33. Tank
Tank
Fight night. We ran them every couple of weeks, depending on our schedules and orders from our fathers. In the beginning, fighting in a ring away from school and pack had been a way to let off steam. A chance to release aggression without fear of repercussions.
But word had spread, and now shifters came from far and wide to test their skills against the strongest of us.
It hadn’t taken long for Tate’s father to show an interest. Betting on illegal fights was bread and butter for him, a money-spinning exercise. And as our unofficial fight nights became more popular, the croc shifters moved in.
Tate caught my eye as I watched the asshole croc shifter and his buddy take bets.
Both were colder than the polar ice caps, and neither had a sense of humor.
But Tate’s father insisted they handle the money side of fight nights.
Fewer distractions meant we could concentrate on putting on a good show, or so he said but every time I saw one of the croc shifters, my wolf got antsy.
They gave off a bad vibe, as if they had a whole other agenda we were unaware of.
The way they stared at the females was creepy too. Plenty of males stared at females; females were in the minority here. But ogling a pretty female was not the same as assessing her for her potential value.
“Tank!” I blinked to find Tate staring at me.
“What?”
“You zoned out for a minute. Got me worried you’d had a seizure or something. We good?” He tossed a bottle of water at me.
“Yeah. Just…” My gaze slid back to the croc shifters. Markus’s attention had shifted from me to a group of females near the bar, specifically a bobcat shifter. I frowned. Wasn’t she the female attacked by the honey badger shifter Tate killed at the full moon party?
The loudspeaker squealed before a disembodied voice cut through the ambient noise to announce my fight was about to begin. A grizzly bear shifter from a motorcycle club fancied his chances against me. I heard his buddies yell and whoop as he entered the octagon and smirked.
For all his posturing, the bear didn’t stand a chance.
I ate up bears like him for breakfast. But as I made a move toward the octagon, my eyes snagged on a slim shifter standing behind the group of females.
Messy, short red hair gleamed in the light reflected from the bar, a halo of fire in the murky gloom of the wide cavern.
Shadows obscured the shifter’s features, and the loose hoodie and baggy pants he wore swamped his frame.
Despite that, something about the guy niggled at me.
We’d crossed paths before. At school?
My wolf went berserk when he saw the male. He wanted us to steal him away and do things to him that were not appropriate in a crowded place.
It made no sense. I wasn’t into males—or anyone, for that matter. My life revolved around these fights, school, and trying to figure out a way of managing my pack responsibilities without losing my soul.
Enough! I forced my asshole wolf back down and reminded him we had a fight to win. He growled and snarled in my chest, eager to rip the bear apart, which he felt would impress our mate.
Mate?
The word mate made me think of the female wolf we’d saved in the forest. My wolf had refused to shift back and leave her injured and alone, so we’d stayed. It had been the best sleep of my life, even though I’d completely lost control of my beast.
Green eyes connected with mine as I stood with my back to the ropes. A flare of heat shot through me, burning me from within, and then a fist slammed into my gut hard enough to jolt me from my trance.
“TANK!” Tate roared in my ear. “Get your fucking head back in the game!”
I scrubbed my jaw, confused about why my wolf was going nuts and also why a slim dude with fire-red hair was calling me to his side like a siren song. Was he a fucking siren?
At least that would explain my meltdown, but no, the shifter’s scent screamed wolf. Burned sugar. My mouth watered and my dick stiffened in my shorts. Burned sugar, just like the little female wolf’s scent.
“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” Tate’s tall frame vibrated with tension, his jaw clenched. He was unhappy that the fight schedule had slipped. My friend was a stickler for shit like that, and any deviation from his precious schedule gave him a migraine.
He slammed me in the chest, knocking me back a step with the power of his fist.
“Get in the fucking ring before we have a riot to deal with!”
“Sorry,” I repeated, scrubbing my jaw. I wasn’t sure why I was apologizing when he was being a dickhead. My gaze slid back to the redhead, but a bunch of wolf shifters in MC leathers blocked my view, and when they finally moved out of the fucking way, he’d gone.
I sighed, deciding my wolf’s reaction to the guy had been a temporary aberration, a blip in my otherwise monochrome world, but my beast remained pissed that the female he’d saved had gone before he woke.
We’d tracked her scent back to campus and then lost it at the treeline when it got mixed up with a bunch of other scents.
The female had to be a member of the admin team, although I hadn’t found her yet. But I would carry on searching, if only to appease my stupid wolf.
“I’m ready now,” I told Tate. His shoulders lowered as he exhaled slowly.
“The bear shifter is strong, dude. You’ll need to bring your A-game to this fight.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have I ever lost a fight?”
“I know, but seriously, this bear is on something. I caught a whiff of it when he passed me. Mage magic, at a guess. Be careful.”
Hearing the mages were messing with us shifters came as no surprise. Those assholes were shady as fuck, and I’d never met a mage I liked. All of them were self-serving, power-hungry pricks. A bit like the croc shifters.
I grunted a noncommittal response while privately thinking the bear would need all the help he could get. My wolf wanted blood. And once the final whistle blew, I planned to hunt down that wolf with the burned-sugar scent.