Wicked Becomes You by Meredith Duran

hot-tempered, confident, and impatient—not to fight, but to win. Victory was his sole purpose. In that regard, he was not dissimilar from Alex. If one was able to win, there was no point in fighting to lose.
    The difference, then, lay in their approaches. For Bruneau, the effort of securing victory seemed like an irritating delay. Alex, on the other hand, was inclined to discount a victory that did not require a bit of hard work. One fought to prove oneself to one’s opponent, and a fight too quickly concluded often left the defeated party confused about the reasons for his defeat. He might be inclined to blame himself rather than to give credit solely to the man who had beaten him.
    Alex sprang forward, just to see Bruneau jump. Recovering, Bruneau struck out his foot, but Alex had already skipped backward.
    “Pathetic,” Bruneau sneered.
    “Mm.” The other men in the salle had withdrawn to the walls to watch now, and their murmurs formed a distant, irrelevant background to the tremendous thunder of his heart. He was not going to lose this match. Bruneau had begun his training while still a boy, testing himself in the roughest lanes of the Latin Quarter; he also stood an inch taller, and savate favored the long-limbed.
    Alex had his own advantage, however. He bloody loathed fighting. Nine years he had been coming to this studio, and each time, when he crossed the threshold, he still fought the urge to vomit, just as he had that first year at Rugby whenever he’d seen Reginald Milton coming round the corner. Nothing like fear to sharpen a man’s reflexes. For useful effect, even anger could not rival it.
    “Are you a coward?” Bruneau sneered.
    Alex grinned. “Yes,” he said.
    This remark snapped Bruneau’s patience. He sprang forward. Alex dodged the foot flashing past his head and spun to return the kick. Bruneau blocked it with a blow to his shin. As Alex fell back, grunting, the man whirled. His reverse kick smashed into Alex’s chest.
    More sleep would have helped, here. Damn you, Gwen.
    He tried to shove her from his mind. For a week now, her memory had proved harder to shake than an African parasite—one of those worms, say, that rendered men blind.
    He let the impact carry him, staggering a pace before he managed to regain his balance. As he pivoted, he found Bruneau’s fist heading toward his face. Mistake. Alex blocked the punch and slammed his elbow into Bruneau’s throat. The man lurched backward, wheezing.
    Wouldn’t Gerry be proud. He always insisted that when it came to fists, Englishmen knew no rivals.
    Bruneau recovered more quickly than the average giant. As he threw out his rear foot, Alex took a backward leap, saving his kneecap but sacrificing his balance. Here, as always in moments where defeat became a distinct possibility, he experienced a momentary clarity, an accord between body and mind that seemed to stop time itself. No choice but to fall. Didn’t mean he was down for good. He surrendered to gravity but managed to stagger just long enough for Bruneau to get the idea and come after him. Then he let himself plummet like a stone. His palms slammed into the floor.
    Bruneau’s comprehension flashed across his bulbous face a split second before Alex swept out his foot and hooked the man’s ankles. The Parisian toppled backward. His head cracked against the floor.
    For some curious reason, Parisians always assumed that Englishmen didn’t know that trick.
    Alex shoved himself to his feet. God above, he felt good. It was a far finer start to the morning than coffee. He made a bow to acknowledge the applause, then stepped up to Bruneau, who was blinking muzzily at the ceiling. “All right?” he asked.
    The man sat up, shook his head, then offered Alex a bleary smile. “You try that again,” he said, “and I will be waiting for it.”
    “Tomorrow, then?” He seized Bruneau’s hand and hauled him to his feet. Or perhaps now , he almost added, for all at once, as adrenaline ebbed,