Juniper
My heart crept into my throat as the two men circled each other. I knew Anders. He wouldn’t stop until he’d killed Levi. Terror gripped me, and Beatrice grabbed my hand, squeezing it to steady me.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered.
“Right,” I muttered, my eyes glued to the two men.
Anders smirked at Levi. “You want to go ahead and bend the knee? Save yourself the embarrassment of me kicking your ass?”
“Your face doesn’t look like you can kick anyone’s ass, Anders,” Levi responded, his voice low and menacing, his face an emotionless mask.
A growl erupted from Anders’s throat. He lunged at Levi, shifting as he did. Levi barely managed to dodge the muscular wolf. As he rolled away, he shifted. Spinning, he raced toward Anders. The two wolves slammed into each other. I flinched as teeth gnashed, claws ripped, and fur flew.
Beatrice clenched my hand hard, her own anxiety showing.
All I could do was stare at the scene of chaos, violence, and aggression.
My grandparents squeezed me tighter, but all the support in the world couldn’t ease the terror.
Around the circle, people cheered and called out.
Anders’s friends and his allies within the pack cried out for him to win.
Others, including the visiting alphas and Rainier, called for Levi to destroy the reigning alpha.
Levi let out a yelp of pain and tumbled aside. I ripped my hand free of Beatrice’s and pressed it to my mouth, trembling in fear. When he got to his feet, a small patch of fur was missing from his shoulder, and blood oozed from the spot.
Anders shifted back, grinning with the hunk of fur still clenched in his teeth. He grabbed it and raised his arm, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Got me a piece of the Demon Wolf!”
Levi growled and stalked toward Anders again, his teeth bared and eyes murderous. Smirking, Anders shifted back into his wolf form. He sat on his haunches, goading Levi by acting like he couldn’t care less about what was happening.
When Levi lunged, jaws open, Anders dived low, rolling onto his back and kicking out. His claws dug long furrows in Levi’s belly and sent him pinwheeling away. He landed with a thud a few feet away.
Levi shifted back into his human form, grimacing and clutching his bleeding stomach. Anders followed suit, standing with his hands on his hips.
“What’s wrong, big dog? Been a while since you fought another alpha, huh? Easy to beat the shit out of random dudes in the forest, but a real man is different, isn’t he?”
Levi chuckled ruefully and got to his feet. “I don’t know. You’ll have to let me know when you find a real man.”
Anders’s face went red, and he slipped his hand into his left pocket. I opened my mouth to cry a warning to Levi, but I was too late. In a half second, Anders yanked his hand out and flung it at Levi. A cloud of sand and dirt sprayed out, landing in Levi’s eyes.
“Fuck!” He slammed his eyes shut and put his hands to his face.
That was all Anders needed. He shifted again and rushed forward, his teeth sinking deep into Levi’s calf. Blood soaked his jeans. Anders yanked his head back and forth, forcing Levi to fall to the ground.
“That’s bullshit!” Rainier cried, looking like he wanted to kill Anders himself. “Dirty ass cheater.”
“No such thing as cheating in a fight to the death,” Brock called back from the other side of the crowd.
Rainier simply lifted his middle finger toward him as a response.
The backs of my eyes stung with tears as I watched the two men writhe on the ground.
Levi had finally managed to get in a few bites and scratches, but Anders’s initial assault and trickery had put him in a bind.
He was hurt and exhausted already. My inner wolf whined, begging to be set free to help.
Doing the best I could to stay calm, I watched Levi lunge toward Anders’s back leg, hoping to catch him, but Anders was too fast. He jerked forward, closing his jaws on Levi’s neck.
I screamed as Anders rolled Levi to his back, and settled his feet on Levi’s chest.
Submit! I screamed in my mind. Just submit. Please.
I couldn’t lose Levi. I loved him. Without him, I would be completely under Anders’s control.
I would have to run. Nowhere would be safe.
Anders would take control of Hidden Grove, and I would be a lone wolf.
A broken-hearted lone wolf, living a life of misery, wishing for one more moment with Levi that I would never get.
If he submitted, this would be over. That was better than death.
Levi glared up to the sky and opened his jaws, trying to breathe even as Anders clamped down harder on his throat. His back legs kicked out against the air, unable to find purchase.
For a single horrifying second, I truly believed that was the end, that Levi would be too stubborn to give up, and Anders would kill him.
Then, as though spurred on by some unknowable inner idea, he shifted to his human form.
The entire crowd gasped, unsure why he would do something so crazy.
The human body was far more delicate and less resilient than a wolf’s body.
The change appeared to shock Anders too, because he jerked back in confusion, relinquishing his grip.
That was the opening Levi needed to twist away.
I choked back a scream of excitement as he kicked out, catching Anders in the jaw.
The force of the kick sent him rolling away and yelping.
Levi knelt and put a hand on his boot. I squinted, trying to make out what he was doing.
Steadying himself, maybe? Either way, he quickly finished whatever he was doing and got to his feet.
Levi looked like a Viking warlord on the field of battle, spattered with blood.
He stood on wobbly legs, but his lips were peeled back in a grimace of rage.
“Come on, motherfucker!” he screamed.
