Oh, hell no.
Spinning, I raised both hands and pushed fire through one and water through the other so the tree and flag wouldn’t burn. The flames hit Sean, Mallory’s brother, first, and he dropped to the ground with a thud, screaming as he rolled on the damp leaf litter. Heather fell next, coughing and sputtering like a drowned rat.
Roars from the crowd, distant but detectable, filtered through the trees, and I wondered if it was for me or in protest of Daybreak’s failure.
My victory grin slid from my face as Mallory’s hands clamped around my neck from behind, and I felt heat simmering under my skin as she squeezed off my air supply.
Dammit.
Sean and Heather climbed to their feet, both wearing matching, vicious sneers.
“Boil her blood,” Sean snarled.
My skin prickled and blistered, and my mind raced.
Where the hell was Nolan? Didn’t he want us to win? But I already knew the answer even if I’d hoped otherwise. Nolan would never help me.
Gasping, I reached for water and let the moisture in the air soothe my searing hot skin. I pushed against Mallory’s magic with my own. I could take Mallory, but could I take her and protect our flag from her siblings?
The heat in my blood intensified as I started to panic.
Dig deeper, Nai.
Reaching up, I fumbled until I felt her pinkies. Taking them into my grasp, I yanked them away from her other fingers, snapping them backward.
Hard.
Lesson #1 from my father: Where the pinky goes, so does the body.
I felt her skin tear and the bone crunch as she released me with a sharp scream that rivaled a dying cat’s.
A searing pain pulsed at my lower back. I’d just gained another mark.
Earth. It had to be. I now had all four elemental marks, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
Sean leapt from halfway up the tree and landed before me. “I’m going to kill you for that!” Mallory bellowed with fury. They both advanced.
Crap.
I swallowed back my fear. One hundred percent I’d fight them as best I could. 99.9% certain their sister Heather would take our flag. Ten to one odds I’d get my alpha heir ass jumped by all three of them after they won.
But I was one hundred percent not prepared for the blur of black fur that arced through the air…
My jaw dropped as the Midnight wolf landed on Sean’s back, knocking him to the ground. Snapping his jaws, the wolf tore into Sean’s shoulder, and the young heir screamed.
Why was a Midnight wolf here?
A wolf who was not my mate—which meant this was one of his three brothers.
I spun as Rage, in human form, barreled down on Mallory, fire shooting from his hands like flamethrowers.
“Justice, the tree!” Rage barked at the black wolf.
Mallory ran off into the woods, clothes smoking, screaming. Sean fled next, in the fraction of time when Justice in wolf form shifted, and then a very exposed Justice stood and yanked the third Daybreak Clan member out of the tree.
Heather squealed as she fell to the ground, her thud accompanied by the snap of bone.
“You haven’t won,” she snarled as she limped off.
Maybe not, but then neither had she. My flag still stood; I was still in the games.
Justice raised his eyebrows and looked to Rage, who nodded. He shifted back into his wolf form before trotting off to protect his flag.
But Rage stayed.
He stepped in front of me, his green eyes simmering with emotion as he studied me. “So what’s our plan?” he asked, his voice rough. “Defend until we show each clan they can’t take us and then go flag hunting?”
He knew me so well. My throat tightened with unshed emotion. “Rage,” I whispered, shaking my head, “this isn’t your fight. Just … go. Your brothers—”
“My brothers understand my mate is more important than a stupid school test,” he said, holding his hand up so that I could see the mate marks he clearly wore. “I’m not going anywhere.”
My stomach tightened. I wasn’t sure if the cameras in the woods had sound, or how clear the picture was, but Rage … with the king watching, Rage was showing off his mate marks. His courage shook me to the core. Now I understood how he carried his real name.
“I didn’t mean to say that last night. To ask what you are…” He swallowed hard. “You’re my mate. I love you. That’s all that matters.”
My lips parted in shock. What could I say? My emotions were more tangled than my magic, but under it all… “I lo—”
Nolan stepped into the clearing, and my voice disappeared.
The wind swirled around my cousin, and a wolf kept pace at his side.
A wolf?
I stiffened with recognition. The dark patches of fur, the menace in its gaze. That was the wolf who’d attacked me on the beach.
Rage stepped in front of me, squaring his shoulders, blocking my view.
“Nolan,” Rage growled, “leave now, and I won’t kill you.”
Nolan barked a hard laugh, and the dappled golden wolf separated from my cousin, stalking the right perimeter as if to come up behind me. A twig snapped, and my attention jumped to the left.
Mallory and her siblings were back, and I was one hundred percent confident they weren’t here to apologize.
Frick.
The odds were not in our favor, but that didn’t mean they were working together. Right?
“Neutralize Rage, but don’t kill him. Nai is mine,” Nolan barked to Daybreak.
What. The. Hell? Daybreak and Nolan were working together? And how did Nolan hire a rogue to take me out? Who the hell was this wolf?
Wrath boiled under my skin. The commotion from the crowd rumbled through the trees.
No way was this legal! To bring a rogue wolf in to assassinate students? Where the hell was the king to protect his heir?
My mind spun, trying to make sense of all the implications of this betrayal.
“Stay human.” Rage’s advice barely registered before he shifted blindingly fast, the tatters of his clothing falling to the ground in his panic. As if I had a choice. My wolf was so far away at this moment I couldn’t feel her, just the low buzzing of magic under my skin. He stepped in front of me, hackles raised as he faced our enemies. Tipping his head back, he howled a long deep call for his brothers.
Nolan threw his arm out and shot a burst of wind at a tree.
My initial gloat at his terrible aim turned to dread as a camera fell to the earth with a crash. He’d not been aiming for me. Whatever his plans were, he didn’t want it televised.
“Nolan, you coward,” I shouted. “You want to be alpha, fight me fairly!”
This was not how alpha status fights were done.
He just grinned.
Still tracking the rogue wolf, I spun and shot a fireball at the animal, but it splashed into the forest as he deftly rolled away.
“What’s in this for you?” I yelled at Nolan. “Seems like a lot of risk just for alpha status.”
The ground rolled beneath our feet, and my gaze darted to Sean, an earth elemental. Rage licked my hand and then broke away from me to take on Mallory and her siblings.
I understood. There were too many of them; we needed to keep them busy until Justice, Noble, and Honor got here.
Okay. I could do this.
New plan: keep my cousin talking while taking out the rogue wolf.
“You can’t believe the pack will follow you after they know of your betrayal,” I shouted across the clearing.