Chapter 22: Two Wolves

The shift came up through me before I let it.

My spine bowed. Bones slid, and the man holding my arms shouted and let go.

I hit the snow on four silver paws.

The torches went bright, and I smelled all of it at once: blood, fear, old tobacco, green.

The two men in front of me were stumbling back.

I went between them.

I crossed the line of the ring, the one nobody was allowed to cross.

Ernest's head came up.

His jaws were still on Dane's throat, and his yellow eyes found me over the black fur.

I hit him in the ribs with everything I had.

We rolled.

I felt his claws rake my shoulder, hot and deep, and I felt the green slide into the cut.

I waited for it to take me.

It didn't.

Twelve years of his tea were in my blood.

Small doses, every morning, since I was a child.

I'd spent more of my life soaked in his poison than anyone alive.

It burned. That was all it did.

I got my teeth into the thick fur of his neck and shook.

Ernest screamed. He had not expected it.

He heaved himself off me and rolled to his feet, and I came after him.

He was bigger and heavier than me and had been fighting for thirty years.

I was faster. I was angry, and my mate was dying on the snow behind me.

I went for his hamstring, and he went down.

"Stop!" the eldest elder shouted.

Her voice cut across the ring.

She was on her feet, shaking, with the cane lifted over her head.

"Stop it, all of you! I name this challenge void!"

Keep reading free with an account. Start Given to an Alpha Who Saw Through Every Lie from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.