I exhaled. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped breathing.
George recovered, wheeled around, came again. Harder this time, lower, aiming for Finneas’s legs. Finneas let him come. Let him close the distance. I wanted to scream at him to move, to stop standing there like a statue, to do something, and then he moved.
I didn’t see the hit clearly. One second George was lunging and the next he was on the ground with Finneas on top of him, jaws clamped around the back of his neck, pressing him into the dirt. The speed of it was terrifying. I’d known Finneas was fast, known he was strong, but seeing it like this, the raw power of a wolf pinning another wolf to the ground in a single motion, was different from knowing it.
George thrashed underneath him, claws raking the ground, body twisting, trying to break free. Finneas held him down. Didn’tmove. Didn’t bite harder. Just held, his weight pressing George flat, jaws locked on the back of his neck with the patience of a predator who’d already won.
The clearing was silent. Hundreds of wolves watching. My pulse was hammering so loud I could hear it in my ears. My fingernails were cutting into my palms and I was holding my breath again.
“Breathe,” Luca said beside me. Quiet, not looking at me, his eyes on the fight.
I breathed.
George thrashed again, weaker this time. His claws dug furrows in the dirt but the fight was draining out of him. Finneas’s jaws tightened on his neck, not biting through, not drawing blood, just holding, pressing, the full weight of the King on top of the challenger.
George went still. His body sagged against the dirt, then he rolled, slowly, exposing his belly and his throat.
Submission.
Finneas released him and stepped back. I felt the tension leave my body so fast my knees almost buckled.
The pack erupted.
Howling. Dozens of wolves shifting, joining in, the sound coming from everywhere at once. It vibrated through my chest, through the baby, who kicked so hard I gasped and pressed both hands against my ribs. Tears were on my face. I didn’t know when they’d started. I hadn’t felt them, had been too focusedon the clearing, on the wolves, on whether the man I loved was going to stand back up.
He was standing. He’d won. The howling was rolling through the trees, I was crying, shaking, and Luca put his hand on my shoulder. Brief, grounding. I was so grateful for it I could have hugged him.
Finneas shifted back. Human, naked, breathing hard. Someone threw him clothes. He pulled on pants and crossed the clearing toward me, his face wild, eyes bright with the wolf still close to the surface. A cut on his temple was already knitting shut because shifter healing was still something I hadn’t gotten used to seeing.
I met him halfway. I couldn’t wait. My legs moved before my brain caught up, crossing the grass in my blue dress with my belly, my tear-streaked face. I put my hands on his face, both of them, and held him there.
“You’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s already healing.”
“You scared the shit out of me, Finneas.”
“I know.”
He pulled me in, careful around the belly, his arms wrapping my shoulders, his face pressing into my hair. I could feel his heart slamming against my chest, the adrenaline still burning throughhim, his arms tight, his breathing rough. The wolf was still close. I could feel it in the tension of his muscles, the heat of his skin. I held on and let him shake against me until his breathing slowed.
He pulled back. Turned to the clearing. When he spoke, his voice changed.
Not the voice he used with me. Not the office voice or the kitchen table voice. This was the King’s voice. I’d heard it in the council chamber. It settled into your bones whether you wanted it to or not.
“The challenge has been answered. George Ashtor submitted. The crown stands.”
The clearing went quiet. George was on the ground, shifted back, on his knees. Conrad was beside him, pulling him up, his face gray.
“The Ashtor family is stripped of all remaining standing within the Ironridge Pack.” Finneas’s voice carried across the grounds without effort. “Conrad Ashtor, Regina Ashtor, Lorraine Ashtor, and George Ashtor are hereby formally banished. You have forty-eight hours to vacate pack territory. If any member of the Ashtor family is found within Ironridge borders after that window, they will be met with lethal force.”
He paused. The clearing was waiting for him to finish but he wasn’t done.
“Margaret Kingsley.”
