The Mysterious Demon Book 2 novel Chapter 26

(A/N: Dear Readers, thank you all for your patience, I know I haven't updated in a while but you've caught me in the middle of my final exam period, Ramadan and Eid but to compensate, I'll be making this chapter longer than usual. Enjoy!)

-Blake-

An alarm woke me up that morning, making me get up instantly.

I've been training with Dominic for 3 weeks now and these weeks have been some of the hardest I've had to go through physically. I thought having Dominic as my trainer would have been easy, we'd have fun all the time -and sometimes we do, but there's fear in her eyes, fear for me.

As I brushed my teeth and changed into my workout gear, I'm reminded why. Just as much as it hurts me to think that she was beaten up and humiliated in the worst way possible, she probably felt that same way thinking about me and what would happen if I were to go against the King. I've acted confident for her, told her I could do it, trained my ass off to get stronger and stronger each coming day, trying to put her fears to the side but in truth,

I doubted.

As strong as I was getting, there was still a part of me that thought that if Dominic couldn't do it, then how could I? And if I were able to defeat him, to gain the title of strongest street fighter, then how would that make Dominic feel? I didn't want to put her through something like that but whenever I've tried to talk to her about it she'd tell me that things like that weren't a problem, that thoughts like that would just drag me down, have me hesitate.

'Think of me as your challenge, not your setback. Just like how I thought of Xavier,' she had told me so I shook the thought out of my head. I was doing this for her and would win whether I liked it or not because he needed to be taught a lesson.

I walked down to the training room where Dominic was waiting for me. I caught her testing out one of the punching bags, her swings sharp, the contact loud and in the end, she did a quick turn and kicked at the height of someone's head which made the bag swing off of its hook. I stood impressed before going in to help her pick the bag up again but before I could, I noticed that her face which was semi-hidden by her hair held a smile.

"Morning," I greeted and she turned to me with a grin,

"Good morning!" We shared a quick kiss, the gentlest part of the day, before getting ready, "This is your last session before the face-offs, you ready?" My last day of intense workouts, my last day of 6-hour sessions from 9 am-3 pm, my last day of independent workouts from 9 pm-11 pm, my last day before the fight.

I grinned,

"As ready as I'll ever be."

-

We were at the 5-hour mark for today's training session, Dominic was teaching me a new hold which involved me being locked under her and as much as this position would have been desirable any other time, right now it was painful as fuck. Thankfully, she unlocked it when her phone went off, leaving me laying on the floor like a starfish because of my exhaustion.

"Alia will be here soon," she lets me know after her phone call. Alia was one of Dominic's trainees and she'd come for her lesson once a week for an hour as well. During this time Xavier would come and train me. In that sense, Alia is my saving grace. I love Dominic, but her workout sessions are far from easy. Even now when I should be used to the intensity, my legs shake, hardly able to carry me and even though we aren't focussed on ab work, laughing, sneezing, makes my core ache.

I look up to see Dominic leaning down to look at me while I was still on the floor. Her face held a soft expression, her beautiful smile playing on her lips, her eyes gleaming.

I wanted to ask her a question but nerves got the best of me and it ended up getting stuck in my throat, so instead, she lightly taps my cheek twice and says, "Come on hun, you had your break already, carry on going until Xavier gets here"

'hun', that was new but it gave me a warming feeling so I wasn't complaisant when getting up, even though it hurt like hell but before I could fully stand, "Why's your ass on the floor Blake? Don't tell me Demon can still beat you this close to the competition!"

I rolled my eyes at Xavier's exclamation as he walked into the room, jacket swung around his shoulders as if he ruled the world. "Don't be mean," Dominic says but just as I was starting to think that she was defending me, "beating me isn't that easy of a feat." Their chuckles filled the room, and a sudden realisation that these street fighters were going to be the death of me made its way into my head. They were the actual demons.

Alia comes in not too long after that, we nod at each other in formal greeting but we don't usually talk. I do catch a bit of their training while I'm having my break with Xavier though and something about it tempts me to ask, "Why is she so much nicer to girls?"

While Dominic would raise her voice when giving me quick instructions, was rough, would tell me to go faster or that I was too weak, her voice was still stern but more gentle with her, she was formal, she was caring, and she made sure Alia was comfortable all the time.

Xavier was confused at my question until he turned to them and realised what I meant. "Because boys are assholes."

I looked back at him with a raised eyebrow and he shrugged. "If she were to show any 'nice-ness' during her training sessions with guys they'd walk all over her, call her weak, or wouldn't take her seriously. Boys are assholes. Girls, on the other hand, respect her no matter how she speaks to them so she doesn't bother being rough. It strains the throat you know."

"You say, 'boys are assholes' as if you aren't one of them."

Xavier laughs at me wholeheartedly before exclaiming, "Because I'm a man!"

---

-Dominic- Two Days later-

"It feels weird, doesn't it?"

Xavier was standing next to me in my office in the bar. There were 15 minutes left until the Face-Offs started and the whole place was packed. Xavier was the commentator for the fights tonight, I was the supervisor, but all we could think about was how we used to stand in the street fighter's section in the midst of the screaming and cheering and wait for our names to be called out.

"It does," I answer.

I feel him nudge me after that so I turn to him to see his hand outstretched. "For old times sake," he says which makes me grin before locking my hand with his,

"Through this, we, the first and second strongest, promise to stay true, stay fair and stay bloody no matter who we're fighting or what we're fighting, even if it's each other."

He pulls me in and hugs me after that before going on and telling me to 'wish him luck' as he exited the room. The next thing that could be heard is his voice booming through the speakers,

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ARE YOU READY?!"

And as the cheers grew, my goosebumps started to form so I took in a deep breath and walked out of my room. The fights were starting.

-

After a few hours, the tournament rounds were ending quickly, fights being 2-5 minutes on average. There were a lot of new fighters this year but unfortunately, a lot of them were inexperienced and would quickly be defeated by those who were year-long fighters. Even then, almost none of the fighters I used to go against were here anymore. The only person I did recognise tonight apart from Nick and the rest of the guys was Destroyer but he wasn't here to fight, he came up to me to say hi, telling me he only came to see me since the fights were held in my bar this year. When I asked him why he didn't sign up he told me it wasn't fun if I wasn't going to be a part of the competition.

"You could have had a shot at beating King," I tell him and he scoffs.

"That trash of a human being who calls himself 'King'," we pause to look at the ring where he was currently fighting and although Xavier told him to stop already, he continued beating the unconscious fighter until Xavier pulled them apart forcefully, "deserves to be ripped apart by you, M.D"

I can't help but smile, "Still calling me M.D when the whole world knows my real name?"

He shakes his head, "I didn't want to find out like that. I wanted maybe a handshake, a formal greeting-" I stopped him by extending a hand which he looks down at with shock.

"My name is Dominic,"