“Right,” I muttered, my eyes glued to the two men.
Anders smirked at Levi. “You want to go ahead and bend the knee? Save yourself the embarrassment of me kicking your ass?”
“Your face doesn’t look like you can kick anyone’s ass, Anders,” Levi responded, his voice low and menacing, his face an emotionless mask.
A growl erupted from Anders’s throat. He lunged at Levi, shifting as he did. Levi barely managed to dodge the muscular wolf. As he rolled away, he shifted. Spinning, he raced toward Anders. The two wolves slammed into each other. I flinched as teeth gnashed, claws ripped, and fur flew.
Beatrice clenched my hand hard, her own anxiety showing. All I could do was stare at the scene of chaos, violence, and aggression. My grandparents squeezed me tighter, but all the support in the world couldn’t ease the terror. Around the circle, people cheered and called out. Anders’s friends and his allieswithin the pack cried out for him to win. Others, including the visiting alphas and Rainier, called for Levi to destroy the reigning alpha.
Levi let out a yelp of pain and tumbled aside. I ripped my hand free of Beatrice’s and pressed it to my mouth, trembling in fear. When he got to his feet, a small patch of fur was missing from his shoulder, and blood oozed from the spot.
Anders shifted back, grinning with the hunk of fur still clenched in his teeth. He grabbed it and raised his arm, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Got me a piece of the Demon Wolf!”
Levi growled and stalked toward Anders again, his teeth bared and eyes murderous. Smirking, Anders shifted back into his wolf form. He sat on his haunches, goading Levi by acting like he couldn’t care less about what was happening.
When Levi lunged, jaws open, Anders dived low, rolling onto his back and kicking out. His claws dug long furrows in Levi’s belly and sent him pinwheeling away. He landed with a thud a few feet away.
Levi shifted back into his human form, grimacing and clutching his bleeding stomach. Anders followed suit, standing with his hands on his hips.
“What’s wrong, big dog? Been a while since you fought another alpha, huh? Easy to beat the shit out of random dudes in the forest, but a real man is different, isn’t he?”
Levi chuckled ruefully and got to his feet. “I don’t know. You’ll have to let me know when you find areal man.”
Anders’s face went red, and he slipped his hand into his left pocket. I opened my mouth to cry a warning to Levi, but I was too late. In a half second, Anders yanked his hand out and flung it at Levi. A cloud of sand and dirt sprayed out, landing in Levi’s eyes.
“Fuck!” He slammed his eyes shut and put his hands to his face.
That was all Anders needed. He shifted again and rushed forward, his teeth sinking deep into Levi’s calf. Blood soaked his jeans. Anders yanked his head back and forth, forcing Levi to fall to the ground.
“That’sbullshit!” Rainier cried, looking like he wanted to kill Anders himself. “Dirty ass cheater.”
“No such thing as cheating in a fight to the death,” Brock called back from the other side of the crowd.
Rainier simply lifted his middle finger toward him as a response.
The backs of my eyes stung with tears as I watched the two men writhe on the ground. Levi had finally managed to get in a few bites and scratches, but Anders’s initial assault and trickery had put him in a bind. He was hurt and exhausted already. My inner wolf whined, begging to be set free to help.
Doing the best I could to stay calm, I watched Levi lunge toward Anders’s back leg, hoping to catch him, but Anders was too fast. He jerked forward, closing his jaws on Levi’s neck.
I screamed as Anders rolled Levi to his back, and settled his feet on Levi’s chest.
Submit!I screamed in my mind.Just submit.Please.
I couldn’t lose Levi. I loved him. Without him, I would be completely under Anders’s control. I would have to run. Nowhere would be safe. Anders would take control of Hidden Grove, and I would be a lone wolf. A broken-hearted lone wolf, living a life of misery, wishing for one more moment with Levi that I would never get. If he submitted, this would be over. That was better than death.
Levi glared up to the sky and opened his jaws, trying to breathe even as Anders clamped down harder on his throat. His back legs kicked out against the air, unable to find purchase.
For a single horrifying second, I truly believed that was the end, that Levi would be too stubborn to give up, and Anders would kill him. Then, as though spurred on by some unknowable inner idea, he shifted to his human form. The entire crowd gasped, unsure why he would do something so crazy. The human body was far more delicate and less resilient than a wolf’s body. The change appeared to shock Anders too, because he jerked back in confusion, relinquishing his grip. That was the opening Levi needed to twist away. I choked back a scream of excitement as he kicked out, catching Anders in the jaw. The force of the kick sent him rolling away and yelping.
Levi knelt and put a hand on his boot. I squinted, trying to make out what he was doing. Steadying himself, maybe? Either way, he quickly finished whatever he was doing and got to his feet. Levi looked like a Viking warlord on the field of battle, spattered with blood. He stood on wobbly legs, but his lips were peeled back in a grimace of rage.
“Come on, motherfucker!” he screamed.
The crowd quieted at the sight and sound of him. None of us had ever seen someone take so much punishment and still look ready to fight.
Rolling over, Anders shifted to his human form. He was beaten and bloody, but nothing like Levi. He rose to one knee and chuckled.
