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“Big,” I muttered.
He grunted. “But slow. Look at his response time. Luke is practically dead. But his Alpha is...”
“I know. Weak.” Any other Alpha would have torn the head off his opponent in seconds; they had the combined strength of the entire pack’s energy to draw on.
“Could be,” Dad said after a minute. “Might be cursed by the Moon Goddess.”
I nodded, knowing what he meant. In the old stories, wolves who committed grave offenses against the moon usually went mad and died. In the ones Dad had read to me, the dishonored wolves were often eaten by carrion crows. I hated crows to this day because of those stories.
Dad was all about the old ways. The tale of Flor’s background would have shocked him, but discovering she somehow held more than one soulmate bond? I wasn’t sure if he would be able to wrap his head around that. Accept it.
I’d already accepted the possibility. Sure, it bothered me that she might not be only mine, but not as much as it should. Except for Luke, I was close to the other Alpha Heirs. I saw their worth and had fought with them long enough to know their honor. Even Finnick was solid, deep down, once you got past the sushi and symphonies.
His family, though... They were a different matter.
And that Joaquin? No. I would not allow her to be endangered by his presence. Shifters did not do magic. At least, not that I knew of.
“Dad, when the Russian wolves invaded Northern, did they have any shifters who used mag?—”
The crowd let out a shout, cutting me off. In the fighting ring, Luke snarled and faked a hurt leg, drawing his Alpha’s attention to his hindquarters. It was a decent ploy, but fairly obvious. Any Alpha worth his salt would see it for what it was and refuse to be drawn out.
I blinked when this Alpha didn’t see it. He stretched out his neck, his most vulnerable zone, to reach for the supposed injury. However, he never got the chance to lay teeth on it, since Luke had whipped around—the much smaller wolf using his size to his advantage to avoid the hefty Alpha’s clumsy maneuver—and wrapped his jaws around his Alpha’s throat.
“Thank the moon,” my father muttered. “Finish him, Luke.”
We all knew what had to happen next. Alpha Callaway would die with honor in the fighting ring, and Luke would take his place. I should have relaxed, but some instinct had me holding onto my tension.
“What’s the kid waiting for?” My dad’s voice was strained as we all stared at the gory scene, where something unusual was occurring.
Instead of two wolves in the ring, there was one. And a mostly shifted, human Alpha.
The whole crowd was waiting for the fountain of blood, for Luke to finish the kill, and take his place. But it didn’t happen. Alpha Callaway had begun a fast, painful shift, possibly the instant Luke had gained the upper hand.
What is he doing?
Luke’s wolf kept hold of the Alpha’s almost-hairless neck, but seemed as confused as the rest of us. This couldn’t be happening.
“I yield,” the Alpha shouted, his voice raspy through a partially crushed windpipe. His beefy, bloodstained fist pounded on the dirt floor of the ring.
“What is this madness?” Dad growled, his eyes flashing. He stepped forward, over seven feet of enraged Alpha. “There is no yielding in an Alpha challenge.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but then again, there hadn’t been an Alpha challenge in decades or longer. If anyone would know, though, it was Dad.
Luke obviously had no idea what to do. It was considered borderline dishonorable for a wolf to fight a shifter in human form, which was why so many had jeered Trevor earlier. But to change in the middle of a fight, to yield verbally? Normally, a wolf would roll over and show its belly, a typical submissive pose, or make obvious sounds of distress.
Once a wolf had yielded, it was against all the rules of a normal dominance challenge to continue. The defeated wolf would take his new place in the pack, and the winner would move into the top spot.
But Alpha challenges had to be different. An Alpha could no sooner be integrated back into the pack as an Enforcer or lower, than an unranked wolf could suddenly become Alpha.
Dad seemed certain that what was happening in the ring now, with Luke backing off, and the Head Enforcer of the Southern pack helping the Alpha limp out of the ring, was against pack law.
“Is this illegal?” I wondered aloud.
“No, but it’s wrong,” Dad growled. “If that Alpha leaves, Luke won’t be able to step up until after the Council appoints him.”
“What?” My blood went cold.
“The Alpha position will be in limbo. The pack connections will not pass to Luke.”
