Her ears roared with the dull throb from the stadium around her. Built like football grounds, the sandy-bottomed arena looked out onto the steps where the audience were seated. Bang in the center, twenty feet higher than the arena, there was the Alpha’s box and contained within were her mates.
From this distance, she could see Rafe as clearly as if he were standing next to her. His scent hadn’t changed. His distress was evident, and she wished like hell she could work some kind of Morse code with her eyelashes so he’d realize that she was okay. That she was safe.
Maybe his lack of faith would have hurt another woman, but this was the first time anyone would truly see her powers. A little wobble in his belief in her was to be understood. That didn’t stop her from wanting to reassure him, however.
Her She-Wolf howled inside, ready to be let loose. The anticipation in the air increased the pace of her heart, but it was that howl that changed something inside her.
Before, she’d thought the murmurs were the crowd. Once the howl had split her attention, she realized there was a white noise in the back of her mind. A white noise that reminded her of…
She blinked. Rafe’s heart?
Clearing her throat in surprise, she watched as Rafe turned to Mikkel. His lips were moving, and whatever he was saying, she could read his irritation. Not at what was happening, but at Mikkel’s question. She couldn’t read lips, but she could sense they were discussing her reason for challenging Torres. Rafe only grew that tense when the Beta’s name came up.
The topic of conversation had her She-Wolf howling once more, ready to rock and rip some Beta a new asshole. The beast wasn’t bothered by her mate’s distaste at what was about to happen. She wanted to prove her worth to said mate.
Though Thalia invariably tried to soothe the bitch when she began to roam inside her skull like she was pacing a padded cell, in this instant, she didn’t. Because the second howl brought a focus to the whooshing sounds in her ears.
The white noise had centered itself somehow. No longer was it just a blank, seemingly dead sound, it was like it had been tuned.
She reached up and rubbed her left ear, then her right. Before she could focus overmuch on the weird noises overtaking her brain, a scent filled her nostrils. It was close, on the same level as her, and her She-Wolf recognized the essence of Beta.
Beneath the Alpha’s box were the gates to the arena’s entrance. She’d passed through the underbelly of the stadium to reach those gates and had crossed them to hit the arena. Now, she heard the whistling sound as the large doors creaked once more to let Torres into the challenge circle too.
It was all very gladiatorial, but at their base, they were wolves, and survival of the fittest only worked if the strongest were challenged and had a place to make that challenge.
Torres, when he appeared, was almost anticlimactic to behold. She sensed Rafe’s fear; it filled the air, staining it with its ripeness. Another internal howl had her breathing deeply and shrugging off more of the white noise that was starting to overtake her hearing.
About six feet in height, Torres wasn’t bulky. He was rangy. But he was lean too. The combination in Wolves was a bitch. Bulk didn’t get a Wolf very far, but lanky did. It meant they were fast. Relying more on their teeth and claws than their brute strength.
Considering she fought the same way, her She-Wolf preened with the knowledge she might actually be in for a fun ride. Though the human didn’t need the violence, the beast did. And because Thalia routinely fed that need, the pair of them lived quite comfortably with one another. Until Thalia had a dream, of course. Then that set her bitch off.
Torres looked confused, and he scented of it. But he kept trying to shield his thoughts by failing to maintain a poker face. He wasn’t tense though, and didn’t scent of fear. Maybe if she’d been a male, he would have. As it was, he just seemed bewildered.
A fact that irked her She-Wolf to no end.
Challenge protocol stated that no fight could begin until the challenger declared to one and all their reasoning for the fight. That reasoning could only be declared once both fighters were in position… On the sand, there were two spotlit circles. She’d been standing on hers since the beginning.
When Torres reached his circle, the murmurs in the crowd died down.
Considering the lateness of the hour, she was stunned to see the stadium, which had to seat over thirty thousand people, was three-quarters full.
