner – Mo – busy playing bookmaker as he sat in a booth taking details of fighters and bets for the night. Logan sat Marie at a table immediately beside the cage, glared at everyone in staring distance, and then left her to organise the night’s work.
Striding up to the owner’s booth, he quickly dismissed the man as the usual sort of human trash engaged in running fights. Luckily, he didn’t have to like the man to take his money.
“Bet or fight,” the owner asked, without even looking up at him.
“Fight. Name’s Wolverine.”
It took a few seconds before rheumy red eyes looked up in shock. “Wolverine, did you say? Heard of you. When do you want to go on?” Most fighters only lasted a few rounds, so the good ones tended to go on late in the night when the crowd was thickest, to maximise their cash before they inevitably took a beating. This guy, though: he was the nearest thing to a superstar on the fight circuit. Dollar signs began to flash in front of his eyes.
“Whenever. Soon as possible, I guess,” Wolverine shrugged. It’s not like anyone ever beat him, so the longer he fought, the more money he made.
“Ah, I’ll just give you a half-hour or so to get your ladyfriend settled,” Mo smarmed. “11pm OK with you?”
Wolverine nodded. He knew damn well that Mo had a series of phone calls to make, and the crowd in the bar would be twice as thick by the time he set foot in the cage.
“Yeah. But I get 60% of the take.” He expected Mo to argue – usually, fighters got 40%, the really good ones maybe 50%, but had underestimated his own celebrity. The worm didn’t even bother to debate it, too keen to get on the blower to start spreading his name around.
“Fine. 60%. Good luck in the cage.”
Shaking his head, Wolverine stalked back to the table he had claimed for Marie. Her eyes locked onto his when he was still six feet away, and the laughter in their depths almost made him smile. She was enjoying this, the minx. She may as well have been branded “property of The Wolverine” and she was enjoying it. The nearly imperceptible twitch of his lips was met with an openmouthed smile that knocked the breath from his lungs. 100 watt, full-on Marie. Very, very happy to see him. What a man wouldn’t do for that smile.
“All set, sugar?” He grunted in assent and sank into the chair beside her, angling it away from the table so he could look straight into her face.
“Marie? Stop looking so fucking gorgeous. Right now, every man here wants to get into your pants.”
She spluttered, and he could tell she didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or a warning. He was only half-joking, concerned that some idiot would let lust win out over brains and try to take advantage of his absence later on. But he also wanted to let her know just how beautiful she was. The only bright spot in this dingy bar – hell, the only bright spot in his dingy LIFE.
Obviously deciding to gloss over the warning, Marie rose to the occasion. Sliding from her own chair to drop into his lap, she curled her fingers in the hair at his temples and spoke directly into his mouth, as close as she could get without actually touching his skin. “They can want all they like, sugar. There’s hardly any room in these pants for me. And the only one whose getting me out of them anytime soon is you,” she finished with a smile, her chocolate eyes making a million hot promises as they gazed into his hazel.
Logan swallowed, reigned the Wolverine back in, and cleared his suddenly hoarse throat. They were in a dangerous situation, both vulnerable on a range of fronts, and it was vital every move he made was a smart one. So why he yanked her to him and kissed her full on the lips – very hard, very fast, but also very naked – he had no idea. The pull was momentary before Logan was able to disengage with no ill effects other than the slightest dizziness. He held her as he recovered, her chin against his chest as she tamed the new feelings, memories and powers she had taken from him.
“Marie? You mad at me?”
“Fuck no, sugar.” She lifted her head to growl at him. “Stupid thing to do, but,” she rubbed her hips against his crotch, heedless of their audience “God, I needed you to do it. Problem is … now I need a hell of a lot more.”
Her scent was telling him the tale even before she finished the sentence. Usually, she smelt like vanilla mixed with the lightest musk. Her arousal upped that to musk tinged with vanilla, but now, the vanilla was flavouring an altogether different mix – Marie’s musk, with the sharp tang of fox and earth that marked his own arousal. Logan kicked himself at the same time as the Wolverine began to fight his control. Great. Just what we need. TWO uncontrollable libidos, Logan berated himself. Clamping down on his primal self, Logan rose, setting her back in her chair and moving away a few feet to collect himself.
“Marie. Not the time or the place. Fuck, I’m sorry,” he said wearily, scrubbing at his eyes.
She seemed to accept his regret, and the scent receded a little. Impressed at her ability to reign in the animal, Logan realised just how much self-control Marie had. Juggling five minds – not including your own - obviously wasn’t easy, and Marie had perfected a control he would never have.
“S’Ok, sugar. It was worth it. Do you realise that’s the first time you’ve ever kissed me? You know, properly?” Perplexed, Logan opened his mouth to disagree, only to realise she was right. How could it be that he had never kissed this girl, this child who held the other half of his soul? CHILD, Logan, emphasis on child, his conscience chimed sourly. Uh, yeah. That was why. But he was minded to argue back. This CHILD has more self-control than I do, and more brains, and more heart. Tell me why I’m not claiming her again?
