War God for Hire- Gladiator David Burke (bookreader TXT) 📖

Part of becoming a great at anything was learning about the tools of your trade. For him, that had meant getting to know the human body very well, his specifically. Knowing what it could do. Realizing its limits, and learning how to push past those limits.

This was new, though. He couldn’t seem to make his body do what he wanted. He slid down to his knees while clinging to the side of his car. All he could think was, “No, I’m not gonna die like this. Not here. Not now.”

He had always prided himself on being clutch. It wasn’t enough to be good, you had to be good at the right time. If there had ever been a clutch moment in his life, now was it.

His hand fumbled into his jacket pocket, trying to fish out his phone. He almost dropped it but, you know, golden glove hands. Still, his vision was getting a bit blurry, and he had trouble getting the phone unlocked.

Off in the distance, Kyle heard the sound of high heels striking the concrete as his attacker ran away. A defiant part inside him screamed out, “That’s right. Run away. You don’t wanna be here when I get up.”

Then there was a flickering in the lights. Even his phone screen flickered and went dead. Dammit. Not now. He wasn’t going down like this. Kyle might not be the world’s nicest guy, but he worked for every damn thing that he had. The screen cracked when he slammed it into the ground.

If crawling across the cold concrete, scraping his hands up and tearing his jeans, was what it took, so be it. Kyle would drag himself to the security station and they could call 911 for him. In fact, part of him was wondering why security wasn’t here already.

The lights flickered again. Worse this time. Suddenly, Kyle knew he was worse off than he thought. Slumped up against the concrete column ahead of him was the most colossal man he had ever seen. Think Andre the Giant, but completely ripped and more. He had to be eight feet tall, Kyle was sure of it, even while the man was sitting down, sprawled against the concrete.

Not that he was the kind of guy you were gonna forget, even if he wasn’t already the biggest guy on the block. He was wearing armor. Yeah, armor. Like from some Lord of the Rings movie, except this was actually cool. It was red and gold, really high quality, but looked like he had just been through one hell of a dust up. Kyle didn’t wonder about his clarity of mind, focusing on these strange details. The mind was a strange thing; even in death, he had a knack for sizing up the competition.

The giant had long cuts with jagged edges in the armor, like it had been ripped open in several spots by monstrous claws. Scorch marks marred the beauty of it, but somehow added to its badass appeal. Kyle might play baseball for a living, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t into the occasional video game. Even in the clubhouse, some of the guys played Destiny Online.

Maybe this guy was one of those geeks who took things too far. Then again, the muscles he had didn’t come from anything but the real deal. Kyle wasn’t sure what to do now. It wasn’t like he was in a position to offer help, right now. Hell, the way Kyle was bleeding, he assumed the giant was probably just a figment of his imagination, spawned as his brain started shutting down.

Then the armored man called out, or more accurately, croaked out, “Kyle Hudson.”

Kyle scoffed to himself. “Great, so not only am I bleeding to death as I crawl along the rough pavement, but now I’m hallucinating.” And the hallucination knew his name. Of course it did. All this shit because some groupie thought their hook up had meant more than it did.

Still, as far as hallucinations went, Kyle had to give his brain credit. This one was pretty detailed.

“Kyle Hudson, I have chosen you.”

All Kyle could do at that, was shake his head and blink his eyes. What the hell had his hallucination just said? “What’s that mean?” he managed to cough out.

“My time is short, come close. I have a gift for you that will get you out of your current predicament,” he said. Blood came out with the words.

“Yeah, pass,” Kyle replied, as he kept crawling in the direction of the security station. Hallucination or not, you couldn’t give people like this the time of day or bad things happened. He had learned that the hard way when he first got called up to the bigs, all bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

“I tire, mortal. Even my chosen heir may not speak to me in that manner.” As he spoke, his right hand relaxed its grasp on the totally authentic broadsword he was holding. The hand raised up; it had a dark red aura glowing around it.

Maybe it was crimson or even burgundy. Tessa would have been so proud. She never thought that Kyle paid attention to the stuff she talked about. Of course, that was why she left. They always left when they couldn’t handle that baseball came first. Total dedication was the only way a person got to be the best in the world.

Funny how the mind works. Kyle was completely rambling at this point, even if it was only inside his own skull. Thoughts of the one ex he had really cared about coming up seemed odd, right now. That was why he didn’t notice at first that he’d been yanked up into the air, to hover only inches in front of Mister Grim and Scary.

Of course, that only sealed the deal. This was absolutely a hallucination. Kyle couldn’t help but wonder if he was too far gone to save himself. Hell, maybe he was in a hospital bed and they were shocking him with those