Page 77 of Wolf Unseen

Our captain leaped higher than his counterpart, capturing the ball in his meaty fists. He threw it at a small reptile shifter on the opposite team, knocking them to the floor.

“You’re out!” The guy shook his head and crawled off the pitch.

Fifteen minutes later, we had five players left, including me, and the other team had four. It had quickly become apparent that I was the main target for the other team, much to my team’s delight.

I dodged and weaved, narrowly avoiding the ball as the opposition launched it at me every time they got possession.

“Hybrid scum,” a wolf shifter hissed as the ball he threw sailed over my head and bounced off the grass. A tiger shifter on my team snatched it up and ran past me, checking me hard enough to send me sprawling into the mud.

“Hey! I’m on your team, asshole!” I yelled, but he ignored me.

Leone hadn’t noticed; he was too busy talking to a small feline shifter with a bloody head wound.

I dragged myself up and waited to see where the ball ended up. In the distance, a runner appeared through the trees. He paused and then changed direction, heading this way before stopping to watch the game.

By now, it was raining so hard I could barely see two feet in front of me. I wondered why on earth anyone would choose to be outside, let alone waste their time observing the world’s dumbest dodgeball match.

Losing focus proved a big mistake. The minute I stopped staring at the tall guy standing like a statue in the distance, I realized the asshole wolf shifter who’d spent most of the match trying to bash my brains in with the ball was currently barreling toward me.

When I turned to sprint away, I lost my footing in the sticky mud. The wolf shifter threw the ball at me, but his aim was so poor it missed again. I couldn’t resist laughing at his furious scowl as I scrambled after the ball.

Unfortunately for him, he was both slow and wide, which meant I had no problem hitting him as intended—right in the nuts.

“Loser!” I yelled with a whoop when he dropped to his knees with a pained grunt. His teammate picked up the ball and threw it back at me, but I ducked again while taunting them both.

Which was a mistake, I soon realized. Two enraged male shifters thundered toward me. In trying to evade them, my weak ankle gave way, and I fell just as the two wolves piled into me.

Neither of them reacted to my agonized shriek. A fist slammed into my side. I heard something crack a fraction of a second later before one of my lungs quit functioning.

“Get off me,” I tried to say, except nothing but a wheeze came out because I was slowly suffocating under the combined weight of two bulky wolf shifters.

Fuck, was this shitty field where a reaper came to collect my soul?

I sure as hell hoped not. It would be a highly undignified end to my pathetic life. Squashed to death by a pair of buffoons.

My ears rang as blows rained down on my head and torso, each one hard enough to break bones. Just as I was about to pass out, a distant roar caused both shifters to lift their heads and put the brakes on their attack.

“Fuck,” one grunted shortly before something grabbed his shirt and tossed him several hundred feet away. The second shifter had barely enough time to roll off my broken body before a gigantic wolf clamped its jaws around his neck and shook him like a chew toy.

I winced at the awful screams while praying I wasn’t next because I definitely wouldn’t survive that level of ferocity.

“Scott!” The lion shifter’s panicked voice broke through the nightmare where I ended up wolf chow. “Tell me what hurts!”

“Everything?” I croaked. No lie. I had at least one broken rib and possibly a concussion. It was hard to tell at this point. Hopefully, the feline females had excellent makeup skills because it was going to take some serious concealer to hide these bruises.

Another ferocious roar nearly deafened me, but the lion ignored it.

“You need to see the healer, Scott.” He touched my ribs, provoking a pained grimace. And also a rush of heat in my core because, shamefully, serious injury did nothing to cool my libido.

Thank the goddess for all the mud plastering my lower body, or the lion would detect my, ahem, interest.

“I’m going to lift you,” he told me in a surprisingly gentle voice. “It might hurt.”

Only when he moved to scoop me up the massive wolf snarled in his face, making it clear he didn’t want the lion touching me.

“Shift back now!” the alpha lion commanded. The air pulsed with alpha dominance, but the wolf remained a wolf. The two alphas stared at each other, both snarling, one in their beast form and the other still human.

I gulped. Fuck, was I about to become a victim of an alpha beast tug of war?