Chapter 31
YVAINE
“Oh, Saint Luke, the game hasn’t even started, Yvaine. Calm down!” Amaia snatched my right hand, which was unfairly torturing the sleeve of my sweater.
Makena cackled so loudly from the seat behind mine that the guy in front glanced over at us.
The fateful day had finally come and made its presence well known. My heart and bodily functions had been tormented and were overcharged already.
“I knew I should’ve packed my portable defibrillator,” Amaia muttered when I made a duck-like sound.
“Or a tranquilizer,” Makena added. “More appropriate. We are part animals.”
I tried to glare at her, but my eyes strayed to my dad sitting next to me.
With his massive frame hunched forward, a silver-ringed fist resting under his chin, and the number 3 stitched across his old Highlander jersey, the Comet Alpha seemed to have heard nothing of our conversation.
Too busy keeping Mother at bay; she had announced—loudly—that she intended to flash her MacKenzie-flag-painted boobs at the rival players as a tactical distraction.
It didn’t look like she’d been kidding. Not that you could ever know with Isabella MacKenzie.
The whole pack was at the arena—every single member, even those who had no idea what wereball was, even the ones who had left the pack or moved overseas—to watch the game of the year.
Everyone was buzzed, like junkies waiting for their hit of violence; they required it, needed it, and no one wanted to lose the event or not be a part of it.
I’d already noticed a couple of teens smashing their fists together, warming up like they might get called in to fight. A few had stripped down to athletic shorts for easy wolf shifting. And a man in his seventies was sharpening a machete on a knife sharpener placed between his knees!
The Shooting Stars, led by none other than Tiziano wielding his megaphone, was already chanting with drums. Large sacks of rocks and bricks were ready to be emptied, barbed bats and random car parts laid out in organized rows for maximum carnage.
People were even straining their vocal cords already from the amount of screaming and shouting.
All unnecessary. I shivered at the prospect of the inevitable bloodshed.
My eyes flicked to the opposite side. The enemy side. Their fans had gone full cosplay. Some dressed as Terminators, arms painted with blue cracks like broken glass. Others had deformed skull masks and bones painted on their legs and arms. Then there were the girls.
Signs everywhere, each one more disturbing than the next:
Mate me, Captain!
Terminate me!
I love you, my only captain!
My wolf wanted to find a gigantic whacker and mow them down like weeds infesting a lawn. The one I glared at the most had a banner that said, Put a pup in me, Thor!
I actually had to grip the seat to stop myself from jumping down there, grabbing Tiziano’s megaphone, and communicating a nice, calm, Sorry to break it to you, hoes, but he’s taken. Half-moon necklace? See? I’ve got the matching one!
And because I was a doctor, I wouldn’t end it with, “choke on that.” Again, I wouldn’t wish a fellow doctor more work because of my immature jealousy.
“Your parents will think you’re high on wolfsbane,” Amaia grumbled after I crossed and uncrossed my legs for the fifteenth time. I shrugged, waving off her concern.
Makena snorted a laugh and draped an arm over my shoulders. “My girl, you’re wound tighter than a virgin’s corset.”
I was stacked between a robot and a heartless woman, and both were making fun of my misfortune.
“What would you know about a virgin’s corset?” shouted Tiziano through his megaphone. His multitasking skills were evident—eavesdropping and hurling threats at the opposing Ultras.
Makena flipped him off her fourth finger—the middle one was too commercial, according to her.
“I’d like to see you in my situation,” I shot back at Makena, crossing my leg over the other again.
“Oh, please. It’s just a game!” Makena tsked, shoving a fistful of pineapple candy into her mouth before holding the bag out to me. “When it’s over, you’ll still be the mate of Mr. We-Know-Who, and your twin will still be your twin.”
“If there’s anything left of either of them,” I groused, stealing a handful of candies. Oh, Stephen, please keep them away from each other’s precious jugulars. You can damage a toe, maybe a kidney if you really have to, but I need their throats operational, thank you in advance.
“The question is…will there be anything left of your neck after the game? I heard Mr. We-Know-Who’s fangs are longer than my hand!” She wiggled it in front of my face for comparison.
I hammered a fist against my chest as a pineapple candy took up residency in my throat. “He isn’t going to mark me.”
Will he?
“The longest werewolf fang ever measured was twelve inches,” Amaia commented unhelpfully.
Makena hummed, ripping open a bag of apple sugary sticks. “That’s shorter than most were-dicks.”
