Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(2)

So she’d learned to wield it. Until it became an extension of her arm, until it gave her an edge that her slight frame didn’t offer. The high drama it provided in the ring didn’t hurt, either.

A thump on the metal door was her signal to go.

Selina checked the bullwhip at her hip, her black spandex pants, the green sneakers that matched her eyes—though no one had ever commented on it. She flexed her fingers within their wrappings. All good.

Or as good as could be.

Her muscles were loose, her body limber, courtesy of her old gymnastics warm-up, which she’d repurposed for these fights. Between the physical fighting, the whip, and the sheer acrobatics that she used both for show and to throw her heavier opponents off-balance, making sure her body was ready for these fights was half the battle.

The rusty door groaned as Selina opened it. Mika was tending to the new girl in the hall beyond, the flickering fluorescent lights draining the Alpha’s golden skin of its usual glow.

Mika threw Selina an assessing look over her narrow shoulder, her black braid shifting with the movement. The white girl sniffling in front of her gingerly wiped away the blood streaming from her swollen nose. One of the kitten’s eyes was already puffy and red, the other swimming with unshed tears.

No wonder the crowd was riled. If a Leopard had taken that bad a beating, it must have been one hell of a fight. Brutal enough that Mika put a hand on the girl’s pale arm to keep her from swaying.

Down the shadowy hall that led into the arena, one of Falcone’s bouncers beckoned. Selina shut the door behind her. She’d left no valuables. She had nothing worth stealing, anyway.

“Be careful,” Mika said as Selina passed, the Asian girl’s voice low and soft. “He’s got a worse batch than usual tonight.” The kitten hissed, yanking her head away as Mika dabbed her split lip with a disinfectant wipe. Mika snarled a warning at her, and the kitten wisely fell still, trembling a bit as the Alpha cleaned out the cut. Mika added without glancing back, “He saved the best for you. Sorry.”

“He always does,” Selina said coolly, even as her stomach roiled. “I can handle it.”

She didn’t have any other choice. Losing would leave Maggie with no one to look after her. And refusing to fight? Not an option, either.

In the three years that Selina had known Mika, the Alpha had never suggested ending their arrangement with Carmine Falcone. Not when having Falcone back the Leopards made the other East End gangs think twice about pushing in on their territory. Even if it meant doing these fights and offering up Leopards for the crowd’s enjoyment.

Falcone turned it into a weekly spectacle—a veritable Roman circus to make the underbelly of Gotham City love and fear him. It certainly helped that many of the other notorious lowlifes had been imprisoned thanks to certain do-gooders running around the city in capes.

Mika eased the kitten to the prep room, giving Selina a jerk of the chin—an order to go.

But Selina paused to scan the hall, the exits. Even down here, in the heart of Falcone’s territory, it was a death wish to be defenseless in the open. Especially if you were an Alpha with as many enemies as Mika.

Three figures slipped in from a door at the opposite end of the hall, and Selina’s shoulders loosened a bit at the sight of the Latina girl who emerged. Ani, Mika’s Second, with two other low-ranking Leopards flanking her.

Good. They’d guard the exit while their Alpha tended to their own.

The crowd’s cheering rumbled through the concrete floor, rattling the loose ceramic tiles on the walls, echoing along Selina’s bones and breath as she neared the dented metal door to the arena. The bouncer gestured for her to hurry the hell up, but she kept her strides even. Stalking.

The Leopards, these fights…they were her job. And it paid well. With her mother gone and her sister sick, no legit job could pay as much or as quickly.

The Leopards had asked no questions three years ago. They hadn’t wondered if she’d deliberately picked that fight with the Razor girl in the block courtyard—and another and another, until Mika came sniffing about the hothead in Building C.

Mika only told her that pulling this sort of shit in the East End would get her killed pretty fast, and that the Leopards could use a fighter like her. The Alpha didn’t ask who had taught her to fight. Or how to take a punch.

The bouncer opened the door, the unfiltered roar of the crowd bursting down the hall like a pack of rabid wolves.

Selina Kyle blew out a long breath as she lifted her chin and stepped into the sound and the light and the wrath.

Let the bloodying begin.



* * *



—

Her hands were so swollen that she could barely handle her keys.

Their jangling filled her apartment complex’s hallway, loud as a goddamn dinner bell.

It took every lingering scrap of concentration to keep her hand steady enough to slide the key into the top lock. Selina refused to look at the three others beneath it—each as imposing as a mountain peak.

Too long. Falcone had dragged out the fight for too long.

Mika hadn’t been lying about her opponent. The man had been a fighter himself. Not well trained, but big. Twice her weight. And desperate to repay his debt. His blows had hurt. To say the least.

But she’d won. Not by brute strength, but because she’d been smarter. When the injuries had started to pile up, when he’d managed to snatch the whip from her hand, when she’d temporarily lost sight in one eye thanks to the blood…she’d used simple physics against him. Her science teacher would be proud.