CHAPTER 9 #2
Alarm bells blared through my mind. No. There was no way Michael was at that ceremony to do her bidding.
I trusted him implicitly at this point. It was easy to when the bond wouldn’t let him hide a betrayal of that magnitude from me.
And right now, he didn’t feel guilty. He felt annoyed and slightly…
concerned. Was he wondering the same thing I was?
Whether or not Mary had somehow subtly influenced events?
Who knows, maybe she’d said something to Nathaniel when she found out that he was planning to attend a bonding ceremony and manipulated him into asking Michael to join him.
But then how could she know that the magic of that night would go off the rails and he would end up bonded to me?
Unless it really was witches and she’d somehow bribed or forced them into it.
I shook my head against that thought. It was the Goddess who’d interfered. For some reason, I was sure of that, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. This was more than faith; this stemmed from some deep well of conviction, like somehow, I knew it was the God—
The alarm bells in my mind cut off with a screech, and my head swam as another memory came back. Anna, sitting in that rickety chair in my parents’ summerhouse, glancing at her bubblegum-pink nails as she said, Mary tried to bribe a wolf a few years older than you into marrying her daughter Amy.
Michael’s hand landed on my back, steadying me before I even needed it, so no outward appearance of my dizziness betrayed me. Holy shit. This man knew about what Mary had done and was throwing it in her face.
Michael’s hand fell away from me, but I stepped closer to him, not caring what anyone thought anymore. Mary was about to go nuclear on these people, and I was absolutely going to hide behind her beta when she did.
But she just turned to the man and tilted her head, like a bird inspecting its prey. “How is your incarcerated son?” she asked. “The one you never speak of? What is it he’s serving time for again? Rape?”
The man’s cheeks turned red, the smell of rage spicing his scent.
Nancy, she didn’t even acknowledge, as if the woman was so far beneath her that Mary couldn’t even see her. Outwardly, Nancy appeared calm, but I could smell her humiliation perfuming the summer air almost as strongly as the nearby flower bed.
Mary turned a bright smile on me and motioned me forward. “Come now. Let’s get this little challenge over with so we can go about our days. I’m sure everyone has far better things to do than watch two civilized creatures demean themselves by rolling in the mud.”
I could tell from the hungry looks on people’s faces as Michael and I followed Mary that everyone would much rather be here, witnessing the impending fight, than anywhere else in the city.
And Mary might talk a big game, but I’d been obsessing over Michael’s subtle mood changes just long enough that I noted the slight rise in her pulse, the barest hint of something in her scent, and knew she anticipated this fight as much as anyone else.
My belief was confirmed when the big Scandinavian guy I was about to “roll in the mud with” met her eyes and gave a subtle nod.
She’d set this whole debacle up, hadn’t she?
Since I was the one challenged, I got to choose what form we fought in.
I chose human, obviously, and I could tell the other wolves were upset about that.
They wanted to see me as a wolf, see if the rumors were true about my increased size.
I’m sure Mary had hoped for it, but there was no way I was playing into that part of her plan.
Especially not when everyone would see the tattoo on my back if I stripped down to my skin before shifting.
I might be illiterate when it came to the magical runes I wore, but there could be other mystics in this crowd, or at the very least, other wolves who could read them and know what they meant.
I stood now in a small forest dell. It was almost perfectly circular, the grass clipped short like the gardeners maintained it along with all the other landscaping.
I didn’t feel anything special about it.
Our clearing back home was infused with magic.
I was a null before bonding with Michael, and even I had been able to sense it from half a mile off.
Stepping into it was like stepping back in time.
Monolithic rocks jutted from the earth like the fist of a goliath, and a plinth stood in the middle, imbued with the blood of countless generations.
That place was sacred, the weight of it settling like a physical thing over you when you neared it. In comparison, this clearing felt dead.
My challenger stood across from me. I chose to fight in human skin, and he took it literally, tearing off his shirt to display his massive, rippling upper body and the intricate tattoos that covered him.
I had half a mind to ask him if he wanted to pound on his chest a bit or maybe go find a broadsword to complete the look, but then I remembered the night we fled from here and that someone had been carrying a battle-ax as they tried to stop us, and I thought I better keep my mouth shut in case he took me literally again.
Around us, half hidden by the trees, were the rest of the wolves.
Most stood together in small groups, idly chatting as they waited.
In their business suits and formal wear, they looked out of place, but beneath their banal civility, I smelled the truth.
I felt it, warm and electric, pulsing against my skin.
Shifters, gathered en masse, can’t hide what they are for long.
At some point, they remember they’re wild creatures, that their other form comes with fur and claws.
You can only fight against that knowledge for so long, and as the tension built among them, their conversations fell away, and they turned their iridescent gazes onto the clearing.
I rolled my shoulders, loosening up my muscles as I tried to shake free from the weight of their stares.
They wanted a show. They might look refined, but I could sense their mounting bloodlust. I was probably the first MacKenzie wolf any of them had seen, and they wanted to know if the rumors were true.
It was going to be difficult to keep my secrets to myself.
I wasn’t immune to the energy of the collective.
If anything, my primitive nature made me more susceptible to it than most.
With a deep breath, I loosened the bars caging my powers, just a little, and felt Michael standing somewhere to my right.
His welcome presence was steady, calm. He’d found some way to corral his anger for now, and I was grateful for that because I needed him to ground me through this fight.
I needed him to act as my anchor so I didn’t lose myself.
I’d never lost control before, but then every fight I’d had was on packland.
I knew the wolf who challenged me. Those who watched were friends, or at least known to me.
Here, I was surrounded by strangers—hostile strangers.
The land was unfamiliar, my opponent was unknown, and the fight came with higher stakes.
Add to this everything Michael and I had been through since bonding, and there was a real risk that today was the day I finally snapped.
I sent my eyes heavenward. Goddess, give me the strength to do this. To hold true to myself through this ordeal. And please, please, let Michael and me finally know peace when this is all over.
That was then the fight began. No one called go, no one spoke any formal words or gave any indication that we should start. My opponent saw me gazing upward and took advantage of my momentary distraction by launching himself at me.
I barely avoided the first blow. His fist hammered at me faster than I could have ever anticipated, faster than anyone had ever swung at me before.
The second hit came as I was still dodging the first. If I wasn’t who I was, if I wasn’t born with more speed and agility than other wolves, it would have shattered my ribs.
I danced backward, away from him, toward the edge of the clearing.
Shit, this guy was good. As good as Michael, and Michael was a better fighter than anyone else I’d ever seen.
My plan going into this was to play defense the entire time.
That’s why I’d warned Michael, why I’d told him he wasn’t going to like what I was about to do.
Watch me, I’d said, because I thought Michael would be able to see me dodge away from this guy at the last second and know it was a controlled response, know that I’d waited until the last second on purpose.
My plan had been to let this guy get a few hits in on me before finding some way to get him into a chokehold.
I wanted to drag it out, make it seem like I was far less impressive than I was.
If I let him hit me, he would break my bones.
What the hell was I going to do now?
I didn’t have time to contemplate that question for long because he came at me again, and it took all my concentration just to keep from getting hit.
He was fast, yes, and his fists would probably land like a cement truck if he snuck past my guard, but it was his intelligence as a fighter that was the real danger.
He feinted several times in quick succession, making me flinch, drawing my attention away from his actual attack so that when it came, only my inborn speed saved me from getting my skull crushed.
I lashed out in response, hoping to drive him back and give myself some breathing room. He easily sidestepped the kick I aimed at his knee. Fuck, I looked at it first, projecting my hit like a total amateur, which I now realized I was, compared to him.