Book 1 - Page 50 (2/2)

She stood. Then realizing her anxiety might bother Devlyn, she lay down and rested her head on her paws as if the whole matter served simply as a pleasing walk in the woods.

Ross stood still at the edge of the circle, panting hard, his chest filling and emptying with intense breaths. No longer just a spectator, he battled for his life. Fresh blood matted his fur. The rest stood on end as he raised his tail behind him. His posture indicated that he wasn’t ready to give up the fight, not yet.

Neither was Devlyn. He stood ready, his body somewhat relaxed between sparring, to allow him time to rest.

A wolf howled in the distance. As unique to wolves as fingerprints were to humans, Bella immediately recognized the warning sound... Volan.

Chapter Nineteen

The sound of Volan’s howl nearly made Bella’s heart stop. Devlyn’s ears pulled back and he narrowed his eyes. His tail pointed straight out, parallel to the ground. Undoubtedly, he sensed the added danger when he caught the sound, too.

It just couldn’t be Volan. Not when Devlyn had so many reds to fight. Bella continued to recline on the ground, pretending not to be bothered, to show Devlyn that she believed in him with all of her heart. But she couldn’t smooth down the hair standing erect on the nape of her neck or tail. She couldn’t relax her tail, fixed straight as a spear, her body on full alert, ready to react if Volan made a sudden appearance.

Then she reminded herself that she had her gun and it could give him a lot of heartburn for a while.

Ross ran toward Devlyn with his teeth bared. Fire burned in the depths of his brown eyes. Devlyn responded, his leg and back muscles moving like a waterfall, fluid and powerful. Grabbing Ross by the throat, he snapped his neck in two.

Ross fell limply to the ground; Bella stopped panting. For now, Devlyn had proved himself once again the winner. Taking a deep breath of pride, she admired her mate for his skill and ingeniousness. She thought of how Ross and the other wolves had killed those helpless women and how, if they’d had a chance, they would have killed Devlyn. For those reasons, she had no regret. It was the way of the wolf, the only reason they had survived as long as they had.

Still, her anxiety heightened, worrying that Devlyn’s energy would dwindle.

Nicol lunged at him. No rest in between, calculated to wear the gray down.

Most of the wolves still stood. A couple of the older ones, their red fur now graying, lay down, but all kept their eyes fixed on the fighters.

Nicol got a lucky strike — because she couldn’t concede it was anything else — and grazed Devlyn’s neck with his wicked canines. Devlyn snapped and growled with his teeth bared, the sound deep and base-like, extremely menacing. Nicol quickly retreated from Devlyn’s killer canines.

Bella squelched the urge to dash into the battle and bite the red back. She sat up instantly, unable to pretend any further to be so relaxed about the fight.

Nicol pounced on him again, but Devlyn snapped his jaw at him, nearly catching the red’s leg. Hearing the sound of Devlyn’s powerful jaws clamping together so close to his body, Nicol yelped.

Bella searched the crowd again, looking for a male wolf about the right age that might be Simon. Her eye caught that of a red who was watching her, not the fight. He stood taller than Alfred had, but certainly not as big as a gray. But he looked as if he could have put Alfred down. Her stomach tightened.

She faced Devlyn, who sprung at Nicol and pinned him down by the throat.

Nicol whined and squirmed. Devlyn had the best of him. Why didn’t he finish him off? Not to do so was cowardly, and it was not the wolf way... not the lupus garou way. Not when the red had murdered a human woman and risked exposing all of the lupus garous.

Devlyn’s chest heaved with exhaustion. Worn out, he rested before the kill, knowing that Simon would attack as soon as he let go of Nicol. Bella settled back down, glad she’d figured out his reluctance to finish Nicol off.

The wolves grew restless as he continued to wait. Several wolves held their tails straight out behind them, indicating their apprehension. Then, with resolve, Devlyn clamped his jaws down on Nicol’s throat, crus.h.i.+ng the neck bone with a powerful snap, ending the fourth-generation big game hunter’s life instantly.

The one who’d been watching Bella immediately leapt for Devlyn, nearly sixteen feet through the air, the longest distance a wolf could leap. This time, Devlyn didn’t react quickly enough. Simon knocked him on his hip.

Bella lunged forward, but two of the other males blocked her from interceding. Females fought females, never males — the unwritten rule pa.s.sed down from generation to generation.

She growled at them. They bowed their heads to her, showing that they had no intention of fighting her but wouldn’t move out of her path.

Again she growled, baring her teeth at one and then the other, preparing herself to attack. She couldn’t watch Simon hurt her mate. The strain of the fighting and the tension that had built up in her system keyed her higher than an active volcano built up steam, ready to explode.

When neither of the reds would move out of her path, she snarled and snapped at the one to her right, intent on having her way. Immediately, the one to her left pounced on her. He pinned her to her side against the pine needle floor. She wriggled with frustration but couldn’t free herself because of his heavier weight and bigger size.

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