My Mate and Family's Choice novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Cup Falls

Tegan's POV

I loosed the arrow on Rodrick's roar, and I never saw it fly.

It crossed forty yards of ridge in the time it takes to blink.

It struck the tin cup in Dalton's left hand and tore it clean out of his fingers.

Cider sprayed across the white of his coat in a long, brown fan.

The cup spun away over the rocks and rang once, twice, and was still.

Dalton stood looking at his empty hand.

He had never in his life looked stupid, and he looked stupid then.

"You," he said.

"Me."

I had another arrow on the string.

I'd put it there without remembering.

He roared.

It wasn't a word.

It was the sound of a spoiled child told no, and it split into a snarl as his body began to change, shoulders heaving, coat tearing off him in white rags.

A big sandy wolf came off the rim straight at me, forty yards of loose stone in four great strides.

I did not retreat a step.

I breathed in, and my wolf rose in me, and she was not afraid.

I let go.

The arrow took him in the thigh at the full stretch of his leap.

He came down short, in a spray of grit, and slid on his chest across the granite and fetched up against my boot.

I stood over him.

He tried to rise on the ruined leg and fell, and the change ran out of him all at once.

A man lay at my feet, naked and bleeding in the dirt, clutching the shaft in his thigh.

"Tegan," Dalton gasped. "Tegan, love."

"Don't."

"It was always for you. Everything. I only wanted to keep you."

"You wanted my wolf," I said. "You wanted the chair."

"I wanted to be good to you."

"You gave me a cup."

I took a third arrow out of my quiver and set the point under his chin.

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