“That’s because we’re both stubborn assholes,” he said simply, and he wasn’t wrong. He’d said ignorant things, and I’d dismissed him as a jerk. He’d dismissed me as a child who hadn’t been raised right.
We both—all three, if you counted the gray wolf—turned to where Aleks was rushing toward the fight, and Kosuke said, “Your alpha is an honorable man. A man like that needs someone who’s willing to commit a few dishonors he doesn’t know about, to make sure everything turns out as he deserves. As your family—your pack—deserves.”
And me? I could do that. I could live with all the dishonor in the world, as long as my loved ones were happy and safe.
The gray wolf between Kosuke and me seemed to look up at him again, then me, and nodded. It was a strange gesture for a wolf, so I was pretty sure it was deliberate.
Aleks shoved himself between the two wolves and snarled at Grant. “Our fight isn’t over, old man,” he told the scrawny fucking asshole. “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 up a step, staring at Aleks like he’d never seen him before, but then scented the air, clearly smelling the blood he himself had drawn earlier. He seemed to think that was enough of an advantage, because he bared his teeth and without another second of hesitation, leapt at Aleks, ignoring Jax entirely.
39
Jax
All I could do when Grant sprang at Aleks was get out of the way. If Aleks was pressing a challenge within their pack, that took precedence over anything else.
More than that, it was a relief to be able to step back, to not have to be the one to finish this horrible thing I’d started all the way back when I was eighteen.
Aleks was a more efficient fighter than I was. He was brutal, and the big gray wolf that’d stayed with him was now at my side, barking encouragement.
Almost too quickly, Aleks had Grant pinned down, bleeding, defeated. I forced myself not to look away, even if I knew what was coming. Even if?—
Aleks looked at me with silvery blue eyes. He blinked slowly. With a victorious snarl, he stepped back from Grant and toward me.
No one who’d seen that fight could have thought that Aleks hadn’t won. It’d been at least as clear as when I’d beaten Reeve.
I shifted back. “Congratulations, Aleks.”
When he stepped closer, I held my hand out for him to sniff. “Good fight.”
Aleks scoffed, and in the time it took for him to make that sound, he shifted back onto two feet and shoved my hand away.
“I couldn’t watch two old men fighting and not get in on the fun,” he shot back with a grin.
Maybe I should’ve taken his attitude personally, but I couldn’t. Aleks was prickly, but it was good natured. He was young, and at least as overwhelmed as I’d been when I had beaten Reeve. It was bravado and adrenaline talking, and I could easily imagine having done the same.
In a fraction of a second, Dakota’s breath caught. Aleks’s eyes widened. And I spun, my hand instinctively finding its mark.
Dark claws had shot out from my nail beds. I caught Grant by the throat. He’d thrown himself at us, unwilling to concede, even when this whole farce was well over.
My claws sank in, and I smelled a fresh wave of blood.
I never, ever wanted to be the kind of alpha who threw violence at the people I was supposed to protect. I’d never wanted to be a man with blood on my hands.
But there we were, and this would never be over until I finished it.
I tried to ignore the way my breath jumped on my next inhale, tightened my fingers on the front of his throat, and yanked my hand back.
Grant dropped, nothing but dead, sputtering weight, to the ground.
At least it was fast. There was no opening up of his middle, waiting for him to bleed out, suffering, because I was his alpha and could do such a horrible thing.
I’d simply dealt him a wound too serious for his body to recover from. I stood there, horrified, gripping his wet trachea in my fist.
I felt sick, and I didn’t realize I was shaking until Dakota’s hand slid down my arm. Reflexively, I dropped Grant’s throat and sucked in a sharp inhale.
Aleks cursed in Russian, shoving Grant’s body away with a rough kick, but Dakota eased me back—from the body, from the nightmare of it all. He slipped his hand into mine.
