Chapter 172
Ethan
A metallic taste fills my mouth, and I cough, stumbling back. Four paws melt into two feet as my vision clears.
Suddenly, before I can process what’s happening, a slew of scents and sounds assault me. A man yells something before he grabs my arm and thrusts it into the air. Screams mix with excited shouts. The metallic, iron scent of blood fills the air. It mixes with a heavy, sweaty musk.
I blink, and with each blink, my eyes clear up. The red fades away, but everything is still too far away.
What the hell happened?
“Alpha!” The word feels far away, drowned out by the heavy haze filling my head.
The cheering crowd comes into view, and with it comes the realization of what happened. Slowly, hesitantly, I look down. Bloody and beaten, my opponent lays at my feet. His skin is full of claw marks and teeth marks, proving how dangerous this is.
The man in charge of announcing winners finally releases my arm, and I sink to my knees. My bloody hand reaches toward the opponent, and everything goes quiet as I my fingers press to his neck, to his pulse.
The soft, slow thump beats against my finger and relief flies through me. Thank the Goddess.
He’s alive.
“Alpha!” Laxus slides across the ground beside me, kneeling and looking between me and the man I almost killed. “Get a medic!” He yells at someone in the crowd before grabbing me by the arm. “Are you okay? Are you with us?”
“I’m… Yeah. I’m with you,” I mutter, pressing my hands to my thighs and taking a deep breath. He nods, sighing in what I guess is relief, before helping me up.
“Good, now—”
“How long was I out?” I ask when I sit on the bench. Laxus pauses, which tells me he doesn’t want to answer, but I need to know. I have to know because I couldn’t stop myself again.
There was no warning before I slipped into that darkness. One minute I was fighting, and the next, my opponent was on the ground in front of me, and it was like I was waking up from a deep sleep.
“How long?” I demand, my eyes moving back to the field where medics are picking my opponent up off the ground.
“Two minutes and thirty-two seconds. I’ve never seen you move so fast, and your transformation was…” Laxus pauses again, and I growl. His eyes shoot up, finding mine. “It was almost unnatural. There was something wrong about it. I don’t know how to explain, but it was too fast, too rough, like you were fighting it but giving into the change all at the same time.”
I don’t even remember changing to my animal form.
“You should—”
“And what an amazing fight that was!” The announcer calls, and the crowd cheers. Are they seriously happy with what’s happening? Has no one noticed there’s something wrong? I glance at Laxus, who shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything because the announcer continues, “Our next contender comes from the Crescent Night Pack. Nicholas Reidman!”
Shit. I still have three more fights to get through today, and if my track record says anything, they won’t go well.
“Take your places!”
Laxus sends me a questioning look, but he doesn’t say anything. He would never ask me to stop, no matter how much he probably wants to. My Elders sit in the front row, watching with worry, and I offer my best smile to show my confidence, but we all know that none of us feel confident right now.
The only thing I’m confident about is that my opponent will be seriously injured soon.
“Begin!”
My opponent hangs back, watching me warily. Smart.
My fingertips tingle, a sign my claws are extending, but I curl my fingers and dig the sharp nails into my palm. Pain bites, and blood oozes.
We circle each other, neither of us wanting to initiate, that is until someone shouts from the crowd. My opponent’s head whips up, and I move before he can look back. The only way to end this fight without seriously injuring him is to take him out now.
I slam my fist into Nicholas’s head, and while it’s not right to hit someone when they’re not looking, I justify it by telling myself this is the only way.
He crumples like a sack of potatoes and hits the ground with a thud, knocked clean out.
The crowd goes wild.
Panting, I shake the blurriness from my vision and wipe the blood off my face.
“One more fight,” Laxus says while passing me a bottle of water. “I noticed something in this last fight that might help you keep control.”
I whip my head up, “What was it? I can feel myself slipping, like there’s some kind of tether pulling me toward that dark aggression, so anything could help.”
“When you shift or when you’re about to shift, that’s when you grow the most aggressive. Maybe keeping yourself from shifting will hold back the aggression and—”
“But that means I’ll have to fight fully in human form, without even a hint of shifting.”
Laxus nods and then claps a hand on my shoulder. The now familiar burning sensation that flares every time someone touches me makes me wince. Though, I shrug it off. I have more dire things to deal with.
Laxus doesn’t notice which is good, but then we’re out of time.
“For his final round of the day, Alpha Ethan Montgomery will now go against Midnight Pack’s Richard Stevens,” the announcer calls, and when I look up, I see the man who tried to provoke me in my tent this morning.
I almost laugh because of course he’s from the Midnight Pack, and of course his name is Richard.
“Shit. This isn’t good,” Laxus says, then grabs my arm when I stand. If he’s from the Midnight Pack, there’s only one reason he’s here. Me. I’m sure Angela’s parents sent him after me with specific instructions to mess up my Challenges.
Before Laxus can say anything else, I’m up and stalking into the middle of the ring. I keep my eyes pinned on dickface as he smirks, meeting me in the middle.
“Don’t think your little trick from earlier will give you an advantage with me. I won’t be caught off guard again,” he growls.
Digging my claws into my palms, I try to regulate my anger and the urge to shift.
“What’s wrong, Alpha?” He taunts, circling. I mirror his movements. “Can’t control your emotions? What kind of Alpha can’t control his own strength?” The man laughs at his own question, but I do my best to ignore it. Instead, I lunge.
My fist grazes his cheek as he spins to the side.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he tisks. Then, his body contorts, shifting to his wolf form. He bends and grows, going down on four legs instead of two with a growl.
The wolf darts to the side, circling behind me, but just as he jumps, I spin and catch him by the neck. My claws dig in, puncturing his throat and causing him to yelp. Back paws push against my chest, and with one solid kick, we break apart.
I don’t give him time to recover, though. I dive forward, taking him by the scruff and hurling him across the arena. He hurtles through the air, and even though he tries to flip and catch himself, but the side of the arena wall comes too soon.
The wolf’s body collides with the concrete wall, and I run at him.
Red seeps into my vision, but I shake it off, nailing all my attention on the animal in front of me as it struggles to stand. I slide across the ground, lift my knee, and slam it in to the wolf’s head before jumping to my feet.
There’s no way I’m letting him win this fight.
“Shift!” I order, my Alpha tone seeping into my voice. He staggers, swiping his paw at me, but his movements are too slow. Too sluggish.
“I said, SHIFT!”
The wolf whines and slumps to the ground, curling in on itself as his body contorts and thrashes.
Prey
Attack
Kill
I let my claws pierce the skin of my palms, using the pain to center me and keep me from going feral again. The sharp aches flow up my arms, pulling at my nerves.
“Apologize,” I order, reaching down and grabbing dickface by his collar. “For your disrespect of my mate. For going against the rules of the arena by fighting outside of the Challenges. For insulting me without provocation.”
Dickface growls in response, then eats my fist as I bury it in his face. Over and over, my knuckles collide with his face, beating away skin and cracking bone. Blood gushes from his mouth, and he coughs.
“What was that?”
“S-so—”
My knuckles collide again.
Something snaps, whether it’s a bone of mine or his, I don’t know, but his head falls back and his eyes close, letting me know we’re done here.
