Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,76

Louis with him, throwing the smaller alpha.

The smell of blood and terror was overwhelming. Naya pursed her lips and swallowed hard.

The riotous pounding of the crowd sped up.

Monster didn't hesitate.

Wounded, breathless from being knocked into each other, the two men were momentarily stunned. Monster gave them no time to regroup; with tooth and claw, he finished them both.

When he stood, the blood dripped from his claws and arm. Throwing his shoulders back, he glowered at his audience with gruesome pride.

The crowd grew went quiet, only hushed murmurs of disbelief echoing.

They were not finished yet. Another challenger remained, this one a stranger.

Was it Crispin? Would he be so stupid? She searched for him in the crowd. She had forgotten him in the chaos.

It was a different man who came forward, the same one who'd spoken to the announcer just before the match.

Through the bond, Naya felt the sharpness of Monster's pain and recognition as blunt as a hammer strike to the gut. His body jerked and doubled forward.

What was happening?

Pain. Such pain.

Naya felt a flash of fear. As awful as the prior battles had been, none had made her mate waver or stumble. But this man, one who could hurt her Monster with his presence alone, was dangerous.

She rushed forward, fear a rush in her ears, ignoring Monster’s men shouting for her to stop from outside the cage.

Her mate was a gory, disgusting mess bathed in the refuse of a human butcher shop. But he was her heart and soul, and the stranger had wounded him without raising a finger.

She darted between them, trying to push Monster back and growling like a possessed wild animal. She couldn't stop herself. Somewhere in the fog, she heard her common sense screaming for her to get back, that she was being foolish. But it didn't matter; the situation had brought out her instincts.

Curving her fingers into claws she glared a challenge at the cloaked man, baring her teeth in a snarl.

But Monster’s hand was collaring her neck, his other arm looping around her ribs and pulling her back against the wall of his chest as he backed away from the hooded challenger.

Instead of attacking, the man before them went to his knees. He pulled off his hood and revealed a scarred and weathered face. He looked up at them briefly, eyes glassy and full of their own kind of pain, before he bowed his head.

"I yield to Nothonal Darre! I yield to the Second Son of King Rhineholth. I, Rhineholth the First, offer my neck!"

Behind her, Monster growled a denial. Waves of confused emotions spilled through their bond, drowning her in his uncertainty.

There were whispers and movement all around them. Bodies bent to look, fighting to see. Naya flicked her eyes around the room and to the balconies, discovering her own shock mirrored in the spectators’ faces.

King Rhineholth, subdued, submitted, waited from the blood-stained floor with a plea on his face. Struck silent at seeing the king here, no other sounds interfered with Darre’s father when he said, "Forgive me. I asked you before and you could not. I ask again. I offer my life, my son. Forgive me?"

The former King of the 12 Sectors had come to the sector of the damned to face the Mad Monster of the Tower.

Chapter Nineteen

Darre

His sire, down on his knees in the blood of Darre's enemies, was offering his neck—his life. A month ago Darre would have torn into the other man without a second thought, teeth ripping and claws tearing.

He would have granted no mercy to the rival who had stolen every opportunity for peace and happiness in his life. His father, the betrayer, the liar—the man who had established the monstrous, dictatorial alpha-only government—was kneeling before him.

His self-righteous, narcissistic father, King Rhineholth the First.

Watching him subjugate himself, his eyes closed in resignation, Darre remembered far more about this relationship than he wanted.

He’d spent a childhood with his father, a childhood both good and bad. He remembered that Rhineholth's betrayal in respect to his dear Alennie had not been the first, but merely the last Darre had allowed.

The memory of his mother's admonishment drifted back to him.

"If I have forgiven him, you must forgive him."

"No,” he had told her. “It's in your nature to forgive, and it's in mine to hate. I will hate him until the day he dies at my hand."

Now was his opportunity. He had tried before—after Alennie's death, he had challenged his father, and Rhineholth had ignored him. In Sector 2, no