“If any of you wish to try to take my position as alpha from me, come forward.”
At least a dozen wolves stepped to where Knox stood in the midst of the pack. They were the biggest and likely baddest of the crew, and my heart seized in my chest.
“This can’t be happening,” I said, my mind still scrambling to catch up.
“This is why I didn't want you to come,” Kat replied, daring a sideward glance my way.
“You knew?” I asked. Her lack of immediate response spoke volumes. I turned to the boys, and their heads dipped up and down in unison. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because your knowing wouldn’t have changed anything. This is the way of things for werewolves,” Kat explained. “Each pack might have variations in the rules, but this is how things are done. There’s no pomp and circumstance. No blood-born hierarchy or bonds or shit like that. It’s might-makes-right and take what you want, if you can.” Her sober stare made my stomach turn. “And that doesn’t just go for the role of alpha in some packs…”
My frantic gaze turned back to Knox as he sized up the competition.
“Is it normal for so many to come forward?” I asked, swallowing back my fear.
“No,” Foust said.
“But there’s nothing we can do,” Brunton added. “It has to play out without our interference.”
Jagger’s hands landed on my shoulders and tightened. They weren’t there to reassure me. They were there to ground himself—or maybe to hold me back from doing something stupid, which seemed an increasing threat.
“Who’s first?” Knox called out, his voice rife with boredom, as though he weren’t at all concerned about the wolves champing at the bit to take his place. Like this was shit he did every day—and maybe there had been a time when he had. Visions of Knox fighting to retain his position in NYC before he bailed assaulted my mind. Was this part of why his mental state had faltered? The torment of constantly battling his own to maintain his hold over the group? How exhausting that would have been for him.
No wonder he became so paranoid.
A particularly burly and brutish male stepped forward, unbuttoning his plaid flannel. Poorly-timed humor ran through my mind—jokes about Paul Bunyan and assorted other lumberjack analogies—until the crowd stepped back, making room for the two of them to fight.
Then my morbidly humorous train of thought came to a halt.
“I’m assuming the rules haven’t changed since I left?” Knox asked as he circled the interior perimeter of the circle. The big guy shook his head. “And you know them?”
“I know the fucking rules,” the lumberjack replied. His jacked physique made me nervous, but it was the crazed look in his eyes that had me stepping forward absentmindedly. I knew that look. It was the glaze of corrupt power that Kingston had worn when he’d come for us in Alaska; the unstable stare of someone convinced they were about to win. And given how Knox had shredded Mack, there was no sane reason for this asshole—or any of the others—to think they had this in the bag.
“As the current alpha, I’m changing one before this starts.”
Lumberjack hesitated. “What?”
“When I win, I’m not killing anyone. You’ll agree to stand down,” he said, surveying the crowd.
“Fucking pussy,” the big guy replied. “This shouldn’t even make me break a sweat.”
“Do you agree?”
“Doesn’t make a difference to me.” Claws jutted forth from his fingertips, and his eyes glowed yellow. Knox’s followed suit. “I don’t plan on losing.”
“So they would have fought to the death?” I asked, gulping back my fear.
“Knox still is,” Foust replied. “He only changed the terms for himself—not his opponent.”
Maybe if I hadn’t been so dazed, I would have caught that fine point earlier. Instead, it crashed into me as the two werewolves slammed into each other, their bodies colliding with a sickening smack.
The pack roared and howled and cheered on the lumberjack, who was apparently named Keegan, while my crew just looked on. Kat appeared to be in a trance, lost to some traumatic memory of her old pack, while Jagger, Brunton, and Foust were rigid with an understanding that I desperately wanted and ardently feared.
The shredding sound of claws tearing through flesh snapped my attention back to the fight, and I saw that Keegan had a gnarly gash through his massive pecs. Blood spilled down his chest, but he seemed utterly unfazed. He shot at Knox’s waist to take him down, but the alpha sprawled and caught him around the neck. Veins bulged as Knox squeezed hard enough to have snapped me in half, but still, the juggernaut kept clawing. Gashes appeared in Knox’s sides, and I launched forward out of Jagger’s grip, wanting to heal him. But Brunton caught my arm and held me in place.
“No interfering,” was all he said, and I immediately regretted the deal I’d made with Knox before coming. I wondered how much trouble I’d be in for breaking that promise. Then Kat’s warning glance, and the words that followed, stopped me short.
“If you step foot in that circle, Piper, Knox’s position—his life—will be forfeit.”
My head turned slowly to face her. “I can’t intervene…even if he’s dying?”
Cold blue eyes met my stare. “Even if he’s dying.”
Helpless as the day Knox had found me in the woods, I looked on and watched him battle a male nearly as big as Grizz. And though the lumberjack was losing steam as Knox choked him out, the move had cost my mate. The gouges in his sides were deep and, for a human, deadly—maybe even for an average wolf.
Thankfully, Knox was neither.
Keegan’s arms went limp and drooped to the floor, and his body dropped in Knox’s hold. True to his word, Knox lowered him to the ground, unconscious but still breathing, then looked to the mob of angry wolves on a mission to dethrone him.
“Who’s next?” he asked without skipping a beat. Showing no weakness.
Another massive male dove right in with a Superman punch that would have blown through a brick wall. Knox narrowly avoided it by slipping left, but with the injury to his side, he was a beat too slow to recover. The wolf caught him with a spinning backfist that sent Knox flying into the crowd. They parted, and he hit the concrete floor with a crash, his arms and legs sprawled wide.
He was on his feet in a hurry, but the other guy just kept on coming, which made sense, given that he hadn’t just fought someone else. Knox dodged a flurry of punches and kicks, finally landing a few of his own, but every blow that landed on his trunk was strategically placed to punish those gaping wounds in his sides. Then the other wolf, Seth—according to the chants echoing through the room—let his claws free. He stabbed Knox in the abdomen and drove him backward, still impaled on the blade-like extensions.
“Knox!” I screamed, heart frozen in my chest.
He grabbed Seth’s neck and head-butted him so hard that I swore I heard a skull crack. The challenger staggered back, his aggression and his claws retracting until he was on his ass, scrambling to stand. Given the way he teetered on his feet, it seemed Seth’s bell had been sufficiently rung. Knox took Seth’s mohawk in his hand and drove an uppercut into his chin that snapped his head back and sent the wolf flying into the crowd.