I roared, a grey wolf tearing free from my body, shredding my tuxedo to ribbons. The crowd stumbled back, startled by my speed.
I could have ended Thyra right then, while she was still mid-shift and slower than me, but I would give her a chance to submit, even after she’d spoken the unforgivable and challenged me openly.
A flicker of uncertainty crossed my half-sister’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a surge of ambition and boldness, as though she knew she held some secret weapon.
Thyra’s brown wolf lunged at me, still only half-shifted, her jaws snapping toward my throat. I twisted aside, but her speed caught me off guard. Her fangs sank deep into my shoulder, tearing through muscle and sinew.
I wasn’t the only one who had upgraded.
How was it possible that she was now ten times faster? What had she done to gain such power? If I hadn’t bonded with the other heirs, she might have already brought me down.
She meant to kill me. This wasn’t a challenge for dominance. It was a fight for the heir’s seat. A death duel.
Pain lanced through me as blood matted my fur. I rolled with her attack, studying her new movements, using her momentum to throw her off balance. She lunged again, claws slashing, aiming to disembowel me. The vicious glint in her brown eyes said she wanted nothing more than to spill my intestines. Idarted away just in time, letting her miss by a narrow inch, feeding her arrogance.
She attacked again, flaunting her newfound speed and strength. Her supporters began to cheer openly, emboldened by seeing me at a disadvantage, no longer hiding which side they were on.
The wind picked up as our fight intensified. That was when I caught it—a scent that didn’t belong.
Dark magic. Corruption. The same foul stench that had clung to the druid’s experiments. And it was coming from my half-sister.
Chills slithered up my spine; a cold dread settled in my throat.
Thyra had sought the aid of our true enemy to gain the power to replace me as heir.
The brown wolf launched into the air with a force no ordinary shifter could muster, except, perhaps, for me. Having seen enough, I met her mid-air, a furious roar ripping from my throat.
We collided in a fury of teeth and claws, tumbling across the forest floor in a whirl of grey and brown fur. I tore into her flesh as she did mine, and then the wrongness hit me.
My wounds burned like acid, and my limbs grew unnaturally heavy.
Shit. Poison.
She’d coated her claws with black magic and spells that didn’t belong in the shifter kingdom.
Callous satisfaction gleamed in her eyes as she saw my disbelief. My vision blurred as the toxin spread through my veins. She pressed her advantage, driving me back, but I twisted aside, narrowly avoiding her next deadly swipe.
The pack howled in excitement—nothing thrilled shifters more than a battle for dominance. My own supporters, fewerin number now, whimpered in concern. My mother watched, impassive as stone, while my stepfather’s pride radiated from every pore. He howled his encouragement, urging my half-sister on.
Thyra pinned me down while the poison coursed through my veins, her jaws hovering inches from my throat. Victory gleamed in her eyes as she raised her claws to deliver the final blow.
Something inside me snapped.
Power flooded through me. Not just my own, but the combined strength of five heirs surged in my blood. Killian’s lightning, Cade’s fire and metal, Louis’s wind, Rowan’s earth—and beneath it all, the wild blessing of a goddess and the last ember of the oldest magic. Barbie and Sy had accepted me, marked me as worthy, and that mark burned through the poison like divine fire and ice.
My wolf exploded outward. Bones stretched, muscle swelled, and when I rose, I towered over every shifter in the clearing. My gray fur rippled with barely contained power, and my eyes blazed with an alpha dominance that went far beyond bloodline.
Thyra scrambled backward, her confidence shattering. The brown wolf looked like a pup next to what I had become.
I moved faster than thought, my jaws closing around her front leg. The snap of bone echoed sharply through the forest. She tried to retreat, but I was everywhere—teeth, claws, unstoppable force. When she attempted another poisoned strike, I shifted to my warrior form, nine feet of muscle and fury. With one swift motion, I sliced off her paws. Her poisoned claws dropped to the ground.
She howled in agony.
My claws closed around her throat, lifting the brown wolf off the ground. Power surging out of me, my alpha command magnified a hundredfold.
“Shift!”
She had no choice. Her wolf form melted away, leaving my naked sister dangling from my grip, her face purple with a mix of terror and hatred.