Had she been nervous, had she doubted herself at all, then she might have feared making a fool of herself. But, she wasn’t nervous. This challenge was a formality.
Her struggle would come afterward.
Gaining her mate’s acceptance. Making Rafe trust her to act for them. Those were the real challenges tonight.
Once the hush settled into a peace that was unheard of in such a large crowd, she began to speak, and the microphone that dangled overhead, broadcast her words to one and all.
“I, Thalia Lyndhoven, daughter of the TriAlpha, and appointed Triskele of the North American Lyken Pack, do hereby call you, Jason Torres, Beta of the Summerford Pack to a challenge.
“You, Jason Torres, are here to be called to account for your systematic and hereto unpunished acts of violence against the Gamma of this pack. You have raped, you have tortured, and you have assaulted your last Gamma under my watch.
“Do you accept this challenge?”
Torres’s nostrils flared. He knew he had no choice but to accept, but this would be the only time he’d be able to speak. “I hurt no one who did not need discipline.”
“You mete out discipline with your cock?” she snarled. “With your fists?” Her top lip curled up in a sneer. “You’re not fit to hold the rank of Beta, and I’m about to see to it that the only thing you’re good for is meat in dog food.” She turned in her circle, her arms wide open as she spoke to the crowd. “You see here before you the first Royal Enforcer in two hundred years. You see here before you a fighter who will seek justice on behalf of those who cannot fight for themselves.” She turned to the other side of the crowd. “Might does not mean right. But tonight, because this pack only understands the shedding of blood, we will mark a new day in Summerford Pack’s history.”
“You think you can take me on?” Torres snarled, his hands coming to his hips, as outrage at being called out, and by a woman no less, flushed through him, tainting the air he breathed with his feelings.
“I know I can,” she retorted, but in the back of her mind, that white noise was back, but this time, there was a chant.
“Let her be safe. Keep her safe. Mother, please. Protect her from him. Don’t let him kill her. Don’t. Please, I beg of you.”
She blinked at the litany, blinked because it was Rafe’s voice piercing her ears as though he were beside her, not thirty feet away.
Unsettled, she shot him a look, but saw he hadn’t moved. He was leaning over, his elbows on his knees as he stared with dead eyes into the arena.
She wondered if he knew she could hear him. Wondered if there was a means for her to communicate in return. Sweet Gods, she hadn’t even known something like this was possible, but now wasn’t the time to have her concentration splayed in goddamn two.
Thalia turned to Torres who, infuriatingly enough, looked amused by her challenge.
Her She-Wolf snarled with the slight, but the woman just watched as Torres began to strip. She didn’t bother. She was used to shifting with her clothes on and didn’t give a fuck if she never saw these jeans again. There was no way in hell she was about to bare herself to this rapist’s eye.
As protocol demanded, Alpha Stevenson cleared his throat into a microphone of his own and declared, “As the challenge has been declared, neither challenger may leave the arena until first blood has been shed, and either death or an agreement for surrender is proclaimed. The challenge is on.”
Not a word fell from the audience’s lips at the Alpha’s speech, but the tension in the stadium soared to fever pitch.
&n
bsp; Even Thalia felt its heat as it skimmed over limbs, firing the She-Wolf into a frenzy she knew she had to control.
Though a part of her wanted Torres to pay the ultimate price for what he’d done—the part of her that was most definitely the feral bitch who shared half her soul, the human knew she’d have to control the beast if she was to make an example of the Beta posturing before her.
Her resolve was battered when the bastard cupped himself and squeezed, sneering at her as he did so.
Her She-Wolf snarled at yet another insult and she was hard pressed to curb the beast’s roar of fury at such a slight.
The first move was always a tense moment. It was like a game of chess, when strategy came to play, but she wasn’t sure if Torres was smart enough to know that. From what she’d heard, little though that may be, he wasn’t an archetypal Beta. A carpenter, definitely blue collar when Betas were usually white collar. He was like the opposite of Rafe, and she had to wonder if that was why Torres targeted her mate the way he did. Because for everything Rafe had, Torres had nothing in comparison.
