Chapter 6: First Yield

The sleet kept falling and nobody in the garden moved.

Bram took off Wynne's coat from her shoulders, where it still hung, and folded it over the porch rail.

"A challenge between Alphas on neutral ground goes to first yield," he said. "I accept."

"Not on the Luna's flowerbeds," said Wynne.

"The yard, then," Garrick said, and walked.

Word moved faster than they did.

By the time the two men reached the training yard, forty wolves stood along the fence.

Maids held lamps, guards held back the elders, and the armorer stood in his doorway with his arms folded.

Wynne stood at the rail with Hester at her elbow.

Garrick stripped off his wet shirt.

He had the build of a man who had never lost a fight in eight years, wide in the shoulder, scarred along the ribs.

He rolled his neck once and went in.

His first blow would have split a post.

Bram took it on the forearm and stepped sideways.

His second came in lower, a hard hook to the body.

Bram turned his hip and let it go past.

The third was a straight right that every wolf at the fence knew.

They had watched it break the jaw of a rogue two winters ago.

It never landed.

Bram caught the wrist, bent it down and back, and swept Garrick's legs.

Garrick hit the wet stones on his back.

The yard was silent.

He got up.

His knees shook, and his breath came in short heaves.

It was the breath of a man at the end of a long race, not the start of a fight.

"Come on," Garrick said hoarsely.

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