“If I may?”
We all turned to see Elias standing near us.
The old man cleared his throat. “Remy doesn’t have to fight.” Elias looked at me. “There are ways around it, especially since it’s a rebuttal challenge from an heir, not a recognized, true Alpha.”
I sucked in a gulp of air. I was Remy’s mate. I was an Alpha now.
“I’ll do it,” I said quickly.
“What?” Katy gaped at me.
“No,” Remy shot back. “I can do it.”
“You can’t do it,” I argued, pointing at his hand.
“Neither can you,” Nikolai said calmly.
“Yes, I can,” I insisted, gritting my teeth and glaring at my father. “I can take Trace. I almost did before at Granite Peak.”
He took my hand. “You can’t. Skye, when I gave you the Narodnaya pack, you stopped being a member of the Blackwater pack.”
My breath caught. “What?”
“You can’t answer a challenge to a pack you aren’t a part of,” he finished gently. “Sweetheart, you can’t be the one to step in.”
Remy sighed behind me, completely relieved as the news rocked me. I wasn’t part of Blackwater anymore?
That felt inherently … wrong.
“But this is one of the reasons Alphas have a beta. A second in command.” Nikolai looked over my shoulder to …
Rhodes.
“Precisely my thoughts,” Elias mumbled. “Rhodes could fight on behalf of his Alpha. It is his right and duty as a beta.”
“I’m in,” Rhodes said instantly, not seeing Larkin go pale next to him.
Remy swallowed, looking gutted at the idea of risking his best friend. “Rhodes—”
“Skye’s right,” Rhodes cut him off. “You can’t fight Trace like this. It’s me or we give up.”
“Trace is an Alpha,” Tate murmured, covering her mouth with her hand. “Rhodes, you’re … not.”
“But Trace is also a bitch and a mediocre fighter,” Rhodes pointed out. His gaze dropped to Larkin. “And I definitely have a score to settle with him.
“Not for me,” Larkin whispered, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare do this for me. I can’t be the reason you get hurt.”
“So little faith in me,” Rhodes commented quietly, a sad sort of smile on his lips.
Larkin’s shoulders dropped. “I didn’t mean—”
He silenced her with a fast kiss. “Trust me, baby girl. Okay?”
She nodded back at him, sniffling a little and blinking back tears.
“We still have a few hours,” Griffin pointed out. “Or you can accept the challenge and set the date for later on. You have a week after a challenge is issued to meet it. Remy will be healed in a few days.”
“No,” Nikolai said quickly. “That boy made his challenge in a moment of childish anger. He didn’t think it through. Don’t give him any time to prepare.”
“You think they should do this now?” Katy demanded.
“He’s right,” Dimitri agreed, his gaze flicking to Rhodes. “Are you ready now?”
Rhodes nodded, not a trace of unease or worry in his eyes. “We do this now. End it now.”
Remy sighed, still reluctant. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” Rhodes replied honestly. “Go accept the challenge. I’ll kick Trace’s ass and we can all go home.”
“Okay,” Remy agreed quietly. He moved away from us and back towards Damien’s body until he stood over it.
“Ready to do this?” Trace snarled, stepping forward.
“I accept your challenge,” Remy told him in a firm voice that carried to the spectators. “But my beta will fight.”
Trace’s smirk slipped. “What?”
Remy lifted his injured arm. “I’m unable to fight, so my beta will. Now.”
Something like panic started creeping onto Trace’s face. “Can’t I bury my father first?”
“No,” Remy said flatly. “You wanted this challenge and now you’ve got it. As the responding pack, we can set the timing and we choose now.”
“My father gave you the extra time you requested for your challenge,” Trace shot back, eyes bright with what looked a lot like worry.
Remy shrugged one shoulder. “That was his right as the responding party. We don’t want to delay this.”
I had been so busy watching Remy and Trace that I’d missed Rhodes shifting. I jolted as I felt his fur brush past my hand as he padded slowly to Remy’s side.
A shudder rolled through Larkin and I wrapped an arm around her.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered, not sure if I was trying to reassure myself or her.
Katy closed in on Larkin’s other side, winding an arm around her waist so she was supported on either side by us.
Griffin moved between Remy and Trace, looking at Trace. “Do you accept or withdraw your challenge?”
Trace’s eyes flickered around nervously for a beat. He was screwed either way, and he knew it.
“I accept,” he finally said, a small tremor in his voice. But a few seconds later he was stripping and shifting.
Rhodes’s brown coat looked golden in the late morning sun. The black tipped brown fur of Trace’s coat looked muddy and dirty by comparison, but both wolves were pretty evenly matched size-wise.
Remy came back to my side and grabbed my hand. “I hate this,” he muttered. “It should be me.”
“Rhodes has this,” Katy said from Larkin’s side. Her gaze jerked to where Maren was still being held. “He has to win.”
“Death or submission means the other wins,” Griffin told them before getting out of the way.
I half expected this to start the way I had seen Remy fight; with Rhodes watching and calculating, but Rhodes wasn’t Remy. He lunged first, surprising me and definitely surprising Trace who barely managed to dance out of the way of his jaws.
Larkin trembled and covered her face with her hands, peeking from between her fingers.
Rhodes didn’t quit; he never gave Trace a chance to recover and constantly kept him moving as Rhodes stayed on the offensive. The more Rhodes advanced, the clumsier Trace got.
He was cracking under the pressure.
When Rhodes backed him towards his father’s body, Trace hesitated and it cost him.
Rhodes snarled and surged forward, his sharp teeth finding purchase on Trace’s ribs. I flinched as Trace yelped, the high-pitched cry scraping against my eardrums.
“That’s it,” Remy murmured, his eyes glued to his best friend.
Now Trace was even more unfocused as he moved around, clearly favoring his right side. Rhodes got in several more shots: a swipe across Trace’s face, another bite to his left flank, and in one humiliating moment, he grabbed Trace’s tail when Trace turned to literally tuck and run. Rhodes dragged him backwards into the fight.
Trace yipped again, sliding on the grass and his wide eyes unfocused as Rhodes kept coming after him.
With a vicious growl, Rhodes leapt at Trace and knocked him to the ground, rolling Trace under his body.
With a sharp whimpering cry, Trace rolled over.
My jaw dropped and I squeezed Remy’s fingers. “Did he just—”