“Enough.”
The word wasn’t a shout. It didn’t need to be.
Sorrath froze, his chest heaving and eyes blown wide as he focused, locked onto Daavyn. The black tips of his claws were inches from Raaze’s ribs.
“Back down,” he snarled. “Unless you want to explain this little… misunderstanding to Kraath.”
Sorrath vibrated with tension, rage rolling off him in waves. Raaze didn’t flinch, didn’t look at the claws. He just looked Sorrath in the eye.
Go on. Try it mother-draanther. See what happens.
Sorrath blinked, and the focus broke as he looked down at Raaze. The claws didn’t retract fully, but the lethal intent wavered.
Raaze turned his head slightly to lock eyes with Daavyn. “Pick up the sphere.”
Daavyn bristled, fists still clenched. “He started it.”
“And I’m ending it. Pick up the draanthing sphere.”
Daavyn hesitated for a second, his gaze flickering to the males around him. None of them would meet his eyes so he looked at Raaze. He saw the moment sense finally filtered through Daavyn’s thick skull. The big feral grunted, bent down, and snatched the heavy practice sphere from the dust.
Raaze turned back to Sorrath. “East perimeter. Two laps. Now.”
“I didn’t?—”
“Now.”
Sorrath snarled, a wet, ugly sound, but he turned and started jogging toward the perimeter fence.
Raaze stayed where he was for a long moment, watching them separate. He didn’t relax his stance until there was fifty yards of dust between them. He checked his hands. Steady as a rock. No red vignette bleeding into his peripheral vision. No adrenaline spike. And definitely no draanthing Blood Rage.
See? Nothing to see here.
He turned and walked back to the edge of the pitch with a swagger.
“Show’s over,” he called out to the gawking team. “Reset the line. We go again.”
The players shuffled back into position, eyeing him warily. Let them stare.
He ignored them, dragging a hand over the back of his neck, feeling the grit of dust and sweat. He should walk away. Go down to the landing pad and start working on the redhead. That was the smart play. That was the escape route.
Yeah, if you want to go in there half-cocked and draanth it all up, yeah… sure. Knock yourself out.
Ignoring the thought, he turned back to the field.
“Bravnak, if you drop that pass again, you’re running with Sorrath,” he yelled.
Twenty minutes later, every drill he had them run disintegrated into stupid mistakes and bitching about the heat.
“Okay, ladies, we’re done. Pack it up and let’s get out of the sun,” he yelled, shaking his head when they didn’t immediately break for the road back up to the Garrison on the cliff above them.
He shook his head and let them go. He wasn’t their keeper. If they wanted to stand around in the baking sun talking trall, that was their business.
Collecting the practice spheres was grunt work. Rookie shit. The kind of thing he used to pay people to do so he could save his energy for the cameras. But here he was, bending over in the dust and cleaning up after amateurs who wouldn’t know a defensive formation if it bit them on the ass.
Professional athlete to babysitter… hell of a career trajectory.
He lobbed a sphere into the nearby crate and was reaching for the next when something in the chatter behind him snagged his attention.