She took a step forward, when memories of all the insecurities Rafe had rose to the surface of her thoughts. Torres’ response to her step was to shift, and she sighed at the foolhardy move. If there was a way he could have overpowered her, it would have been in this form.
His idiocy pleased her She-Wolf, however.
His hackles rose and his snarl was already loaded with drool when he faced her, his shoulders low but his head raised high as he snapped at her, clicking his teeth with the beast’s fury at being challenged.
The She-Wolf howled once more, infuriated at being contained, and like that, with the roar of her beast’s rage echoing in her ears, the curtain came down fully.
“Thalia?”
The word was a whisper in the back of her mind. It broke her concentration, because Rafe should not be able to speak directly into her mind. Yet he was. Definitely not loud, certainly not clear, but a heavy presence where there’d only ever been her She-Wolf before now.
“Rafe?”
And of course, that moment of distraction was the moment Torres chose to pounce.
He went at her full tilt. Momentum and speed knocking her down as his front paws planted against her torso and pushed her over. Before she had a chance to get out from under him, his claws swiped and she felt the long bisecting grooves tear up her chest and belly after the tips mangled up the silk sweater she was wearing.
Hissing under her breath at the pain, she had no choice but to use her joker card. Calling on her She-Wolf’s reserves, she forced a half-shift. Her hands turned into paws, the fingers long and gnarled, covered in thick fur that was untamed and knotted. The nails had morphed into ragged claws, and the wrists had turned thick with corded muscle. The huge appendage blended into her forearm, the fur cutting off at the elbow and turning back to the regular light blonde hair that coated the rest of her. The paws didn’t pop out of nowhere, settling on her skin like a giant, red-foam hand. It merged into her body, and became as one with her arm.
The second they tore into existence, she raked them over the spine of the beast atop her.
His howl echoed throughout the stadium as her claws, twice the thickness and the strength of his, ripped down his back. She used them to grab a hold of him, impaling him on their jagged length as she tossed him away and halfway across the eighty-foot long pitch.
He landed with a thud and she used the time to scramble to her feet. Knowing he was down, but not for the count, she peered at her chest and grimaced at the mess he’d made of her. Adrenaline made it so she wasn’t feeling the pain, but she would later on. Even a shift wouldn’t heal these grooves immediately.
Deciding it was best to rid herself of the sweater, she let the paws retract and tugged the shredded silk overhead. Standing before a good portion of the Summerford Pack in her sports’ bra hadn’t been her intention, but shit, neither had a conversation with her mate while she was fighting a challenge.
“I can try to heal you.”
Rafe’s voice was a faint whisper. It was like she’d been swimming and had a shit ton of water logged in her ears. She wanted to smack her head, wanted to dislodge the liquid but it didn’t work.
“How can you? You need to get out of my head. You’re distracting me,” she said aloud, keeping the words a whisper, and trying not to move her lips lest the crowd think she was insane too.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know I could do this, but I can try.”
She looked over to where her mates were seated, and from Mikkel’s confusion, Thalia knew he was aware of the telepathic conversation happening between her and Rafe.
At any other time, she’d have chuckled at his complete and utter loss of face.
Now?
Yeah, now was not the time to giggle.
Blood poured from the wounds on her front, and the scent filled the air. She knew it would be like a drug to Torres’ beast, knew it would entice him to fight harder. She hadn’t intended for him to shed first blood, but she sure as hell would shed the last.
Aware that she had to move quickly now, because he could call the challenge on that alone, she knew she had to prick his ego. Maintain his need to fight until she conquered him totally.
“And you thought I was so puny,” she declared, watching the whimpering beast as it staggered onto its feet. “I’m only a female, Torres. Surely it won’t take much to best me.”
Her wheedling had the idiot snarling. His fangs bared as he sneered at her in the way only a predator could.
