We are grappling on the ground now. I still have a firm grip on her wrists, but she is flexible and keeps trying to flip me over onto my back. There are chunks of mud and forest floor flying around us. I keep blinking to keep it out of my eyes, but I can taste it on my tongue. He head whipping back and forth and her legs kicking at my back as I sit across her stomach.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. No one denies an Alpha when they choose you. He chose me, wanted me to be his mate.” She spits at me.
“Then why did he never mark you?” I honestly wasn’t trying to be mean, but that makes no sense. No chosen mate would wait to be marked. She’s delusional if she thinks it is going to happen now. “How long was he promising to do it and didn’t. Your Alpha played you, not me.” I huff against her as she pulls her wrists free and pushes me off of her. I hit my side, but scramble up quickly.
“Two years of work. Two years of commitment. I did everything he’s ever asked me to and all you had to do was bat your virgin eyes at him. All these assholes talk and it got back to him exactly how innocent you are. He’s going to take you and break you and then throw you away like the rest.”
She’s still throwing lazy punches. She has no idea what she is doing. She never trained to be a Luna, if this is how she fights.
“So you are telling me.” I finally land a solid punch to her cheek and she falls. “That in two years, he has cheated on you and you stayed committed hoping you would change him, that getting his mark would make you better than everyone. But it never did, did it? No one took you seriously, no one listened to you, everyone saw you for the joke that he made you and your true mate bond. You make me sick, both of you do and I don’t even know who ‘he’ is.”
She’s starting to wobble, but her fury is keeping her upright and fighting.
“Of course you know, you’ve been planning this from the moment you got here. And I am not a JOKE!!” She screams as she lunges at me.
I don’t even think, I just react. Her lunge is clumsy but forceful and I reach around her, almost in slow motion, grab the nap of her neck with one hand and use the other to propel her naked ass into the trunk of a massive tree face first with all of my strength. She collides with a sickening crunch and then collapses with no other sounds.
I get two breaths in and then I hear it. The painful wail of a heartbreaking howl. I know it came from Tyler, feeling her die. I can’t breathe…I killed someone…I took a life. She would have killed me, the logical part of my brain which is probably my wolf, tells me. But, I took someone’s life. That isn’t my decision to make. My shallow breathing is making my vision go blurry at the edges. I need to get control, now! I close my eyes and breath deep into my lungs then let it out slowly.
“Well, that was entertaining. I thought she might challenge you after our little tryst earlier, but I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. You truly are the best choice as my Luna. I’m so glad you fought so hard for me.” A very familiar, silky deep voice sounds behind me. It has never been this confident before though. Usually joking or energetic, but this version is calculating and cruel. Chills run over my whole body. I turn slowly and so many things click into place and so many questions rush through my brain all at the same time.
