Mallory and her siblings were back, and I was one hundred percent confident they weren’t here to apologize.
Frick.
The odds were not in our favor, but that didn’t mean they were working together.Right?
“Neutralize Rage, but don’t kill him. Nai is mine,” Nolan barked to Daybreak.
What. The. Hell?Daybreak and Nolan were working together? And how did Nolan hire a rogue to take me out? Who the hell was this wolf?
Wrath boiled under my skin. The commotion from the crowd rumbled through the trees.
No way was this legal! To bring a rogue wolf in to assassinate students? Where the hell was the king to protect his heir?
My mind spun, trying to make sense of all the implications of this betrayal.
“Stay human.” Rage’s advice barely registered before he shifted blindingly fast, the tatters of his clothing falling to the ground in his panic. As if I had a choice. My wolf was so far away at this moment I couldn’t feel her, just the low buzzing of magic under my skin. He stepped in front of me, hackles raised as he faced our enemies. Tipping his head back, he howled a long deep call for his brothers.
Nolan threw his arm out and shot a burst of wind at a tree.
My initial gloat at his terrible aim turned to dread as a camera fell to the earth with a crash. He’d not been aiming for me. Whatever his plans were, he didn’t want it televised.
“Nolan, you coward,” I shouted. “You want to be alpha, fight me fairly!”
This was not how alpha status fights were done.
He just grinned.
Still tracking the rogue wolf, I spun and shot a fireball at the animal, but it splashed into the forest as he deftly rolled away.
“What’s in this for you?” I yelled at Nolan. “Seems like a lot of risk just for alpha status.”
The ground rolled beneath our feet, and my gaze darted to Sean, an earth elemental. Rage licked my hand and then broke away from me to take on Mallory and her siblings.
I understood. There were too many of them; we needed to keep them busy until Justice, Noble, and Honor got here.
Okay. I could do this.
New plan: keep my cousin talking while taking out the rogue wolf.
“You can’t believe the pack will follow you after they know of your betrayal,” I shouted across the clearing.
Nolan barked another laugh, this one closer than the last.
“After I kill you, then I’ll fight your dad. Once I win and your family is eliminated, Crescent gets to come back to Alpha Island with me as their alpha.”
My shock turned to sickening understanding.
The alpha king was in on this. He was the only one who could lift the banishment.
All of this: the attacks, Nolan’s ferocity toward me, it was all driven by the king. It had to be. Nolan couldn’t afford an assassin. I had no idea when he’d seen the mate mark or if this was something more, but—
“Nai! Look out!” Kaja screamed, her voice deep in the trees.
I spun as the rogue charged. I had no time to think, not even to act, onlyreact.
Raising my hands, I produced fire in my left and water in my right, and then I shot a torrent of steam at his face; so hot his fur, and then skin, and finally his muscles melted … right off the bone.
Oh mage.
