Chapter Fifteen #3
Connor’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl that wasn’t entirely wolf. He twisted with brutal economy, using Garrett’s momentum against him.
The world narrowed to scent and sound. Garrett’s blood, sharp as iron, the crushed heather under their paws, and the wet, resinous bite of pine.
Connor’s heartbeat thundered in his ears, steady as a drum. The bond, faint and humming, tugged once under his ribs, a distant echo of Adrian’s awareness. But Connor shoved it aside.
Not now. Not in front of witnesses. Not while another male tried to tear his authority out by the roots.
Garrett lunged again, his jaws snapping for Connor’s throat. Connor dropped his shoulder, drove into him like a battering ram, then slammed Garrett into the ground.
The impact shook the clearing. Dirt and dead needles burst up around them. Garrett’s breath punched out in a harsh grunt, and Connor was on him instantly using his weight as leverage and dominance.
He pinned Garrett with his forelegs braced, claws digging into the earth on either side of Garrett’s ribs, his chest pressed down hard enough that Garrett could likely feel every powerful beat of Connor’s heart.
His snarl shook the trees. It wasn’t performance. It was a silent promise: You don’t get to do this to my pack. Or to Adrian.
Garrett bucked, thrashing, trying to twist free. His teeth flashed white, wet, and furious. He snapped again, closer this time, his jaws grazing Connor’s throat fur, the bite not quite landing, but near enough that Connor felt the heat of it.
The crowd around them went taut with instinct. Connor heard it in the sudden hush, the held breaths, the low, vibrating growls. He smelled fear, excitement, and the metallic tang of blood in the air.
He didn’t move back. He lowered his head, his muzzle hovering at Garrett’s neck where the fur was thinner, where the pulse beat fast and frantic. He let Garrett see the choice. Let him understand that Connor would end this in a heartbeat.
Garrett’s eyes were wild, his pupils blown wide. His chest heaved beneath Connor’s weight, his breath coming in panicked bursts. He tried one last desperate shove, one last twist of his hips to unseat Connor, who felt the moment Garrett’s wolf decided it would rather gamble everything than yield.
Connor ended it. Not with a killing bite. With a bite that could have been.
He drove his jaws down, hard and decisive, teeth closing on the thick ruff of Garrett’s neck: pressure, pain, dominance, the unmistakable message of a superior male.
Connor held it for a fraction too long, long enough for Garrett’s body to go rigid, long enough for the entire clearing to understand a line had been crossed and then redrawn in blood.
Garrett yelped. A raw, involuntary sound that cut through the night. The he went still. His legs splayed. His tail flattened. His belly turned up, exposed to the cold air in the oldest, most humiliating surrender a wolf could offer.
Connor released him immediately, lifting his head, breath steaming, blood on his teeth that wasn’t his. He stood over Garrett for a beat, not gloating but reasserting facts.
Then he stepped back.
Garrett lay there panting, his sides heaving, his eyes squeezed shut as if he could disappear by refusing to look at anyone.
Slowly, shakily, he began to shift back. His fur receded, and his bones re-formed.
Garrett’s hands clawed at the ground, fingers digging into dirt as if he needed something to hold on to while his body returned to human.
When it was done, he lay on his back in the mud, naked, his chest rising and falling too fast, his throat marked with the beginning of bruising where Connor’s teeth had been. Humiliation rolled off him in waves.
Connor watched him for a heartbeat longer than necessary. Not to punish him but to make sure the message was clear.
Then Connor shifted back to human.
Connor’s spine arched as the last of it snapped into place, breath tearing from his throat in a harsh exhale. The cold air hit his bare skin like a slap, and the cut on his flank burned as it met the open air.
He didn’t make a sound. He stood there, once again naked in the clearing, breath steaming, blood running in thin lines down his side, and looked down at Garrett, whose eyes were still more wolf than man.
Around them, the pack held its silence. He felt their attention and awe like a weight. All of them watching to see what kind of King he was when he had a man at his mercy.
Connor’s jaw clenched. He turned away. Not because he couldn’t look at Garrett, but to drive home the point: he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of believing Connor enjoyed this.
“Get up,” Connor said, his voice rough and pitched low. “Dress. And remember what you learnt.”
Garrett didn’t answer. He lay panting, mud on his back, his throat bruised, and clearly, his pride was in pieces.
Connor dressed, then stepped toward Adrian, every movement deliberate. The wound on his flank throbbed, but he ignored it. Pain was familiar. It was the other thing—the faint, insistent tug under his ribs, the bond’s quiet hum—that Connor couldn’t ignore.
Even now, even with blood on his skin and dominance still vibrating through his nerves, he could feel it like a thread drawn tight in the dark.
And Connor hated the way some part of him wanted Adrian to understand Connor hadn’t done this for pride. He’d done it for the pack. Both of their packs. For the fragile, dangerous unity they were going to need when the Veils finally tore wide enough for the Council to step through.
Piper ran up to them, her face pale. She held the edges of her shawl in white-knuckled fists. “Adrian. Something’s happened. Xiathen called,” she said, her voice cracking. “Irial is missing from the village.”