Page 149 of UNAwere

My mouth falls open.

Not Jude. Hannah. The black wolf is Hannah.

Warner grunts out a half-laugh, but I can tell he’s just as shocked. Hannah. What the fuck are you doing?

Sybbie said she doesn’t want to go through with this anymore.

Warner snarls, exposing both rows of his sharp teeth. That bitch has no choice.

Sybbie has always had a choice.

What are you going to do, then? Warner asks her.

I’ll kill you if I have to, Layton.

Warner has been pacing this entire time, circling, and when he catches sight of me, bleeding in the grass, he lunges. I flinch, but Hannah collides with him. They both roll, nipping and snarling, and I scramble backwards when they almost hit me. Warner snaps at my back leg, and I cringe. Hannah growls, tearing at Warner’s throat.

I stagger backwards, trying to get out of the way, and the pain in my shoulder rips through me. I cry out, staggering to the ground.

Sybbie. Something big props me up, helping keep my weight off my injured side, and I look up, startled. Jude nuzzles his nose into my coat. He’s breathing hard, watching the two Weres fight in front of us. You’re okay.

Jude! I burrow myself against his chest, trembling.

We’ll patch you up, honey. I feel his tongue tenderly swipe across the wound on my shoulder. You’re okay, my sweet girl. I’ve got you.

Jude… You have to help Hannah.

I can’t, Sybbie. He takes a shuddering breath. No matter how much I want to tear out Warner’s throat for touching you, Hannah is fighting for the title of alpha. To intervene would make her attempt completely moot.

She’s an alpha?

Jude’s soft laugh vibrates against my back. Yeah, honey.

I shake my head. I never knew. Hannah had talked back to Warner a few times, but I thought that was just because they’d known each other a long time. I think of how she kept telling me that if I wanted to pull out of the bonding ceremony, all I had to do was let her know. I thought she was just being a good friend, but now it all makes sense.

A whining sound snaps me back to the present, and I cringe against Jude when I see Hannah tear a chunk out of Warner’s side with her massive maw. Her teeth are exposed, and they drip with slimy blood that hangs in strings from her mouth.

Warner grunts, scrambling out from under Hannah’s weight. Their mental links clash with ours and I cringe, feeling the inky black rage within Warner’s mind.

You really think a female Were can be alpha? he hisses.

Abso-fucking-lutely I do.

You’re such a lying bitch. You and your brother. Going behind my back this entire time.

Yeah, well, maybe if you weren’t such a raging arsehole, we wouldn’t have had to plan this coup.

Fuck you both.

Warner lunges at her, and they hit the ground. Hannah wrangles him, her jaws locking around his throat. She easily flips him over, and I hear Jude’s breath hitch beside my ear.

Yes, Hans, he murmurs, voice full of pride.

Warner huffs, losing his breath as his ribs strike the earth. Hannah pins him with her forelegs and snaps at his throat, going for the wound my own teeth created.

Sybbie isn’t even a fighter, and she still got a hit on you, she says. What kind of alpha are you, Layton?

Fuck yo—