Page 28 of Reformed Wolf

The room was spinning around me, and it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. Was that true? Did fooling around with my mate last night leave him tired? But that couldn’t be right. He’d been fine a few minutes ago. This was something else.

I turned to look at my father, and he seemed deep in thought, a heavy crease between his eyebrows. He wasn’t cheering for either of them. He couldn’t be seen playing favorites when he had a fifty-fifty chance of Azar winning. Oh gods, I would die before letting that monster claim me.

I watched in horror as Tristan nearly tripped over his own feet. He was blinking hard, as if to clear his eyes. “Something is wrong,” I hissed in my father’s ear. “Azar must’ve drugged him with that handshake. He’s not fighting fair. You have to stop the match! Please, Daddy!” I shook his arm, begging for him to intervene.

My father shook his head sadly. “I can’t, Dylan. It’s too late.” My stomach dropped. From the first moment I set eyes on my mate, it was too late. Fate was already in motion.

Azar tilted his head, watching Tristan stumble around the cage, trying to keep distance between them. He seemed quite pleased by what he saw. Tristan’s skin had gone pale, a thin sheen of clammy sweat making him look sick. With horror, I watched Azar lift his clawed hand in the air, prepared to strike a blow.

My mate, however, was not ready to go down without a fight. With a sluggish scrape of his hand, Tristan scratched himself on the thigh with his own claws. I was confused about why he would do that… until I saw the drip of blood down his leg. He’d forced first blood. Yes! He needed to shift. His wolf would help clear the poison, whatever it was.

Azar paused, momentarily impressed. “Clever boy,” he purred, his voice beginning to deepen and rattle in his throat as his body rippled with the shift. “But not even your wolf can save you now.”

It seemed he might’ve been right, because as Tristan fell to his knees, his beast was slow in appearing. White fur sprouted, and his whole body heaved, trying to expel whatever was making him sick. Azar, however, had no difficulty in shifting.

His tiger was an absolute beauty, with rich orange, white, and black fur, and when he opened his jaws in a stretch, his four-inch incisors gleamed in the spotlights overhead. He easily weighed 500 pounds, whereas Tristan’s wolf probably topped out at 150.

Or he usually did, anyway, when he could fully shift.

Shaking his body, Tristan finally managed to complete the transformation, but I could tell it was a struggle to hold onto it. Azar made a lazy pounce, and Tristan’s wolf hopped away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough to avoid the tiger’s claws entirely. He yelped, and red bloomed across his beautiful white coat, the droplets pattering down on the mat.

I gasped, hooking my fingers into the wire links, biting my lips to keep from crying out. I was helpless to stop this, but I refused to look away. I could hear bets being made in the crowd around us, money exchanging hands, almost entirely in Azar’s favor.

“Ten grand on the wolf,” I heard someone say, and I turned my head to see it was Tristan’s Alpha. He met my gaze and nodded firmly. I allowed his unwavering confidence to fill me.

I tried not to see the way my mate’s white coat had become a bloody mess of matted fur, or the way his head hung low, drool dripping from his lolling tongue. Azar was toying with him, batting him around the ring. Tristan would barely get his legs under himself before being knocked again.

Tears were flowing freely down my cheeks. “Please,” I whimpered, my legs threatening to give out. My entire body throbbed with phantom pain, with my mate’s pain. My father braced an arm around my waist, and I sagged against him.

Any second this match would be over.

As his wolf collapsed, the shift receded, leaving my Tristan naked and broken, sprawled across the mat. He pushed up with shaky arms until he was kneeling. Open your eyes, I begged silently. I felt like if I could just see his eyes, I would know he was okay.

But he didn’t open his eyes, and nothing was okay. His chest moved heavily as he struggled to breathe. And I forced myself to watch as the tiger moved in.

Chapter 13

Tristan

“Get up!” I heard from somewhere in the distance. “Tristan, get up!”

But the voice was so faint compared to the words Azar had whispered in my ear at the beginning of the match. I never lose, he’d said. And it was clear he would do whatever it took to ensure it.

I could feel the tiger prowling closer, could hear him licking his jowls. He’d already won, and we both knew it.

When we shook hands, there’d been a prick into my palm, a needle hidden within the tape wrapped around his knuckles. He’d dosed me with some kind of venom, and it made my blood ooze through my veins, slow and cold. I no longer had control of my body. My movements were sluggish, my skin clammy.

I felt his hot, humid breath on my face as he opened his mouth, prepared to tear out my throat. I heard Dylan’s cries, and regret filled my heart. Just three days, that was as long as I got to keep him. I felt cheated, but I couldn’t curse fate for giving him to me, just to take him away. I was grateful for getting to meet him. Besides, even forever with him wouldn’t have been enough.

As I prepared to meet my end, an abyss seemed to open beneath me. It felt like I was falling, the ground swallowing me whole. There, with my eyes closed, I saw Dylan, but not as he was now, sobbing and broken outside the cage. I saw him at home in the woods, my woods, round with my child. He was so beautiful. His head was thrown back as he laughed, our firstborn son running circles around him.

If this was death, then I welcomed it, but it felt so real. Like I could simply reach out and touch it. And then I heard Vesta’s voice whispering in my head. “Your fate is what you make of it… so why are you so quick to give it up?”

Giving up? Was that what I was doing? My heart beat a slow thump-thump, forcing the venom through my veins. I didn’t have time to wait for it to clear my bloodstream. I would have to act despite how my fingers tingled, half numb. I reached inside for my wolf. Give me your strength, old friend, I asked, and there was just enough of him left to press his claws from my nailbeds.

Eyes still closed, I could feel Azar, and I knew there was no time to waste. I was still numb, still clumsy, but as close as he was, I didn’t have to be accurate. I swung my arm wide and sank my claws through fur and tissue, deep into his jugular. It might not have been enough to kill him—until he jerked his head back. It split the wound wider, and what had started as a rivulet of blood quickly became a surge.

The crowd had gone deathly silent, a shroud blanketing us all. Azar’s tiger died first, leaving only a man, his chest painted red. He opened his mouth to laugh in disbelief, but it came out as a hiccupped scoff instead, as he raised a hand to his throat where bubbles of blood escaped from the gash.

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