The stranger jerked back just in time to avoid the beastly slash of claws to his jugular, but he couldn't defend against the sweep of Monsters leg that followed.
He fell with a jarring thud that reverberated through Naya’s body. The floor shook when his two-hundred-plus pounds collided with it.
Monster moved like lightening, following the alpha down. All she could see was her alpha's body hunched over his opponent.
Bloodcurdling screams echoed from the floor as her mate tore away from the now-unmoving body. When he turned to look her way, the blood of his kill painted his face.
She closed her eyes and drew on the bond for strength. Gulping down the bile in her throat, she swayed for a different reason.
Biologically programmed to be attracted to the strongest alpha, arousal bloomed like fire in her belly. Monster had fought for them, and he’d won.
Her Monster kicked the lump of flesh that had been a man and roared, "Berendal!"
The crowd took it up, chanting the name in a deafening barrage.
The man's champion had failed. Now the monster wanted the man himself.
There was scuffling outside the cage, bodies pushing and shoving. The crowd continued its raucous call. "Berendal! Berendal!"
Two alphas dragged a fat older one into the cage, most obviously against his will. Naya had never seen an overweight alpha. She couldn't imagine the amount of dissolute living it had taken for him to become so overblown.
She could smell his fear, this male that had dared resist her mate. It was pungent and foul. He feared for his life.
They dragged him to the center of the pit and dropped him in a pathetic heap.
"I concede! I concede!" Berendal was shouting. "They told me you were weak. That your insanity ruled you. I yield. Please!"
Monster bent over the blubbering male, whose fearful protests increased. He tried to scramble back, but Monster caught him by the neck and lifted him off the floor, bringing Berendal to eye-level.
The muscles of Monster’s upper body flexed and vibrated with anger. Naya salivated at the powerful, gorgeous display, her basest core instincts triggered by the dominance before her proper, home-trained mind took control to shame her. She liked this. She shouldn’t. It was so crude.
But she did.
"Kill him!" the crowd demanded. "End him!"
Despite the calls of the crowd, Naya could hear Monster's furious growls as he stared down the pathetic man in his grasp.
"Please!" Berendal begged.
Monster lifted him higher, then threw him down hard. Lifting his foot, he kicked the other man onto his back and planted his foot in the center of his chest—cracking his ribs, no doubt.
Next to Berendal, his so-called champion lay unconscious, possibly dead. Berendal blubbered and wheezed. The fight master with the red tie declared Monster the victor.
The crowd’s chanting faded, replaced by the rhythmic drumming of fists on balconies and feet against the floors.
Mac entered the cage next, clear-eyed, determined, and full of hate. He offered no excuse or explanation for his betrayal. Behind him, the bare-chested alpha she'd seen him with before followed Mac in. Who was that man? He was simultaneously familiar and not.
Closer now, Naya noted close similarities between the men she hadn't noticed before. The shape of their eyes, the squareness of their chins—they looked related.
The announcer outside the cage yelled, "The Mad Monster has challenged Mac, his Second and Secretary, and Louis, First Scribe of the Black Robes!"
Naya hissed in surprise. Mac and the black robes?
She glanced toward the announcer. The man was leaning to his left, listening to something a hooded man was saying in his ear. Her belly sank. More betrayers.
Then she noticed another figure standing nearby, one she recognized instantly.
Crispin.
