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“Then why...?” I wasn’t sure what he was asking. His gaze darted to Glen and back to me. I knew he wanted to ask why we’d all spoken for her, but I wasn’t sure how to explain. He would have heard the honesty in our claims. He knew that at the very least, I believed her to be my mate.
And my wolf was sure as fuck acting like it.
“The fight will be short if Luke is as injured as you say.” When he spoke, his lips hardly moved. I think that was where the rumors came from that he had gone mute—he didn’t look like he was talking when he was. Mainly, he only spoke to me and Dean, the one the other packs knew as our Head Enforcer.
I nodded. “Where’s Dean?”
“Getting ready to challenge Callaway when Luke falls.”
I just grunted. Dean was a beast of a shifter, deadly, ferocious, and nearly unbeatable in a fight in either form. There was no doubt in my mind Dean would wipe the floor with Southern’s Alpha if he needed to.
And he would almost certainly need to.
I cringed at the scent of blood in the air, and Luke’s jerky movements as the fight progressed. Losing Dean would be brutal for our pack. He was one of the only shifters in our pack with a true mate, and he and his mate had two teen boys who were going to be every bit as powerful as their parents. We would lose them all when Dean took the position as Southern Alpha.
But losing Flor to death would be far worse. I glanced at her again. Had she stopped breathing?
“Don’t look,” Dad grunted. “She’s holding on. I’m listening to her heart.”
I didn’t doubt him; my dad’s hearing was the best in any pack. Shifter scientists had traveled from near and far just to study him. He usually sent them away, but last fall, one scientist had stuck around for a few months. I had a feeling she’d wanted to study more than Dad’s hearing.
My gut twisted at the thought of Dad finding a girlfriend. Mom had been dead for seventeen years, though. It was time.
What would I do if Flor died? Would I survive as my father had, spending the rest of my life pining for her? Would I try to move on? I had only shared a few words with her and watched her fight. But watching her in battle was like seeing the sun rise over a mountain lake. Like a wonder of the world—every move precise, every movement graceful and clean. Sharp and deadly, like a shining blade.
How had any of us thought she was a male when we met? I almost smiled, remembering her response when she’d first seen my size. She was so genuine, honest in her reactions. I longed to experience more of them.
I had to believe she would make it. She was perfect for me... though I wasn’t certain she would be thinking the same when she healed. She had to heal.
Inside, my wolf paced and snapped at invisible foes.
Dad growled, distracting me from my whirling thoughts. “Watch the Southern pack. They’re up to something.”
“What?”
“I heard whispers. A coup, perhaps. All the Council Alphas are here. And not nearly enough of their Enforcers.” He was right. While the Alpha was fighting would be the perfect time for the Southern Enforcers to get armed and set up a trap for the outnumbered visitors.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of black. It was Joaquin, the Borderlands wolf. It was almost impossible to see him in the shadows. He was doing something odd—tying people’s shoelaces together? No, something else. I watched threads of silver-blue light glimmering near his hands.
Magic. He was doing magic.
Fuck. He wasn’t just a wolf. I almost shouted a warning before I realized he was doing it to Southern wolves only.
I relaxed slightly when he took their oblivious Enforcers’ weapons and chucked them down the nearby storm drain. He kept at it while Luke fought, finally vanishing around the corner, following a group of Southern Enforcers who were leaving.
Leaving their own Alpha’s dominance fight? Yeah, they were up to something, even if Joaquin was stopping them.
That wolf made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, though. He was quiet but strong, and his power was hard to gauge, which made sense if he was using magic somehow. Forbidden magic. I knew better than to fear all witches the way most shifters did now, but this one was an unknown. And an Alpha. He was too dangerous to allow near my mate.
I turned to tell Dad what I had seen, when a sharp, painful howl from the ring caught my attention.
Luke’s wolf was weaving with exhaustion and pain. Honestly, I was amazed he was still on his feet with that brutal gut wound. I reminded myself not to piss off my little mate, unless I wanted to see my own intestines up close.
But Callaway wasn’t looking much better than Luke. He was panting like a human who didn’t even jog. How did an Alpha let that happen? His whole job was the Protector of the Pack. That meant he had to be at the pinnacle of physical fitness.
As I watched Luke snap and snarl, reaching out with claws and teeth and connecting at least twice as often as the much larger Alpha, I had a thought. “Dad, you remember the rumor Finnick reported—that Alpha Callaway tried to kill his true mate? Glen whispered that there was more proof. Maybe he did kill her, to break the bond.”
Dad let out a rare curse and nodded. “Do you think it weakened him? Look at his wolf.”