“Unhand me, Husband, or I’ll need to call an ambulance just for your forehead vein!” my mother yelled right in my father’s face.
Dad wrestled her back into his lap, trying to contain her limbs with his own arms and legs. “You! It’s throbbing because of you.”
Uncle Andrew, three hot dogs deep, nearly fell off his seat laughing as he snapped pictures of my parents, commenting that my dad’s advanced age surely wasn’t helping.
Surrounded by my insane family and best friends, in normal circumstances, I would’ve felt in a festive mood. I might have even eaten a hot dog or two.
But not today.
Not with the biggest secret in pack history burning a hole in my chest.
After the game. After Logan. After tonight, I’ll clear everything up with everyone.
If there was still a pack left standing.
My thoughts were whipped right out of my skull as the air shifted. The sky seemed to darken. It was like someone had pulled a blackout curtain over the arena.
The opposite side’s gates creaked open.
They’re here.
The crowd went absolutely feral, roaring like the Romans in the Colosseum after the promise of a live lion buffet.
And they came out in packs, the Dark Diamonds.
Tattoos everywhere—a dagger spearing praying hands, scaly dragons curling around ribs—as if they needed to add more of the supernatural to their lives. And wolves. Wolves inked in every possible mood: howling, snarling, mid-bite.
The bulky ones lumbered out first—defenders, built like steel dumpsters with body hair. The kind of guys a bullet train would bounce off of, then apologize before it reversed direction.
My eyes stayed glued to the entrance as the leaner, faster players popped out, jogging, chest-bumping, backflipping, and pounding fists skyward. All beastly, all ready to rain hell.
Meanwhile, my twin’s name was everywhere—on the tongues of fans and non-fans alike. Some roared it like a hymn, others spat it like a curse, all of them chanting things so filthy they could make a saint file for early retirement.
A peculiar Diamond snagged my attention.
“Skeleton Man!” the crowd howled, and the Dark Diamonds’ Ultras began smacking bony clappers together until the whole arena echoed with the sound of rattling ribs.
A fake bony mask covered half his face, revealing a deformed grin painted on in stark white. Bones scrawled down his humungous chest and thighs, maybe painted, maybe tattooed, all rounded out by his shaved hair and the piercings punctuating his dark eyebrows.
He looked familiar, but before I could place him, the Ultras’ megaphones went off.
“YOU USELESS PIECES OF JUNK!” roared their chief, veins bulging as their drums increased their pace. “GIVE ME THE LOUDEST SCREAM OF YOUR LIFE FOR THE OOOOONE, THE ONLYYYYY…THOOOOOOOOR!”
The arena detonated.
Our side booed back, led by Tiziano’s megaphone and his choir of lunatics.
As usual, when I heard that name—one of several that he had—my heart reacted unhealthily. I had all the symptoms of a heart attack, as if it were speeding up, tripping, and stopping simultaneously.
If the Dark Diamonds seemed like beasts that had evolved and learned how to stand on two feet, offering brute force and aggressive looks, my mate… Well, he was something entirely different.
He was the last to enter, like a true Alpha wolf who waited for all his pack members to go first. He strolled in slowly, unhurried, shorts clinging to massive thighs and shoulders rolling.
Two smirking meters of walking destruction, pure confidence wrapped in muscle.
And the tattoos. Holy Stephen. An intricate net of dark blue and onyx cracks crawled over his arms and shoulders, marking him for life, like some sort of cosmic lightning storm. The cracks started from his hands and fingers, carving paths up his arms, only to spread across the thoracic plates.
He had more on his legs. A surge of jealousy throbbed in my gut as I noticed a childish heart with K+L inside.
Who was K? An ex? His sister? My smile returned when I spotted another tattoo on his calf, this one the footprint of what I first thought was a bird until I realized it might be a dinosaur, maybe a T.
rex. Then there was the random hot dog drowning in mustard on his right thigh and, of course, two blackened diamonds stamped right on his kneecaps.
To my great disappointment, he was wearing no necklace. My fingers brushed mine on instinct.
Probably because he doesn’t want to lose it or break it, I told myself, sullen.
In his defense, he wore no protection either. Or shoes. He might as well have been naked.
As soon as he reached his team, some robust man lumbered over with a neon-pink bottle.
Pure Lorea.
My stomach dropped. Oh, no.
I hated that thing with all my heart and all its vessels. The gel that prevented a werewolf’s fast healing. The rule was simple: The more you applied to yourself, the more you believed in your strength.
Primitive and unnecessary, if you asked me.