Wolf Girl (Wolf Girl #1) - Leia Stone Page 0,57

seen. The only wolf fight I’d ever seen, but still. Sawyer grazed Butcher’s muzzle, raking his teeth along the skin and tearing it open as fresh purple blood oozed from the cut.

Purple?

Whoa.

Fey blood was blue, my mom told me, and wolf blood was red. Purple Ithaki hybrid blood.

I was so enthralled in what I was seeing that I’d lost sight of the fight. Only when the sound of crunching bone cut through the space and the Ithaki present started to roar in triumph did I drag my gaze to Sawyer.

“No!” I screamed as Butcher tore into Sawyer’s flank, ripping away a piece of flesh and exposing his ribs. Sawyer howled, long and hauntingly deep.

“Morocco!” Eugene yelled and Sawyer collapsed to the ground, panting as fresh crimson blood oozed from the wound. He tried to stand, but fell back down.

Morocco?

They must have had a secret playbook of fights or something. I felt more and more like I was watching a college football game with a coach on the sidelines.

Oh God no. I couldn’t even focus on the fact that Eugene was shouting random countries and cities at Sawyer, I could only focus on the fact that it looked like Sawyer was down and couldn’t get up.

“Get up, Sawyer!” I yelled and the vampire-fey yanked my hair back painfully, causing me to wince. Butcher circled Sawyer like a shark stalking his victim. Sawyer snapped out at him a few times, but every time he tried to get up, he slipped and fell back down.

I couldn’t … couldn’t look, but I also couldn’t look away. Sawyer came here for me, he’d agreed to fight for me, and now he was going to die for me and I was going to watch.

Butcher leapt, going for the throat, the kill, and everything inside of me seized up.

No. No. No.

My first thought was that I didn’t get to kiss this guy enough, I never got to love him, I really wanted to have more time with him, I wasn’t done.

Sawyer watched Butcher lunge, almost with an expression of resigned fate, but as Butcher grew nearer, I saw Sawyer’s muscles tighten. When he was nearly on top of him, Sawyer rolled, letting Butcher have the upper hand and pin him underneath his body.

This was it.

I steeled myself, ready to watch Butcher rip Sawyer’s throat out, but … it never came. The moment Butcher landed on Sawyer, he kicked up with all four paws and bucked him off, sending him flying through the air. Then Sawyer clambered to his feet with surprising agility and strength and stalked across the space like a cheetah.

“Paris!” Eugene yelled, and one of the Ithaki nearest Eugene kicked the back of his knee out, sending him crashing to the ground, the word dying in this throat. It had now become very clear to everyone here that Eugene and Sawyer were a team. Sawyer had clearly trained for these types of fights and Eugene was directing the show.

Butcher had landed hard when Sawyer kicked him off, and he was still struggling to get up. He probably had some broken ribs too. Sawyer tore across the space so fast, even with a slight limp he was on Butcher in seconds. That electric charge filtered through the air again and that ultrasonic painful sound ripped through the space, but it was lesser this time, frantic and uncoordinated. Sawyer’s wolf flinched, but dove for the kill anyway. The entire crowd that had assembled held their collective breath as Sawyer wrapped his teeth around Butcher’s jugular and clamped down with a sickening crunch. He jerked his head to the side and came away with a chunk of flesh. Butcher’s body jerked, spraying purple blood in a high arc, and then he went still.

Holy shifter.

The knife at my throat tightened, began to cut into my skin, and then a gunshot cut through the space and the knife fell away as the vampire-fey dropped to the ground behind me. Eugene stood five paces away, sleek black gun raised.

My legs were suddenly too weak to hold me. The fall down the mountain and the fall out of the tree had injured me so badly I wasn’t sure how I’d stayed standing this entire time.

“We’ve met the requirements of your demands and we will be taking the girl,” Eugene called out to the people, who looked shocked at their dead leader on the ground. “We will leave the money for any inconvenience we’ve caused you.”

A helicopter whirred overhead and people started to