Page 223 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

The broken shards pierced into my lung and I shuddered out a gasp, my eyes closing and my body shaking with the choked sound.

My ears rang and filled with gasps and cries from the sidelines, but I didn’t let them distract me. I was still in this fight. I could still win.

But his lycan was strong and wild, and he kept hitting me in that same spot, smashing the bones and pushing the pieces further into my lungs and through my skin. His other hand gripped my throat, squeezing and holding me in place, cutting off my air, his claws piercing the sides of my neck.

I grunted and snarled with each hit, straining my body as I tried to get him off me, but he was stronger than I could have even imagined.

With each hit, each attack, and each struggle, I grew weaker, grew less certain of myself and my victory over him. My breathing was shallow, and the pain in my chest and abdomen was too great, too much to bear.

My eyes watered, and I closed them, hiding the sea of emotions swirling in them. If I died, I would die bravely. I would not let Pierce see me mourning for my mate. I would not let him see the love I held for her. That was for her only.

I pushed it all out, pushed it all towards her. The pain, the fear, the resolve, the regret, and, of course, my love. My love for her, the love I’d had for her since that day she made me feel like the smallest of men, the lowest of worms.

She pushed it back, though, pushed all of it back to me, with the determination and strength she’d shown me every day, that had grown every day I’d known her. Those awful people pretending to be parental figures to her had nearly stolen it from her. But I’d watched as it all returned over the past few weeks, watched as she became the person she was always meant to be. My mate, and my luna.

I knew genuine pain. I had fought through intense pain. I had experienced pain greater than this. When I shifted early, when I thought I would never see Haven again—that pain, that emotional torment mixed with the agony of my bones breaking and reshaping into my lycan—that pain was far greater than what I felt now.

I snapped my eyes open and glared at Pierce. Mine. She was mine. He would not take her from me.

He flinched back in surprise as my eyes opened, not expecting me to fight back anymore, to find more strength. But he didn’t understand mates and love.

I used his surprise as a distraction and reached my hands into his lycan’s panting, drooling, foaming mouth. I ignored the saliva and the stench, holding my breath as I gripped onto his canines and yanked them out in one smooth motion.

His lycan howled in pain and he rolled off me, his body twitching and convulsing on the ground. And, like any wolf who lost their canines, it forced him back into his human form, no longer able to shift into his beast. He would live forever as a man unable to shift, unable to switch his forms.

Well, not forever.

“You… willnot… touch Haven,” I gasped, rolling onto my side and crawling towards him.

He continued to howl, scream, and convulse on the ground, the drool and foam in his mouth increasing as he tried to shift back into his lycan but couldn’t. I sat back on my heels, holding in my wince and the sharp cry that wanted to escape my lips from the pain in my ribs and lungs. But I wasn’t done. This fight was to the death, and I had to make sure he died.

My hand closed around his throat, and my claws came out, piercing his neck just as his claws had pierced mine. I squeezed and leaned over him, jostling him so his eyes opened. He stared at me, the whites of his eyes pooling with blood from the pain and the broken vessels and the strain on his mind from his lycan being trapped there while he tried to force a shift.

I held his stare and ripped through his throat, pulling it from his body—trachea, and all. Then I shoved it into his mouth, still held open in a silent, pained scream.

It took only seconds for the light to fade from his eyes. Only seconds for him to turn from a thorn in our sides to food for the scavengers.

I fell forward onto my hands and knees and turned away from him, crawling on the ground, my hand clutching and pressing against my crushed ribs. I moved towards Haven, towards the spot where she said she’d wait for me, but she met me on the field before I could even get to her.

I let out a sigh of relief as she fell to her knees next to me, and I let myself collapse onto the ground.

I didn’t need to be powerful right now. I had won. I had defended my pack and my luna. I had protected my mate, and the pain in my body was nothing compared to the pride and love I could feel from Haven.

I had won, and that was all that mattered.

CHAPTER 77

HAVEN

I sat stiff and rigid in the chair next to Wesley’s hospital bed, his hand held in mine and my thumb stroking his skin in slow, smooth strokes. The bond would help him heal, but it was also helping me not have another massive freak out while I sat with him in the pack’s hospital.

Dr. Russo had patched him up in almost no time, but he had to re-break Wesley’s foot because the bones had started to heal in the wrong position. He’d tried to refuse any sedation, but with the damage to his ribs and lungs, they had to give him general anesthesia in order to repair all of it.

Now he was in the bed, still asleep but healing. Hopefully, he would wake up soon.

I closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath. His scent was mixed with the antiseptic and medicinal smells of the hospital, the ones that always sent me into a spiral of depressive thoughts. But his scent was still there, still stronger than those other smells, keeping me in the present and not letting me return to that dark place from twelve years ago.

“Just a week ago, our roles were switched.”

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