The silence echoed in his brain, his conscience clearly deciding to opt out of the conversation. Coward, he jeered, staring at Marie with a growing appreciation. Their truce was less than 24 hours old, and already it was on shaky ground.
The harsh squeal of a mishandled microphone pulled both Logan and Marie from the laden silence. “Ladeez and gennelmen. Tonight, we have a real treat for yous all,” Mo had taken the stage, swapping his bookie hat for that of MC.
“I have some 15 fighters on the book for tonight, and that book ain’t closed yet. And we’ll be needing some more of yous brave boys, because we got ourselves a gen-u-wine fighting legend in the cage tonight.”
Logan glanced around, noting that the crowd had increased from 50-odd to close to 150 in the time he had been wrapped up in Marie. Many of the newcomers were faces he had seen before; serious gamblers, violence junkies, and cagefight groupies. Several had already spotted him and he could hear the whispers circulating in the crowd. “Wolverine! I’m sure it’s him. That’s the Wolverine,” and variants thereof.
“Ladeez and gennelman, Mo’s Fight Bar presents … The Wolverine,” the over-excited greaseball said, flinging an arm towards him. Unwilling to play up to the grandstanding, Wolverine just lit his cigar and glowered. They’d see plenty of drama in the cage.
Nonplussed by his failure to react, Mo lurched back into his spiel, describing the first fighter he would be facing tonight. Logan suspected the order would have been massaged to bring one of the heavy hitters down to start with him; if the fights were too uneven, no one made any money. The guy that strode into the cage amidst Mo’s excited babble stood a good foot taller than Logan, and a foot wider too. Not an inch of it was fat: unusually for a big guy, “Goliath” was in good shape. His buzzcut and calculating gaze suggested ex-military, and his stance showed the guy knew his way around a fight in and out of the ring.
As his introduction drew to a close, Mo signalled Logan it was time he took to the cage. In one smooth motion, Logan peeled off his shirt and wifebeater, throwing them over the back of the chair already holding his jacket. He bent to kiss Marie on the temple, this time staying just inside the safety of her hair. “Enjoy the show,” he whispered, staying there for the extra second his breath needed to warm her ear.
“Oh, I will, sugar,” she purred, running her gloved fingers over the ripple of abdominal muscles to where his belt buckle stood proud. “You have fun, too.”
Logan was uncharacteristically light-hearted as he leapt up the stairs into the cage, and took his place on the mat opposite his opponent. He rotated his neck, felt the orgasmic pop of the vertebra there, and gave a token growl to intimidate his opponent. As the other guy’s meaty fist slammed under his chin, he smiled and slipped the leash on the Wolverine. He had the feeling this WAS going to be fun.
XXXXXXXXXXX
After several minutes of feeling each other out, Goliath started throwing real punches, and Logan stopped avoiding them. The crowd loved that, growing increasingly frenzied with every purple bruise that blossomed on his skin, and not seeming to notice that, beyond bruising, little real damage was being sustained. As the clock ticked towards 15 minutes, a respectable time for any opponent to last, Logan willed the Wolverine to stay leashed and just soak up the pain. His time would come.
Seemingly beaten, Logan bided his time until the betting turned against him enough to make the take worthwhile. As the odds on his victory extended, Logan endured, feinted, and then grinned with a ferality he could not mask. It was time to party. His opponent had been lulled into dropping his defence, and Logan’s adamantium-enhanced fists found little to stop them as he put a combination right under the guy’s chin. It was a blow that would have dropped most fighters, but not this one – they were surprisingly evenly matched, Logan noted, as long as the Wolverine stayed out of it. The big guy simply shook his head to clear it, and looked at Logan with a new respect. There would be no more easy shots.
Ten minutes later, both of the men were liberally coated in blood (all Goliath’s but neither the crowd or Goliath knew that) and their blows were relentless, and increasingly aimed to end it. Both knew exactly where to hit to induce unconsciousness, and both knew where to protect. Logan had two advantages, if he chose to use them: he was quicker, and with the Wolverine in play, much, much meaner. He decided to unleash both simultaneously, and brought Goliath down with a ringing punch to the side of the head. Logan prayed he was a mutant with some degree of resilience, or if he was human, that his skull was as thick as the rest of his body, ‘cause he’d been a good opponent. He was smarter than the average, and had a gleeful glint in his eye that the feral in Logan recognised. Like him, this guy actually liked the fight – win was good, but a good fight was better.
As Logan had suspected, the quality of opponents went downhill for a while, Logan having fallen into a pattern of punch-punch-drop. He’d been averaging less than two minutes per opponent, and the crowd was getting ugly. Recognising their need to see him damaged, Logan decided to take it easy on the next likely contender.
