informing all those not already aware that ad vitam aeternam was about to start. As the final notes drifted away on the breeze, the flag dropped.
Rhoan and I jumped forward as one, flowing from one shape to another as we raced up the hill. Blake and Tyson were already halfway down, suggesting they’d jumped the flag, their growls and fury staining the crisp air.
I swerved to the left, getting out of Rhoan’s way, running at an angle across the hill. Blake moved to intercept me, taking several gigantic strides before he leapt. I met him in the air, our chests crashing together, the sound cracking across the arena like a whip. I bared my teeth and lunged at his face, snapping and snarling. His teeth slid across my nose, tearing into flesh as we dropped to the ground. I dove away, twisted around, rearing up on my back legs as he came at me. Again our chests met as my paws clawed his side and my teeth sank into the ruff of his neck. He pulled away, but I hung on, twisting and shaking my head, trying to tear flesh. He snarled and slashed with his jaws, his canines ripping into my ear. I released him, jumped back. Felt the blood coursing down my neck, thick and warm.
Saw, out of the corner of my eye, the glint of silver on a distant rooftop.
A rifle.
Aimed at Rhoan, not me.
Fury swept me. I should have known the bastard wasn’t going to play by the rules.
Blake lunged. I twisted around, rolling under his leap, then ran, with every ounce of strength I had, toward Rhoan. Heard the crack of a gunshot, and dove, shifting shape as I did so, straight at my brother. I hit him just as he was leaping at Tyson, heard his grunt of surprise as I grabbed him with both arms and rolled us both out of the way. Tyson flew over the top of us, but Blake was right behind.
The bullet that had been aimed at Rhoan’s head went through my leg instead. It was silver, and it burned like a bitch, but it also went in one side and came right out the other without appearing to do any serious damage. For once, fate was giving me a break.
“Sniper on the rooftop,” I said, releasing his midriff and rolling to my feet. He scrambled to his, meeting Blake’s charge chest first as the big red wolf leapt, knocking him to one side before twisting around to meet Tyson’s charge.
I kept in human form and ran, every sense I had focused on the sniper. He was aiming again. There was only one way to stop him. I threw open my shields and hit him with every ounce of telepathic power I had. I felt the brief resistance of a nanowire before it shattered under the force of my attack and I plunged into his mind. This was no gentle attack. It was hard and fast and brutal, and his mind snapped as easily as the nanowire.
Lodden Jenson wasn’t dead, but his mind was.
I bent, scooped up a rock, then twisted around and threw it at Blake. I moved so fast he didn’t even see it coming, and the rock smashed into his face full force, shattering his nose and jaw. His furious growls turned to a high sound of pain and he stuttered to a halt, shaking his head to clear the blood that was spurting into his eyes.
“We gave you the chance to play fair, Blake. We were obeying the rules of the arena when, by law, we could have just walked in here and killed you both. You chose to fight dirty, so that’s exactly how I’ll kill you.”
And with that, I shifted shape and lunged at him. He saw me at the last minute and jumped away, but anger fueled my movements now and he was far too slow. I hit his side and sent him tumbling. He rolled, desperately trying to regain his feet and get away, but I hit him again, knocking him back down.
And then I repeated the process, again and again, driving home the point that he couldn’t get up and couldn’t beat me.
He kept trying, I’ll give him that.
I hit him one more time, then shifted shape, crossing my arms as I watched him slowly climb to his feet. Across the arena I was aware of low growling, then there was a godawful howl that cut off abruptly.
Rhoan, finishing off Tyson. It was just me and Blake now.
He climbed to his paws, his head snaking low and broken teeth bared. There was anger in his eyes and tension in his body. He was waiting for the final blow.
“As I said, you started this dirty, so I intend to finish it that same way. Blake Jenson, shift shape.” The words were barely out of my mouth when I hit him with every ounce of psychic strength I had left. It crashed through the barriers of his nanowire and swept into his mind. His eyes widened a fraction before the fist of my thoughts wrapped around his. Change shape, I whispered into his mind. Become human.
He had no choice. His fury lashed around me, useless, impotent, as his body shifted from one form to another. In human form, his face looked more battered, and his gray eyes gleamed with maliciousness and fury. But he couldn’t move. My grip on his mind was too strong.
I walked forward until I was nose-to-nose with the man.
“This is for our childhood,” I said softly. “For the innocence you snatched away.”
I raised a hand and chopped it across his neck. Felt muscle and flesh give away as his throat collapsed inward. He made a low sound of pain, but he still couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight.
Part of me wanted to end it swiftly, to just break his neck and walk away from him and everything bad he represented. But I couldn’t.
I needed this vengeance. Hated it, but needed it.
“And for my mother, who had no recourse against your treatment of us; for my grandfather, who was an old man when you slaughtered him in this arena; and for my stepbrother, whose mate you kidnapped and tortured. For all of them, I give you the inglorious justice of being killed in the arena in human form.” I paused, letting my words sink in. Watching the hatred and fury and finally fear roll through his eyes and his mind. “Maybe you will find the hell in afterlife that you gave us in life, Blake.”
And with that, I hit him a final time, crushing his larynx and breaking his neck. He dropped like a stone, dead before he actually hit the ground.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly, then looked up.
Straight into my mother’s eyes.
She was standing at the fence, her face serene and her gray eyes giving little away. I might have been a stranger for all the emotion she was showing, and I guess in many respects I was. After all, I was still a teenager when I’d left. Now I was an adult, and a trained killer besides.
But she hadn’t changed all that much—there were a few more lines around her eyes and mouth, and perhaps a little gray in the red of her hair, but otherwise she was still very much as I remembered her.
I continued to stare at her, unsure what to do, what to say. Unsure if I even wanted to say or do anything. Awareness prickled across my skin, and I knew without looking that Rhoan was approaching. He stopped beside me, his fingers weaving through mine, then he, too, stared at the woman who had given us life.
After a moment, she smiled—a short, warm smile that said more in the few seconds it appeared than any words ever could.
I took another shuddering breath and felt like the weight of the world had lifted off my shoulders.
The horn rang out again, haunting, mournful. As the last notes died away, I said, not raising my voice, “By this death, and by right of ad vitam aeternam, I now lead this pack.”
My gaze swept around them. No one looked away. No one countered or objected. They were all tense, waiting. It made me wonder just what Blake had told them about us.
I continued on in the same soft tone. “And my first order of business is this: The Jenson pack will no longer suffer the rule of one man, or one wolf. By my right of leadership, I declare that from now on, the Jenson pack will be ruled by a council of three.”
A murmur ran through the crowd, a sound that was excitement and satisfaction and surprise all mixed together. For a pack that had been ruled for so long by tyranny, being given the right to have a say had to come as a complete shock.