Howard’s response was to laugh.
The old wolf dragged himself upright on three legs, his ruined paw dangling useless. Blood matted his grey fur, but his eyes blazed with something beyond pain.
“Over?” His voice was rough, broken. “Boy, this hasn’t even begun. You think I’m fighting for a title? For the honor of leading these sheep?”
He spat blood onto the ground.
“I’m fighting for her.”
Adrian went still.
“Vivienne deserved better than your pathetic father.” Howard’s words dripped venom. “She came to him with vision, with ambition, and he was too weak to see it. Too weak to give her what she needed.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“I gave her what she needed,” Howard drawled. “For years, right under your father’s nose. Every time he went off on his precious Alpha duties, she came to me.”
His vision went red at the edges.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Ask yourself why she was so eager to push you towards that Westfield girl all those years ago. Why she worked so hard to drive a wedge between you and your father. She needed him isolated. Vulnerable. And when the time was right…”
His father’s decline. The wasting sickness that had stolen him piece by piece. The healers who could find no cause, no cure.
“You killed him,” he snarled. “You and Vivienne. You poisoned him.”
“We freed the pack from his weakness.” Howard’s eyes glittered. “And once I’m Alpha, I’ll bring Vivienne home. Give her the position she always deserved. We’ll rebuild this pack into what it should have been—pure, strong, untainted by human filth.”
His gaze shifted to somewhere behind Adrian.
“Starting with that pink-haired abomination you’ve been rutting with.”
Every rational thought in his mind disappeared. His wolf surged forward—not with strategy or even with anger but with a primal, protective need that overrode everything else. Harper was his. His mate. His heart. And this creature had just threatened her.
Death, his wolf howled. Nothing less.
He moved faster than he’d ever moved before. Howard tried to defend himself. Tried to bring up his one good forepaw, tried to twist away from the black blur hurtling towards him. But he was old, and wounded, and facing an Alpha in the grip of the most ancient instinct known to their kind.
His jaws closed around Howard’s throat.
For one eternal moment, the world held its breath. He could feel the Elder’s pulse against his tongue. Could end it with a single squeeze.
Do it,his wolf demanded.He threatened our mate.
No.He forced himself to think.Not like this. Not in rage.
He loosened his grip just enough to speak.
“Yield.”
Howard’s eyes met his. There was no fear in them. No surrender. Only hate.
“Never,” the old wolf wheezed. “Kill me and be done with it. But know this—Vivienne won’t stop. She has allies you haven’t dreamed of. She’ll burn everything you love, starting with your human whore?—”
He bit down.
The crack of Howard’s neck echoed across the silent clearing like a gunshot.
