Page 70 of Oakheart

A voice sounded behind me. Fyse’s voice. “Aleks?”

I looked up, trying to locate him. Grant was... something was off about all of this. Where was Grant? Where had Marcus gone? And Dave? And all the other goons?

Viktor crouched, ready to spring, and I heard Fyse speak again. “I’m just checking on him.”

My brother didn’t seem terribly impressed by that, and I realized he wasn’t hearing it at all. He had gone into full protection mode, and he was going to rip Fyse’s throat out. So I leaned my weight on him, trying to hold him back and remind him I needed him there. I couldn’t have the other Crescent wolves hurt Viktor in defense of Fyse.

“The trees,” I told Fyse. He didn’t listen and tried to take another step toward me, dragging Viktor’s attention back to him, so I glared at him and tried to point at the woods. “Watch the?—”

And that was when Grant made my point for me, crashing into Fyse from the side.

There were shouts from the Crescent wolves, but at least they were worried about Grant now, not Viktor.

I breathed hard, burying my face in Viktor’s furry side and trying to breathe. It was hard to focus on anything, even the fight going on right in front of me. When Viktor started growling again, for a moment I worried Dave had come back to finish me off.

I looked up, and instead found Dakota approaching me slowly, his hands up and eyes on my growling brother. “Viktor,” I muttered, and almost choked on blood. Distantly, it occurred to me that blood coming out of my mouth was probably a bad sign, when I had a belly wound. “The city wolves do not mean us harm.”

He calmed somewhat, stopping the low, continual growl, but continuing to stare at Dakota.

Dakota, who... kept looking at an empty spot next to himself, before taking a deep breath and turning back to me.A blast of ozone filled the air, more potent than any spell he’d cast in my presence previously, and as he approached, the ozone filled my lungs.

That was when I realized I had barely been breathing, and suddenly, I could draw a complete, clear, chest full of oxygen. I snapped up to my knees from where I’d been sagging against Viktor, and breathed deep.

Viktor gave a little growl at the movement, but then leaned in and started sniffing me. Surprise wasn’t hard to make out, even on his canine face.

I pushed up to my feet, and felt... hell, I felt better than I’d ever felt in my life. I felt fucking invincible. I spun to find where Grant and Fyse were still fighting, which was fucking ridiculous, because Grant couldn’t have beaten him in a fight if Fyse had both damn hands tied behind his back. He should have been dead minutes ago.

But no, this was better.

Grant was mine to beat now.

I pushed between the two of them, both on all fours and snarling, before the fight could go any farther. “Our fight isn’t over, old man,” I snarled at Grant. “You’ve dishonored our pack by even coming here and committing us to this ridiculous challenge against a pack that’s done us no harm. They broke away twenty years ago. We have no hold over them. And now you have an intra-pack challenge to address before you look to him again.”

Grant backed away, looking shocked. Shocked I was alive, maybe. Shocked I was finally doing what I should have done years earlier. But then he sniffed the air, and still scenting my blood, likely thought he still had the advantage over me.

He leapt at me instead of Fyse.

It wasn’t his first mistake, but I was going to make it his last. I took everything Viktor had taught me, and threw it against my uncle. He hurled himself at me, and I didn’t even shift.

Yes, the wolf form was a more natural fighting form for most wolves, but Viktor had taught me to fight as a man, because he’d been taught how to fight as a man. And he’d been taught how to fight wolves.

I grabbed Grant around the throat and threw him against the ground with all the force in my arms, which was... well, it was a lot. It felt like more than usual. I heard something snap, maybe his back leg.

Then I felt a snap inside myself.

I could hear Viktor barking his approval, and I realized it hadn’t been a physical snap. Not a wound. No broken bones. It was the bond I’d had with Grant; the one that had made him my alpha. The reason I’d been bleeding out into the ground instead of healing. I had still felt some loyalty to the bastard, beyond all reason.

But no more.

When he leapt up and rushed me again, I kicked him in the head with all the follow-through I had in my whole body, and he almost flipped all the way over onto his back. In a blink, he had shifted back to human, trying to push up off the dirt, but I jumped on him, slamming his head into the ground and pushing it to one side, till his whole throat was bared to me.

For a fraction of a second, I considered tearing it out.

I felt it when Grant conceded, though. As though he shrank beneath me, losing anything he’d gained from being the alpha of a pack of wolves. I heard a single, lone howl in the woods that I recognized as Dave. I didn’t take time to consider where the others were, didn’t give a single damn.

No, I just rubbed Grant’s face in the dirt once more, and pushed up and away from him, going back to where Fyse wasstanding in the dirt, still in wolf form. He shifted back and nodded to me. “Congratulations, Aleks.” He held a hand out to me. “Good fight.”

I scoffed and rolled my shoulders, then grinned at him. “I couldn’t watch two old men fighting and not get in on the fun.”