Alarm takes over her delicate features. “Do you expect trouble? Well…” She makes a vague motion toward the crowd. “More trouble?”
I shake my head as I gaze down at Felix’s uncertain expression. “Shouldn’t be, but he matters a lot to me.”
“And what you value can be used against you,” she finishes with a sigh, crouching down to offer her hand for Felix to sniff. She knows this personally, since the old alpha tortured her to try to control me. Looks like Bayne took a note out of our father’s old playbook.
I give Felix a nod of encouragement, and he cautiously pokes his snout out from behind my legs. Gritting my teeth, I fight to stay where I am as a mixture of cheers and groans come from the crowd.
Thankfully, he trusts her enough to accept her pet between the ears.
“Who is he?” she asks again, her voice gentle as she lures Felix over with gentle pats and jerky bites she keeps in her pocket as treats for the pups.
Indecision wrestles inside me over what name I should provide. If I say James, it could set back Felix’s journey to find himself again, but if I tell Sam the truth, that would be revealing a secret that could harm Callie. It’s another decision I have to make quickly for those I love who can’t answer for themselves.
Trusting Sam’s vow to protect me and all I hold dear, I whisper, “It’s Felix. Keep that to yourself. I’ll explain later.”
Leaving Sam in stunned silence, I race toward the crowd, resisting my wolf’s insistence that I shouldn’t face them in such a vulnerable form. I have to attempt to use my words first and leave teeth and claws as a last resort. That doesn’t stop me from calling some of my alpha strength to push through the crowd, though, and flashing my wolf’s eyes and angry growls at anyone who won’t get out of my way.
When I reach the edge of the challenge circle, I find my mother’s wolf snarling with a deep gash over her eye and Bayne half shifted, laughing with blood-tipped claws and bleeding scratches across the markmi reinaleft on his chest—his last attempt to strike at me by stupidly aggravating my mate. It was a mistake he didn’t repeat… at least with her.
“Getting tired, bitch?” Bayne taunts, sidestepping my mother’s lunging attack.
Ready to rip his head from his body, I shout, “This challenge is over. Get the fuck out of the ring.”
“Not this time, little brother,” Bayne sneers, boxing away my mother’s bite but earning a claw attack dangerously close to his groin for his trouble. He growls through clenched teeth, but he doesn’t pursue. Instead, he gives her a challenging glare and says, “Don’t worry. After I kill your mom, you’re next.”
I charge forward, only to be stopped by Forrest, my mother’s mate and her second. When I growl at him for daring to get in my way, he surprisingly stands firm. The fact that he’s on this side of the line when his mate is fighting for her life is shocking. It must be eating him up inside.
“He challenged her for the position of alpha of our pack,” he explains, holding my bicep with all his strength. “She accepted. This is between Martina and Bayne. Our pack will fight you if you try to interfere.”
My stomach sinks as I watch my mother grow slower with each attempted strike. “Why would she agree? She’s a visiting alpha, and Bayne isn’t part of her pack. There’s no shame in saying no.”
“She did it for you,” Forrest answers, frustration pulling his lips into a thin line. “Despite what you may believe, your mother loves you. She genuinely came here to protect you.Bayne’s challenge was an opportunity for her to remove an enemy before they could strike at you.”
My heart aches when I hear her yelp in pain. “Taking her out is literally his plan to get to me. If she just said no…”
“Have some faith in your mother.” He looks over his shoulder with love and pride in his gaze. “She’s a woman who never gives up. She’ll win because she has to. It’s the only way to protect the people she cares about.”
I nod and stop resisting his hold on me. His little speech does nothing to diminish the pain in my chest and the sick feeling in my gut. I’m familiar with the sentiment of fighting with everything I have to protect those I love, but sometimes that’s not enough.
The first time Felix died, I wasn’t there to save him. When my father tried to kill Callie, she was the one who saved us when I was bleeding out with a silver bullet in my stomach. Even tonight, I abandoned Kaleb and Donovan to fight demons, because I couldn’t be in two places at once. They are people I’d give my all to protect, but things get in the way. Situations take paths I never intended, and enemies don’t fight fair.
It’s a brutal battle to watch. My mother has her raw alpha strength, but it’s clear she hasn’t spent much time learning to fight. However, it seems Bayne has spent his time in the shadows practicing, turning those glamour muscles into something useful. He uses her momentum against her, carefully dodging out of the way and forcing her to use more energy to attack again. It’s obvious she’s tired, panting for air as she swipes another attack. To her credit, she tends to land some form of wound, even if it isn’t the lethal blow she’s expecting.
I’m apprehensive about calling out to her, fearing my attempts to help her with advice on the fight might distracther. Bayne has something up his figurative sleeve, since he’s currently fighting naked. He’s attempting to tire her out, and the fact that he hasn’t tried for a mortal wound tells me there’s more to this than trying to rile my mother up with the insult. It’s not long before my suspicions are confirmed.
My mother leaps to wrap her sharp teeth around Bayne’s vulnerable neck and use her claws to shred his chest and stomach, but she ends up flying over him. This time, he didn’t dodge her. He fully shifted into his wolf, bringing him closer to the ground, and now all of his injuries are healed. The crowd boos his cowardice, but I know that means nothing to Bayne. Our father ruled with fear, and I doubt his plan is any different.
As my mother rolls back onto her feet, she growls at Bayne’s brown wolf. She has two choices—continue fighting injured, or hope she can shift quickly enough to heal her injuries and return to her wolf form. Her blue eyes find me in the crowd, and I shake my head when I see the determination and devotion in her gaze. She will risk it all to keep Bayne from winning and to keep him away from me.
She backs up to get as much space between them as possible, but I know it won’t be enough. As soon as she shifts into her human form, her injuries are healed, but she’s in a vulnerable position on her hands and knees. This is the opening Bayne was waiting for.
He strikes fast, shoving her onto her back. Before she can shift more than her teeth and claws, he bites her neck and whips his head back and forth until there’s a sharp crack, and her body goes limp.
The crowd is stunned into silence. Forrest drops to his knees, clutching his chest as a piece of his soul dies with the love of his life, his wounded keening piercing the silence.Witheveryone distracted, no one is able to stop me. Without a word of challenge or allowance of recovery, I leap into the ring fully shifted. Before Bayne can drop my mother’s lifeless body from his bloody teeth, I use my massive paw to gouge out one of his eyes. When he releases my mother and rears back, I scrape out his other eye with my front left paw.
He howls in pain, and I don’t waste any time. Using his blindness to my advantage, I slam into him, knocking him over. Wrapping my teeth around his neck, I use my back claws to shred his belly and groin. As his intestines spill out of his body, I crunch my teeth down hard until his neck bursts and blood drips down my maw.
During the final beats of his heart, I half shift and take my razor-sharp claws to his neck, using all of my alpha strength to rip his head from his body.
