And I do.
I haven’t taken part in many actual challenges, but I know how to fight. My dad wouldn’t settle for anything less. Just because my pack has had peaceful transitions of power for a few generations doesn’t mean that couldn’t change at any time and he made sure to prepare me.
Thoroughly.
I was sparring with shifters twice my size from the time I was ten years old, and I still spar regularly with Dante and Brody. Keir just hasn’t known me long enough to have learned all that yet.
Keir nuzzles at my chest. “I just got you. I refuse to lose you.”
“You won’t,” I say firmly.
Keir pulls back and stares up at me with those big blue-gray eyes, studying my face and, for a second, he looks like he might try to argue with me, but instead he gives me a clipped nod and tucks his head back under my chin.
I don’t love the fact that Keir doubts my abilities, but I understand why he does. The only time he’s ever seen me in a challenge was that farce back in Chicago. What my mate doesn’t realize is that my true opponent in that challenge was Rossi, not Derek.
The only reason there was any question of me winning then was because Rossi is a calculating and intelligent opponent. The Chicago Alpha was able to manipulate the situation in such a way as to put me at a huge disadvantage.
Stevens clearly does not have that kind of finesse. He’s more like a wrecking ball with no mental precision whatsoever. I’m not concerned about fighting him.
I turn my gaze on the asshole in question, my expression hardening. “Let’s get this over with.”
He smirks and rises to his feet. “Eager to die, huh?” He glances over his shoulder at one of the shifters in his group—the one who rolled his eyes earlier. “Get everything ready to transport my omega back home with us. This won’t take long.”
“Keir won’t be going anywhere with you,” I say in a flat voice.
Stevens’s response is simply, “We’ll see.”
Yeah, I suppose we will.
Everyone heads outside, Keir and I the last to exit the house. There are too many cars in the gravel drive to make it a suitable space for a fight, so everyone heads around the back of the house where there’s nothing but patchy grass.
Keir is still tense and I’m sure his nakedness isn’t helping. I’m not sure where exactly his clothes ended up, so I pull my shirt over my head, then drop it over Keir’s so the fabric settles around him. He’s short enough that my shirt covers the important bits, something that greatly appeases my wolf who wasn’t fond of the fact that all these other shifters were getting an eyeful before. Keir wraps his arms around his waist and dips his chin to sniff at the shirt, comforting himself with my scent.
“Are you sure?” he asks, glancing up to meet my eyes as he bites at his lower lip.
“Absolutely,” I say. “I know what you saw of my performance at the challenge back in Chicago wasn’t very impressive, but this isn’t anywhere close to the same thing. Being a murderous asshole doesn’t give Stevens the advantage he thinks it does. It’s one thing to attack those weaker than him or subjugate a fractured pack, but in an actual challenge—by blood laws or not—the way he’s ruled by his emotions will make him prone to mistakes and easy to defeat.”
“But why doyouhave to do it?” asks Keir.
“Because, in the end, it’s my fight, not his,” I reply. “Luke is young and, given what you’ve told me about your old pack, likely untrained. If Luke fought Stevens and lost, I’d still end up fighting the asshole, but Luke would be dead and his pack would be left without an Alpha.”
“Okay.” Keir takes a deep breath and lets it out in a huff. “Okay,” he repeats, as if giving himself a pep talk. “I’m going to trust that something is going to go right for once this week.”
I wrap an arm around his shoulders, tugging him to my side.
“Promise me you’ll be fine,” he says, taking hold of my hand and giving it a squeeze.
“I promise.” I lean down and rub my cheek over the top of his head. “I won’t let anything take me away from you, especially not Stevens.”
Sixty-Four
Keir
RuralAlabamaandruralWisconsin don’t have much in common—well, not the part of Alabama I’m from anyway—but being here now takes my mind right back to the last challenge like this I witnessed: the one between Randall and the man who raised me.
The challenge itself wasn’t too awful, a bunch of growling and snarling, but surprisingly little blood…until the aftermath.
ItrustJulien.
