Are you ready for Liam “Takedown” Teague?
Blurb
This is not made for TV. This is the raw,
brutal underground of no-holds-barred combat. Inside the cage there is nothing
but me and the pain I inflict on those who dare enter. In the cage, I never
have to worry about anyone but myself. Yet, when she began standing outside of
the cage, everything changed. I was no longer fighting for the money or the
glory – I was fighting for her.
Excerpt #1
“Are you just stupid?” I probably would
have gone on, but she wrapped her arms around herself and glared up at me.
“Stop yelling at me!” she screamed. She turned away, but I saw her reach up with
the back of her hand to swoop underneath her eyes.
Shit.
I turned slightly away from her and
practically bit down on my tongue to keep myself from saying anything
else. I brought my fisted hands up
against my stomach and tried to pull the tension inside of myself, work through
it, and calm down. I could hear her
crying combined with choked breaths and sniffles.
“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath. I was starting to come off the fighting high
I had been on—the tears might have helped with that—and my stomach felt tight.
After three long, deep breaths, I looked
back to the girl on the ground and saw her frantically rubbing at her eyes and
cheeks. She didn’t look at me as she
reached out and pulled her mostly empty bag close to her. She looked inside and then looked around her
at all her things on the ground.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I wasn’t all that great at apologies, and I
figured now wasn’t going to be much different.
I’d obviously upset her with all my shitty comments, though. “I didn’t mean to…I just…”
I stopped talking. I didn’t know what to say, and I felt bad
about yelling at her. She looked at me
all red-eyed with tears staining her cheeks.
“Just don’t do that shit anymore.” I let out a big sigh.
She nodded once and then reached out to
grab something off the ground near her and shoved it back into the bag. From the amount of stuff scattered all over
the street, my estimate on the size of the so-called purse wasn’t too far
off. There was an umbrella, a little
flashlight, a bunch of tubes and bottles, and at least a half dozen pens. As I looked around some more, I saw a small
notebook, a paperback book, keys, a bottle of hand lotion that was nowhere near
travel sized, a stack of tissues wrapped up in a Ziploc bag, two sets of
earbuds, and a checkbook. There was also
a whole pile of ponytail holders, bobby pins, and those little
hair-holder-things that looked like teeth.
There was shit from her bag from one side
of the fucking street to the other.
She started crawling around, gathering it
all up, and cramming it back inside, which gave me a fabulous view of her ass
in the short-shorts style waitress uniform the place up the street usually
demanded. I could kind of see how she
might have thought she could use the bag as a weapon—there had been more stuff
in there than really should have been able to fit. I looked around on the ground to see if there
was an actual kitchen sink, or at least part of one, but I didn’t see anything
metal. There was something that looked
like a small rock, though.
“How do you even carry that thing
around?” I asked.
“What?”
“That…that purse-bag-thingy there,” I
said, pointing and shaking my finger at it.
I wouldn’t have admitted it, but the whole idea of the thing scared me,
and I wasn’t sure why. I felt like if I
got too close to it I might get sucked in, never to be seen again. “It’s insane.”
Her eyes became little slits as she
looked up to me.
“There is nothing wrong with my purse!”
she growled.
“It’s huge,” I said.
“It has everything I need in it.”
“It has everything you and ten of your
friends could need for a week,” I replied with a laugh. “I know there are people who carry Chihuahuas
in their purse, but you could fit a Dane in there.”
Excerpt #2
When I got to the top of the stairs, I
immediately saw a figure leaning against the outside of the fence and looking
back and forth down the street quickly.
Each time the head turned, a long brown pony tail bobbed around, and
strands of hair got caught in the chain links.
If the short-shorts and Fin’s logo on the shirt weren’t enough to go on,
the gigantic, evil handbag gave her away.
“What the fuck?” I snarled through the
fence.
Tria startled and looked at me, turning
quickly on her heel and holding up her keys clenched in her fist. I tilted my head to one side and raised an
eyebrow at her. What was she going to
do, wave them around at me from the other side of the fence?
“I’m pretty sure that was not meant to
take the place of a ride,” I said, nodding toward the keys in her hand.
“You scared the shit out of me!” Tria
yelled. She adjusted the mega-monster
purse on her shoulder and ran her hand through her hair. “The girl who was driving me got another
job. She just walked out today, and
there wasn’t anyone else on my shift with a car.”
“So you’re walking down this street
again?” I yelled. I slammed my palms
into the chain links, making the whole side of metal rattle. She jumped away, stammering.
“I…I…”
I didn’t give her much chance to
finish. I was livid.
“After what happened the last time? Seriously, Tria?” I paced over to the edge of the building and
back to the fence again. My fingers
wrapped around the links and yanked.
“You do have a fucking death wish, don’t you?”
“I do not!”
“Then why are you being so stupid?” I
screamed. I planted my feet right where
they were, and my heart thumped audibly in my chest.
“I was trying to find you!” she yelled
back.
“Well, why didn’t you come in the fucking
bar?” I tossed my hands up into the air.
“Is there not a big ass poster right there in your face saying exactly
where I am on Friday nights?”
“I tried,” Tria said with a glare. “The bouncer wouldn’t let me in.”
“Why not?”
“I’m only twenty,” she said with a shrug.
There was something about that news that
flipped a switch in my head. I knew she
looked young, but I didn’t realize how
young. The idea that she was out here on
her own, trying to make a go in this place without even being old enough to get
into a bar killed my anger and made me feel something a little odd as well. Respect?
Maybe even pride?
Whatever it was, it also hardened my
dick.
Want more of this fantastic series?
Pre-order Trapped releasing August 4th!
Trapped (Book Two) Caged Series
About the Author:
Shay Savage lives in Cincinnati, Ohio
with her family and a variety of household pets. She is an accomplished public
speaker, and holds the rank of Distinguished Toastmaster from Toastmasters
International. When not writing, she enjoys science fiction movies,
masquerading as a zombie, is a HUGE Star Wars fan, and member of the 501st
Legion of Stormtroopers. When the geek fun runs out, she also loves soccer in
any and all forms - especially the Columbus Crew, Arsenal and Bayern Munich -
and anxiously awaits the 2014 World Cup. Savage holds a degree in psychology,
and she brings a lot of that knowledge into the characters within her stories.
GIVEAWAY
Signed Paperback of Caged (pending
delivery) (1 winner)
Ebook of Caged (3 copies, 3 winners)
Swag pack (1 Winner)
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