Dante.
Chewing the flesh.
Jordan’s.
My stomach lurched violently. Dante…he was eating his own friend. He was not even in his wolf form, he was human…
Jordan’s glassy, unseeing eyes stared at the misty canopy overhead, mouth forever parted in a silent scream.Watching Dante eat his own friend, my whole body grew cold. How could he do this? Eat a person.
The Alphas weren’t supposed to kill each other. It was a trial. A test of endurance, hunting, and survival.
But this…this was…I could not name this monstrous act.
Dante’s broad frame was dappled in blood, some of it his, most of it not. His dark hair hung damply over his forehead, a tail of blood ran down his mouth to throat.
Then his eyes lifted, finding me through the mist.
For a heartbeat, I forgot how to move. He found me and then… smiled.
My wolf froze in my mind at that smile. It wasn’t the usual twisted mask of hatred he wore whenever he looked at me. No sneer. No cold disdain. It was… different.
Slow.
Dark.
And bloodthirsty.
The corners of his lips tugged up in a way that made every hair on the back of my neck rise, a quiet, deadly thing that spoke of too many emotions I couldn’t name.
And in that moment, it terrified me more than the blood in his mouth.I immediately spun.
Leaves and earth scattered beneath my boots as I bolted down the side path, branches clawing at my arms.
I didn’t get far before bumped into a solid wall of muscle.
I stumbled and almost fell when a hand reached out and grabbed my hand. I found myself in the mid air, and Looked up to the person Bare-chested. He was Ronan. His pants soaked and streaked with crimson, his hands slick with blood. A wolf’s severed head dangled carelessly from his other hand, its glassy eyes dull and lifeless. Behind him, two bodies lay crumpled, one half-shifted mid-transition, the other’s throat torn clean through.
My lungs clamped tight. He…he too… and way more brutal than anything I had ever seen.
I pulled my hand back and took a step back, my large eyes staring at his blood splashed handsome face. He was a beast. And this wasn’t a trial.
It was a war.
The Academy…the place I thought was built to test, to mold future Alphas and the place to win that unclaimed throne of hundred years wasn’t made of stone and sweat.
It was a graveyard.
And the predators were standing right in front of me.
I felt my stomach knot, bile burning at the back of herthroat.
Ronan’s gaze slid down my body, noting the tension in my frame, the horror in my wide eyes. His bloodstained lips twitched in a way that wasn’t quite a smirk.
Then, with a lazy flick of his wrist, he tossed the wolf’s head aside. It landed with a dull thud
Before I could react, he stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing mine. I gasped as the coppery scent of blood and earth clung to his skin, hit my nose.
I pulled away and dropped instinctively into a fighting stance, my fingers curling, ready to strike, to claw, to rip if 1 had to.
But Ronan didn’t lift a hand.
He reached out, his blood-warm palm wrapping around my wrist. His grip was firm, unyielding, but not cruel.
And then he pulled me back to his chest, his voice dropped, low and rough, threading into the fog around them as he asked in a whisper, Why don’t you shift into your wolf?”
SERAPHINA
“Why don’t you shift into your wolf?”
For a beat, my limbs paralyzed. How did he know I had not shifted even once? Had he been watching me? First he had already noticed that! had been hiding my scent and now he found out I was avoiding shifting. My throat squeezed shut. He had been suspicious of me. Panic flared hot in my chest, but I forced my face into a mask of defiance.
“I don’t need to shift to take you down,” I bit out, jerking my wrist free and stepping back.
His gaze narrowed, like he could see straight through the bravado to the storm beneath. The blood on his skin gleamed in the pale light, the stench of death and earth clinging to him like a second skin.
“You sure about that, little wolf?” His voice was silk over steel, a threat hidden behind something dangerously close to amusement.
I snorted, trying to ignore the chill trickle down my spine. “Capable enough to win without it.” I could not let him get me.
His lips twitched into a smirk, and I hated the way my pulse jumped at the sight. “I really want to see how it works…”
I frowned, taking a step back ready to fight him as he seemed to be attacking me but a blur of motion to my left made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
A massive wolf, thick as a boulder and dark as storm clouds, burst through the trees.
Not just any competitor. One of the most ruthless bastards Alpha in the Academy.
Phina recognized his scent and aura, “He was with Jordan the other day!”
And she was absolutely correct because his blood-red eyes locked straight onto me
No hesitation.
No challenge.
Just a predator zeroed in on his target.
Me.
I secretly gritted my teeth, witnessing revenge in his eyes. Revenge for Jordan being kicked out of the academy but if he only knew his friend had already been killed and eaten by Dante.
However I didn’t have time to think. His timing was horrible. Ronan was also here. Now I had to fight two Alphas at once that slowed me from crossing the finish line.
The wolf lunged. I ducked low, feeling his claws graze my shoulder, the force of his leap rattling my bones. I rolled, grabbing a jagged branch, and rammed it into his flank. Not deep enough to kill but enough to make him stumble.
I was on my feet in seconds but ready to counter another attack from Ronan wherever it was coming from but then I realised he was not there.
My pulse thundered
The air crackled, and I felt the weight of a gaze. I whipped my head up.
There he was. Perched on a rocky ledge above, the moonlight cutting shadows across his face. His expression was unreadable, unmoving.Why the hell wasn’t he attacking? Was I not his prey? Was he not the hunter? Why waste time here, why not just cross the finishing line?!
The wolf snarled behind me in rage. I turned around at lightning speed.
He lunged again, jaws snapping, but I dodged left, slamming my elbow into his snout and landing a hard kick to his ribs. I felt the crack through my boot.
But then Phina suddenly freze in my mind when we both felt it.
“More are closing in!” she growled in my mind.
I could feel the others. Predators circling.
“Why so many together?” Breathing hard, I murmured to myself.
Ronan’s amusing voice came, “Apparently this trial is no longer one on one.”
My muscles tensed, understanding the other wolves were actually aligning, others breaking ranks. Packs forming out of necessity, old grudges forgotten in the face of survival.
It wasn’t strength alone anymore.
It was strategy, plan and simple.
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