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He should’ve hit me. If I was already shifted, I could’ve easily dodged his leap, but he had the advantage there. The split second it took me to switch forms was enough to make me a sitting target. He should’ve hit me—but he doesn’t. He soars over my head, landing hard.
Harder than he thought, I’m sure. Prick is playing around, showing off his fangs instead of using them. He purposely missed his chance to finish me off quickly by leaping over my head like that, slamming into the ground with his paws.
I’m going to make him pay for underestimating me.
Pure adrenaline has me spinning around and leaping onto his back before he can dig himself out of the hole he made. I don’t waste time with shows of aggression. Snarling? Nope. My fangs have one use right now, and bearing them to make a statement is just a waste of time.
Clinging to his thick neck, I try to clamp my jaws around his throat. Damn it. He’s too big, my wolf too small; ripping out his throat is impossible with my bite-span. I do manage to get my fangs into the thick muscles of his shoulder, tearing with as much force as I can. Hot blood spills into my mouth, the air filling with the scent as I do some damage, but I know instinctively it’s not enough.
Even so, knowing that I drew first blood flips a switch inside of Walker. Instead of toying with me again, he goes just about feral. He whips his head, slamming his muzzle into my ear, knocking me on my side. Snapping his jaws, Walker leaps, but my smaller size comes in handy. He’s a big bastard. Me? I’m quick. I dodge him, my paws scrabbling in the dirt as I wheel around.
Walker snarls, spit spraying as he bares his fangs at me for real this time. He goes low, haunches rising as dominance pours off of him.
Any other wolf would back down. They would lie down in submission, showing the Alpha their throat, praying to the Luna above that he’d take mercy on them instead of putting them down.
Not me. My birth father has thirty years of experience on me, more than a hundred challenges under his fur, but as my wolf samples the scents on the air, I notice something.
Jack Walker is the only one bleeding.
The perfume of his pain energizes me. It makes things clearer.
Suddenly, I know how I can win this fight.
I can’t get his throat all at once. My mouth isn’t big enough. But if I can keep biting chunks of it when I get the chance, that might just work.
Of course, he’s not going to stand there and let me attack him repeatedly. Once he’s figured out my plan, he waits for me to dart closer, slashing at me with his claws every time I get in reach. It isn’t long before my blood joins his, but I ignore it. Adrenaline courses through me, shoving the pain to the back of my mind as I focus on taking him down bit by fucking bit.
I’m determined. The sounds of the crowd fall away until all I can hear is Walker’s breathing, the frantic thump of his heart, and my mate spurring me on—
“Come on, Gem. You can do it.”
Gem. For the first time that I can remember, Ryker is calling me Gem.
“I know you can, sweetheart. Finish him.”
I know how fucking hard it is to stand on the sidelines, watching your mate fight for their life, knowing that you can’t interfere. I’ve had to do it twice now, and it wasn’t any easier the second time. Ryker’s probably got an iron grip on his own wolf, forced to be a spectator so soon after coming off his own deadly challenge.
I know you can…
Ryker has faith in me. If for no other reason than to prove him right, to prove that I’m strong enough to be his mate, I have to end this.
Now.
If his packmates can get away with it, so can I. Sprinting away from him, I put a little space between us. I let him think I’m retreating, but right as Walker wheels around, ready to chase, I shift to my skin.
I make sure to keep my claws, though.
He’s a two hundred pound wolf, yeah, but it’s much easier for me to handle him in his fur rather than as a human. I might look petite. My small stature, my pretty face, and my long blonde hair always made others think of me as Little Miss Shifter Barbie. It was worse when I pretended to be an omega, but even though everyone here now knows that I’m an alpha, there’s only one shifter here who isn’t shocked when I manage to catch the wolf lunging at me.
Walker expected to plow into my human body; even with my legs braced, a direct hit should’ve been more than enough to send me flying if he got his paws on me. I have no doubt that he planned on rending me, clawing me wide open as soon as he could. Once I was down, my throat would be next, and my bio-dad would repay my challenge by slaughtering me in front of my mate.
That’s not what happens.
I time it perfectly. As he leaps at me, I lift my arms, snatching him out of the air. One hand has his upper jaw clasped in its grip, the other gropes for his lower jaw, my shifter strength stopping his momentum dead as soon as I have him by the fangs.
Walker’s powerful legs swing behind me. I refuse to let go of his muzzle knowing that, if I do, he’ll bite any part of my naked human body that he can reach.
I’m already a bloody mess. Shifting brings a new wave of pain as my wolf retreats inside, leaving my weaker human body to deal with the gouges, the gashes, the furrows that cover so much of it.