She felt no fear, felt very little at that moment. Not even pain. But as a gasp echoed around the audience like a Mexican wave on steroids, she looked at Torres first, then at herself, wondering at the reason for the gasp.
When she saw the blood staining her body begin to retract, her eyes widened and she gasped too.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she whispered under her breath, her attention on her chest where the spilled blood was seeping back into her pores, replenishing resources she’d lost under Torres’ attack.
“Healing you,” came the strained and distant answer.
“This can’t be possible.”
“You might be the hand of justice,” he whispered, “but maybe my role is to keep you in one piece.” As his words drifted off, she felt a distinct pop inside her as whatever the link between them enabled, reached its full potential.
She was healed.
Totally.
And, if the crowd’s rapt attention was anything to go by, she looked like the second-coming of Jesus.
Even Torres looked bewildered. A fact she took advantage of.
In the blink of an eye, she was a wolf.
She pounced.
And Torres never stood a chance.
Every time he stood, she dragged him down. Every time he tried to swipe her with his paws, she controlled the momentum, rolling him over until he repeatedly exposed his underbelly.
He bared his neck more times than she could count.
She dragged him into submission more times than a challenge necessitated.
She played with him. Like the feline she wasn’t, she made him her mouse. Toying with him, taunting him. Needing him to know what it felt like to be the underdog. To be at the mercy of someone stronger than him.
All around her, the crowd roared and screamed. But, more than anything, she heard the distant whoosh of her mate’s heart. It was still there. He was still there.
She wasn’t sure how it was possible, but it comforted her. Strengthened her, and if she was being honest, reminded her of what she was—half human.
The She-Wolf wanted to make this male suffer. Wanted to destroy him. Rafe’s albeit surprising presence at the back of her mind was a cool and cleansing balm that calmed her, grounded her. Stopped the feral quality that plagued her She-Wolf and kept her human.
Only when she sliced her paw down his belly did she back off. It wasn’t a retreat, she just padded back, her hackles high as she watc
hed the downed male try to stagger to his feet. When he couldn’t, he shifted. Still on his back, Torres started bleeding out from the wounds before he shifted once more.
The Wolf reappeared, then the human. But each transformation sapped him of energy, drained him of all that he had left to fight. She let him, content to watch him realize she’d bested him. Wanting him to feel weak, pitiless.
Wanting the crowd to witness that this was how bullies would be treated in the future.
When, for a good thirty seconds, he remained in his human skin, she knew he’d drained himself dry. Shifting too, even though the She-Wolf wasn’t happy about it, she stood upright and strode over to him. Before he could do more than widen his eyes and try to scurry backwards, away from her, Thalia pressed her foot to his throat.
“Do you cede?”
“You cheated,” he spat. “You used… I don’t know, goddammit, witchcraft or some shit to cheat!”
She laughed, and the amusement spilled over, echoing around the stadium thanks to the microphone blasting their conversation far and wide.
“Witchcraft? What kind of sorcery is that?” she mocked. “My mate’s a healer, Jason,” she murmured silkily. “He healed me.”
“A healer? But…” He cut the Alpha box a look. “I thought it was bullshit.”
That had her frowning. “Thought what was bullshit?”
Her anger had her pressing harder on Torres’ throat and he rasped out, “That Santiago was your mate.”
“Apparently not if he can heal me from forty feet away.” She smirked at him. “Now who’s the weakling of the pack, Jason?” she asked slickly. “The man with a princess for a mate and a talent that can see him heal without even a touch, or a male, bleeding out on the ground, a female’s foot at his throat.” Though his eyes flared with rage, she snarled, “Do you cede?”
Because the bastard had no other choice, he bit off, “I cede.”
Satisfaction filled her and she removed her foot as protocol demanded. But, she should have realized the bastard was a cheat to his bones.
The minute her foot moved away from his throat, he reared up, his intent evident.
Trinity (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 1) Page 27