Page 60 of Unveiled

Decisions remained one man’s burden to bear. Garrett ignored him as he faced Connor. “I’m fighting you because I don’t fucking like you. And with you gone, perhaps that man who calls himself our King will come to his senses.”

Connor shook his head. “You don’t want this.”

“Oh, I do.” Garrett’s wolf rippled under his skin. “Unless you’re afraid.”

Connor removed his clothes and stood naked in the courtyard. “Fine. Shift.”

The shift hit them both like a crack of thunder. Bones snapped, fur tore through skin, claws dug into the earth. Garrett lunged first. Reckless and overconfident. Connor met him mid-air, teeth clashing, snarls ripping through the clearing.

Garrett raked claws across Connor’s flank. The pain was hot and immediate and should’ve made Connor recoil. It didn’t. It sharpened him. His wolf registered it as information.

Garrett is desperate. Garrett is willing to break the line.

Connor’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl that wasn’t entirely wolf. He twisted with brutal economy, using Garrett’s momentum against him.

The world narrowed to scent and sound. Garrett’s blood, sharp as iron, the crushed heather under their paws, and the wet, resinous bite of pine.

Connor’s heartbeat thundered in his ears, steady as a drum. The bond, faint and humming, tugged once under his ribs, a distant echo of Adrian’s awareness. But Connor shoved it aside.

Not now. Not in front of witnesses. Not while another male tried to tear his authority out by the roots.

Garrett lunged again, his jaws snapping for Connor’s throat. Connor dropped his shoulder, drove into him like a battering ram, then slammed Garrett into the ground.

The impact shook the clearing. Dirt and dead needles burst up around them. Garrett’s breath punched out in a harsh grunt, and Connor was on him instantly using his weight as leverage and dominance.

He pinned Garrett with his forelegs braced, claws digging into the earth on either side of Garrett’s ribs, his chest pressed down hard enough that Garrett could likely feel every powerful beat of Connor’s heart.

His snarl shook the trees. It wasn’t performance. It was a silent promise: You don’t get to do this to my pack. Or to Adrian.

Garrett bucked, thrashing, trying to twist free. His teeth flashed white, wet, and furious. He snapped again, closer this time, his jaws grazing Connor’s throat fur, the bite not quite landing, but near enough that Connor felt the heat of it.

The crowd around them went taut with instinct. Connor heard it in the sudden hush, the held breaths, the low, vibrating growls. He smelled fear, excitement, and the metallic tang of blood in the air.

He didn’t move back. He lowered his head, his muzzle hovering at Garrett’s neck where the fur was thinner, where the pulse beat fast and frantic. He let Garrett see the choice. Let him understand that Connor would end this in a heartbeat.

Garrett’s eyes were wild, his pupils blown wide. His chest heaved beneath Connor’s weight, his breath coming in panicked bursts. He tried one last desperate shove, one last twist of his hips to unseat Connor, who felt the moment Garrett’s wolf decided it would rather gamble everything than yield.

Connor ended it. Not with a killing bite. With a bite that could have been.

He drove his jaws down, hard and decisive, teeth closing on the thick ruff of Garrett’s neck: pressure, pain, dominance, the unmistakable message of a superior male.

Connor held it for a fraction too long, long enough for Garrett’s body to go rigid, long enough for the entire clearing to understand a line had been crossed and then redrawn in blood.

Garrett yelped. A raw, involuntary sound that cut through the night. The he went still. His legs splayed. His tail flattened. His belly turned up, exposed to the cold air in the oldest, most humiliating surrender a wolf could offer.

Connor released him immediately, lifting his head, breath steaming, blood on his teeth that wasn’t his. He stood over Garrett for a beat, not gloating but reasserting facts.

Then he stepped back.

Garrett lay there panting, his sides heaving, his eyes squeezed shut as if he could disappear by refusing to look at anyone.

Slowly, shakily, he began to shift back. His fur receded, and his bones re-formed.

Garrett’s hands clawed at the ground, fingers digging into dirt as if he needed something to hold on to while his body returned to human.

When it was done, he lay on his back in the mud, naked, his chest rising and falling too fast, his throat marked with the beginning of bruising where Connor’s teeth had been. Humiliation rolled off him in waves.

Connor watched him for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Not to punish him but to make sure the message was clear.