He turned out to be a side-of-beef type, with a shitty attitude to go with his ugly, ugly mug. Logan chained up the Wolverine briefly in order to go soft on the guy for a few punches - he wanted to make SOME money tonight – but his clueless opponent wasn’t making it easy. The guy was more creative in his cursing than his punches, but the occasional one that connected did have a force capable of causing some pretty bruises. When he judged himself sufficiently black and blue, Logan got set to retaliate, but his attention was suddenly claimed by events outside of the cage. Some young trucker had pressed a bit close to Marie, and had thought to take his chances with the unaccompanied beauty. He ignored two brushoffs from Marie before the Wolverine decided enough was enough.
“Hey, dipshit!” Logan yelled, striding to the edge of the cage, closest to Marie’s table. “When the lady says fuck off? She’s actually bein’ nice. Trying to keep you alive. ‘Cause she knows I will KILL you if you even think of laying a hand on her.”
The hush that had descended when Logan turned his back on his opponent broke into catcalls of advice for the persistent young buck.
“Ya better back off or the Wolverine will want ya in the cage,” one old timer yelled; a brassy blonde cackled “why would she want you when she’s got HIM?” Marie’s answering smirk made the whole table of barflies dissolve into envious shrieks of laughter.
His pride hurt, the unwise suitor observed sourly “I don’t see no lady, anyhow. Jailbait’s jailbait, however good it looks in black leather. Didja have to steal her from school or something?”
The wash of red that descended gave Logan no time to fight the Wolverine; the beast was out, and after its prey. He took the steps of the cage in one leap, and even before Marie could rise to her feet, the young trucker was screaming on the floor, felled by two flying punches that left his face a montage of blood and gristle. Logan had his knee in the small of the guy’s back, and was banging his head face-first into the floor when Marie laid a single hand on his naked back.
“Shh, sugar, shhh. He doesn’t know, love. He just doesn’t know.” Her soft voice penetrated the rage that had obliterated all sound, and every other being from the Wolverine’s reality. Her touch calmed him enough to let the human side push forward and take control. He picked the guy up, sat him in a chair and threw a pitcher of water directly in his face. When his bleary, battered eyes were able to focus again, Logan made sure everyone in the bar could hear him.
“Maybe she is jailbait. But she’s my fucking jailbait. And I kill anyone who touches what’s mine,” he said, voice deadlier than his flying fists had been a minute earlier. “Right, Marie?”
“Right, sugar. All yours. All of the time,” she replied, her soft drawl equally audible throughout the room.
Suddenly realising just how close he’d come to death, the terrified man figured an apology was in order. “Jesus, lady – Miss Marie – I’m really sorry. I shoulda listened to ya, but you’re so pretty an all, and I can be kinda’ stupid …”
Marie took pity on the guy and dazzled him with a kind smile. “Next time, try to listen a bit better. Wolverine’s kinda possessive, but I don’t want no one else,” she said.
Still struggling with the Wolverine, Logan grunted a final warning at the shaking youth, and after a long look at Marie, returned to the cage. He was in no mood to toy with the guy – side-of-beef, he didn’t catch the guy’s cage name – and couldn’t risk letting the Wolverine loose in his current frame of mind. A casual kick to the knee dropped him, and a gentle tap of the back of the neck put the guy out of his misery. He would wake up an hour later, knowing the Wolverine had let him off lightly.
Signalling he needed five minutes before the next fight, Logan dropped down to sit with Marie, pulling her into his lap and nuzzling the top of her head. He needed to kill the angry maelstrom swirling inside before he hurt – really hurt – anyone else, and being close to Marie was the best way to do that.
She seemed to know, Logan thought. Gentle murmurs of comfort were interspersed with practical measures; she put her own beer to his lips so he could gulp down the taste of her along with the precious brew, and then poured him a glass of bourbon to chase it. The alcohol never did much for him, but the feeling of being looked after did. The Wolverine was no longer snapping at his chains when Logan set Marie aside and climbed the stairs into the cage once more; he was waiting quietly to be summoned, enjoying the calm that came with being loved.
Eyeing Logan warily, Mo climbed into the cage and began to talk up his next opponent. “He’s young, he’s inexperienced, but boy, is this kid BIG. And here at Mo’s, he’s never been beaten. Will the Wolverine be the one to do it? Folks, we can only wait for the blood to flow and see who gets carried out first. I give you our resident champion – Colossus!”
Wolverine heard the name, but was still unprepared for the shock when Piotr Rasputin walked slowly into the cage. The young Russian, Logan’s star pupil in hand-to-hand combat, seemed unable to meet his eyes. Obviously, he’d been putting those lessons to good use earning some pocket money, Logan smirked. But why be embarrassed about it? It wasn’t until he saw the boy’s frantic gaze flit from Rogue to a table further back in the room that comprehension dawned. Colossus had seen Logan’s frenzied attack on the young trucker. And heard Logan’s crude claim of ownership afterwards. As had the kid’s little friends, and her Ice-prick boyfriend, sitting in a shocked tableau just a few metres away.
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