This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,121

shouts for his guards. “Get my family the hell out of here!”

Charlotte struggles against the guards, kicking and scratching them, struggling wildly. She reaches toward the side of the room opposite Baxter and I follow her line of sight to Cody.

He stands against the back wall closest to me.

I suddenly know, without a doubt, that Cody was the one Tristan focused on before he started to rage because Cody must have been following right behind me.

Charlotte screams. “No! Cody! Don’t fight Tristan. Don’t do it!”

She struggles free of one of the guards, but another tackles her, lifting her off her feet and carrying her, still screaming, from the room. A third guard grabs Cameron, who struggles and shouts, but the guards succeed in hauling him away too.

In the center of the room, Tristan flips all of the tables that stand in his way until he’s cleared a wide space in the middle.

I shudder.

It’s a combat ring.

Cody meets his father’s eyes across the room.

Baxter Griffin snarls and inclines his head sharply toward the combat ring.

Shadows grow in Cody’s expression, his jaw clenching, his eyebrows drawing down. He vaults the nearest table to enter the ring, but he paces at the edge opposite Tristan.

“C’mon, Tristan,” Cody calls. “Even if you win, the guards will gun you down. Is that what you want Tessa to see?”

Tristan levels his gaze with Cody’s. “If you wanted her, you should have fought for her at the Conclave. You’re a fucking coward.”

Cody’s jaw clenches as he smothers a growl. For a second, I think he’s going to ignore the taunt. He must be smart enough to know that Tristan is goading him into a fight.

Cody tugs at his tie, slipping it from his neck before he slides off his jacket and unbuttons his shirt.

I smother my gasp.

Cody’s tattoo is complete. A snarling wolf’s head covers his muscled shoulder and the left side of his chest. The wolf is a glittering golden color—the same color as the golden flecks in his eyes—but it has a shadow, a second wolf snarling behind it that is insubstantial, made up of swirls of light.

The second wolf is cobalt blue.

I back up so fast that I bump into the wall behind me.

He had my wolf inked into his skin, a shadow of his own ferocity.

“Then consider this a fight for Tessa,” Cody says.

My heart leaps into my throat as the two men stride forward without another pause. Their fists land on the first hit, thudding against each other’s chests, their follow-up moves rapid and vicious. Within seconds, they’re both bleeding from splits across their cheeks and chests, while claw marks cut across their biceps.

With a snarl of rage, Tristan leaps at Cody, shedding his pants and shifting midair from human to wolf so fast that it takes my breath away. I’ve seen Tristan at his full power when he fought Peter Nash for my life, but I smother my scream with my hands when Cody leaps and shifts just as fast.

My heart stops.

I suspected Cody was powerful, but I never thought he was as powerful as Tristan.

Their wolves meet midair, their claws ripping across each other’s sides as they tumble and fall, tearing at each other. They are closely matched in size and strength. Tristan’s wolf is as dark as coal, a savage beast, while Cody’s is sleek and golden, his russet legs appearing as if they’ve been dipped in blood.

I bite my palm to stop myself from screaming at the sheer violence between them, my rising fear a sickening force inside me.

I don’t want this.

I don’t understand why Tristan chose this fight. He said that nobody is safe while the three-headed wolf exists, but he couldn’t ask me to kill the wolf after all. He said that it has to end tonight. But all I can see is that he’s trying to get himself killed.

One of the wolves yelps and it’s too much.

I can’t stand by and let them kill each other.

Vaulting the table that blocks my path, I run toward the snarling wolves as they separate, turn, and prepare to leap at each other again.

My power surges through me, out of control, panicked, cobalt blue power that gives me speed. I race between them, my arms outstretched on either side of me.

“Stop!” I scream as the wolves leap toward each other again.

Their wolves are like wrecking balls, unstoppable as they fly toward me, heavy, brutish, claws out. My hair flies around my face as I spin, my foot colliding with