and I stopped talking, because I felt the alpha in him crowding me.
Crowding the she-wolf.
Demanding I obey.
Demanding silence.
I shut my mouth, even as I was well aware defiance blazed in my eyes, but he turned from me after his lips curved into a quick smirk, then returned his attention to the crowd.
“Let the challenge begin!”
I knew he made that call because he figured he’d best do so while I was being quiet and before I started another war.
Not that I was going to feel bad about that.
No way in hell was I going to have sex in front of these people—
Then, Brandon leaped at Ethan and all thoughts of sex, in public or not, disappeared as I was forced to focus on the fight.
I could feel that the two sides of me were at war now, more than before. It was discordant, like I wasn’t at peace, and I didn’t particularly like it.
Though I was used to violence because of my past, I’d never wanted to be around it, and I wanted to turn away. Wanted to ignore what was happening in front of me.
But the she-wolf? She was hungry for the fight, hungry to see her mate claim the role of beta and, more than that, she was feeling what the two men were experiencing which was beyond odd.
Ethan’s mind wasn’t on sex anymore. He was focused on the challenge too. But where Brandon Wright was antsy, edgy, and trying to find chinks in Ethan’s defense, my mate was bored.
I sensed that was his strategy—he was playing a waiting game. Brandon was dancing around like a fly who’d found a fresh pile of shit, while Ethan merely moved out of his way, never letting him score too many hits.
It was the strangest fight I’d ever seen in my life.
They punched like they were boxing, but when they kicked each other? And their dicks swung? I winced each time.
“This is why jockstraps exist,” I grumbled under my breath.
My mates heard me, but though they snorted, their attention was on the fight.
I sensed Brandon’s fatigue, just like Ethan’s strategy had predicted, and when that happened, he went from trying to uppercut Ethan’s nose into his brain to shifting into a wolf.
It happened so fast, in the blink of an eye. I knew my shift was still a little slow, a lot torturous, but for him? It was easy. Just like walking was, I guessed.
I thought about whether it would be that easy for me, but then I switched focus when Ethan didn’t shift.
My mouth dropped open, and I lurched forward, heading closer to the small ring the men were fighting in. The trees around the outer circle whistled around us, the wind whipping them and the branches around as though they were in a different city, not mere feet away, from where we were standing, and Eli grabbed me and jerked me back into his hold.
“Why isn’t he shifting?” I cried out, terrified the snarling wolf would hurt my mate.
“A point of pride,” Austin stated calmly, and I heard, more than anything, his own pride for his brother.
When Brandon moved from a crouch, where he was snarling, head bowed, chin to the ground, fangs bared and drool dripping from his mouth, and leaped at my mate? I shrieked, but not even that broke Ethan’s control.
His reaction was incredible.
He seemed to cement himself into the ground, making himself at one with the circle in which he was standing, then he braced himself, and when Brandon went for him, his teeth snapping at his throat?
Ethan caught him.
Caught him.
He wrapped Brandon in his arms as he dropped to his knees, spinning them both around so the wolf was pinned to the ground. Ethan’s hand went to the beast’s throat, while one elbow went to the creature’s leg. The other? He grabbed the remaining forepaw, and I saw the second Brandon went slack in his arms as he registered that if Ethan split the legs apart, he could tear his ribcage in two.
As Brandon submitted, Ethan let go, and in the blink of an eye, he snapped fur from Brandon’s hide, with his fucking fingers, fingers that had sprouted claws, and I scented it.
Blood.
First blood.
He leaped up onto his feet and backed away.
Brandon didn’t budge an inch, just lay there panting like he was exhausted, and Ethan made no move to celebrate or show his triumph, even though his body was tense with it.
The crowd was silent too, and I knew this had nothing to