‘Let it go,’he said to me, his gaze boring into me.‘I can bear this.’
‘No,’I gasped.
Clive climbed to his feet, barely resting any weight on his left flank. Baring bloody teeth with tufts of black fur between them, Clive hobbled toward Rage.
They were four feet from me when Clive lunged.
Rage let him.
The crowd gasped as Clive bit into Rage’s flank and yank him backward.
My mate bellowed with the pain; the sound shattered the din.
Panic bludgeoned me, and I reached to take more pain, but Rage snarled,‘Don’t you dare.’
Shocked, I drew back, my eyes wide.
‘Get that damn paste on him,’he gasped, dragging his shredded body closer.
I sucked in a deep breath as Clive stepped around from Rage’s back, coming within a foot of me, and circled in for the kill. This could still work.
‘Honor, get ready to knock me over into the fight. Make it look like an accident.’
The black wolf pressed in on my side in response.
My skin prickled, and my stomach churned. The timing would have to be right, but—
‘As soon as this is finished and that curse is gone, Justice can challenge him and win.’
Whatever hope I had drained away as Rage’s words registered. He was preparing to die…
‘Rage—’
He whined with the pain, and still, he dragged his ruined wolf the last few inches to me. As he lifted his head, I saw the light of his soul dimming in the vibrancy of his eyes.
I sucked in a sharp breath and reached for him…
As he dropped his head to the carpet—
And Clive lunged.
‘Now!’
Just then Honor leapt on his hind legs and pushed me down with two paws on my back.
“Ahhh,” I screamed, raising my hands instinctively to break my fall but aiming them right for the wolf before me. My opened palm, shredded and oozing with the spellbreaker mixture filling it, brushed against Clive’s neck as I half fell on him.
The mixture seeped in—a blue searing light flared, and then Justice was pulling me back out of the kill circle.
‘It’s gone!’I shouted.
Rage pushed off, using his last bit of strength, and clamped his teeth around Clive’s throat.
His teeth sank into Clive’s neck and somehow held.
Both wolves tumbled to the ground, and with one heaving move, Rage tore through Clive’s neck, shaking him like a ragdoll.
Blood sprayed with each of Clive’s final heartbeats, the force waning with each beat until the crimson stream became a trickle.
