He was trying to figure out how she'd hurt them.
He moved left and right, forcing her to use the injured leg, his head tilted.
He must have heard the same thing I could--the faint burble of a collapsing lung.
Her mouth was open as she tried to get more oxygen.
Paul struck with a powerful front kick with no trace of finesse, but power to spare.
Mary Jo snapped both arms down and slowed the blow, which had been aimed at her injured leg, but it still flung her stumbling backward off the mats.
She kept her balance, barely, but the leg was obviously almost useless.
A ragged sea of hands pushed her, not ungently, back into the ring where Paul was waiting for her.
"It's okay," Adam said.
"It's okay.
Yield, Mary Jo." Mary Jo looked beaten, but as she entered the ring, her injured leg suddenly shot up, toes pointed like a prima ballerina's.
Her kick was as simple as Paul's had been.
Straight up, angling between his thighs.
He tried to block, but it was already too late.
There was a muffled impact, and Paul's breath exploded outward.
He backed up rapidly, bent forward with fists crossed over his groin, every muscle in his torso tensed in sudden pain.
Mary Jo followed, though I could tell that it hurt, and took advantage of his dropped guard to hit him with a hammer fist to the back of the head.
A perfect nerve strike, I thought.
Good for you, Mary Jo.
If he hadn't been a werewolf, he'd have been seeing lights and hearing bells for weeks.
His eyes were wolf-pale, and his arms moved strangely as bones began to shift beneath the skin.
Paul shook his head, trying to shake off the effects of the strike.
If she'd been in better shape, she could have finished him.
But Mary Jo was too slow.
He straightened and pulled his hands back to guard position with obvious effort.
Then he came at her slowly, implacably, simply walking to close the distance.
Her right fist shot toward his throat, but he blocked it with his right hand, then pushed her elbow with his left, turning her body, then smashed a knee into her injured ribs, hard.
She went to the mats, facedown and coughing blood.
Paul followed her to the mats, landing astride her shoulders.
He grabbed one of her legs and began to bend it back, bowing her back into a tight arch.