The crowd quieted at the sight and sound of him. None of us had ever seen someone take so much punishment and still look ready to fight.
Rolling over, Anders shifted to his human form. He was beaten and bloody, but nothing like Levi. He rose to one knee and chuckled.
“You look like shit, Levi,” he said, and spat a wad of blood and saliva on the grass. “Last chance. Say uncle, and I might let you go live in the forest again.”
Levi straightened, no longer unsteady on his feet, and raised a hand, beckoning Anders toward him. “Let’s finish this. Man to man. No more wolves. Unless you’re scared.”
“Scared?” Anders laughed and stood. He glanced at his friends.
“This prick thinks I’m scared. He’s the one who looks like a used tampon.
Okay then, Demon Wolf. I’ll beat your ass with my fists instead of my jaws.
Your funeral either way.” He smirked. “Told you it wasn’t so easy to fight me when my back wasn’t turned. ”
Levi wiped the blood from his eyes as he chuckled to himself. “You know, when I broke your nose, when you were naked on the floor and looking like a little bitch, I should have made you call me daddy instead of sir.”
Anders’s face twisted into a mask of hatred and rage that made him look like a monster.
Screaming an unintelligible war cry, he rushed Levi, heedless of danger or style.
From the look on his face, all he was thinking was murder.
He wanted to kill Levi more than I’d ever seen someone want to do anything.
Levi stood still, hands at his sides, watching Anders. Why wasn’t he moving? What was he thinking?
Then, at the very last second, he kicked out. His boot flew off his foot and slammed into Anders’s face, the steel toe of it slamming into his already broken nose.
That’s what he’d been doing with his boot! He’d untied it.
I screamed in excitement as Rainier cheered.
Fresh blood sprayed from Anders’s nose, and his hands flew to his face, a muffled curse of shocked pain gurgling up from his throat.
Levi tackled him, spearing Anders with his shoulder and driving him to the ground.
Anders’s face went scarlet, and his jaw dropped open as he tried to suck in a breath.
Levi gave him no respite, straddling him as quickly as he could, fists raining down on his face, chest, collarbone, and forehead.
After what had to have been a dozen blows, his knuckles were bloody. Levi rolled Anders over, put him into a headlock and yanked him around to face the crowd of alphas.
“Yield!” Levi cried, his lips so close to Anders’s ear that the other man may have a ruptured eardrum when this was over.
Anders shook his head, feet scrabbling at the grass, and fingers clawing at Levi’s forearm, digging bloody scratches on his skin.
His face was turning purple now. Growling, Levi twisted and slammed his knee into Anders’s kidney.
The other man’s face twisted in agony, and his lips parted on a single word, barely audible above the sounds of grunting and heavy breathing coming from Levi, but it was audible.
“Yield,” he murmured.
At the sound of that lone syllable, Levi released him, shoving him once in the back so he fell face first on the ground. Eugenia shrieked and ran forward, sliding into the grass to cradle her beaten and broken mate.
“You fucking monster!” she screamed at Levi.
Rainier and I ran to Levi. He’d fallen backward onto the grass, his chest heaving. I reached him first, gently putting my hand at the base of his neck and lifting his head. “Levi? Are you okay?”
He coughed once, blood dripping from his lips. “I’m okay.”
“Did you really need to be so dramatic, you asshole?” Rainier said. “I mean, chicks dig scars, but holy shit, you didn’t need to add another three dozen.”
“I’m fine,” Levi grunted as he sat up.
Anders, having regained his bearings, pushed himself up on his hands, blood dripping from his nose, eyes and lips. He waved a hand at everyone, the entire town, as they gaped at their fallen alpha.
“Grab that son of a bitch,” he said, his voice garbled from the damage to his mouth.
“Grab who, exactly?” my grandfather asked, peering at Anders with a mix of derision and confusion.
“Leviathan Cross,” Eugenia spat. “He attacked your alpha. Take him into custody. Now.”
No one moved. A murmur of unease rippled through the crowd, and Elias Crowder, one of the elders, stepped forward.
“Anders, I’m sorry, but you’re not the alpha anymore.
The challenge was clear and duly witnessed by the whole town.
With your loss, you relinquish control of Idlewild. Levi is the new alpha.”
Spurred to strength by the words, Anders leapt to his feet and rushed the older man, grabbing him by his collar and shaking him, his face an inch away from Elias’s. “You listen to me, you old bastard. I’m the alpha. Anders Burnell is the alpha. No one takes what’s mine, you hear me?”
Anders yelped as two pairs of strong hands dragged him away from the Elder. Hakeem and Blaise had leapt in to separate the two. Anders struggled against the other two alphas, but rapidly lost whatever strength he had left. Eugenia screamed curses at them as Levi struggled to his feet.
“Take them both into custody,” Levi said, waving at Anders and Eugenia.
Hakeem glanced at the townsfolk. “Hey, y’all, I don’t work here. Someone want to take this jackass?”
A group of men stepped forward, dragging Anders and a cursing Eugenia away.
Levi leaned on me and Rainier as we walked off the field.
Anders’s group of friends and lackeys had already fled the scene, but the rest of the town looked on in quiet respect.
All I could think of was how relieved I was that Levi had won and that he had survived.