Page 13 of Betrayed By the Alpha Wolf

With that, the bank of black monitors I’d seen before clicked on. The images they displayed were security footage-style shots of the inside of the maze. They weren’t the best angles, and everything was in black and white but it was better than nothing.

Grayson stood next to Choal on a starting line, and I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to care how it went. I didn’t want to be stuck here thinking about everything that might happen and what I might need to do to patch Grayson up. I was a healer, for heaven’s sake, and it would be me everyone turned to if something went wrong.

“Our potential Alphas! Begin!”

Aspen dropped his hand in a quick slash, and Grayson and Choal sprinted forward into the maze. The crowd cheered, but I was frozen in my seat, silent. On the screen, I could see Grayson dodge to the left and take a long tunnel down to a dead-end. He needed to double back but afterward found the correct passage to push deeper into the maze.

I couldn’t see any beasts in this section of the maze, at least not on camera. It looked like it had been set up so that the candidates had to get into the woods. That’s where they’d face the most significant challenges.

As Grayson ran forward, his foot hit a tile that shifted down, tripping him and forcing him to duck into a roll. As he did, a massive trunk that had been hoisted up on one of the maze’s few arches swung forward.

The thick, blunt end nearly smashed into Grayson’s ribs, and I flinched back, unable to stop myself. The crowd hissed and then cheered again as he dodged out of the way, and I whipped my attention back to the screens.

I can’t watch this. Christ, he’s going to be crushed or something.

Searching the screen for Choal, I found the other wolf rushing down an angled corridor in the maze on the opposite side of the space. He’d run in the other direction from Grayson, which was smart. He didn’t want to lead his competition to the correct path.

He’d hit his own trouble, however, and Choal was tripping over what I had to guess was a thin line pulled tight across the hall. He pitched forward, ass over the tea kettle, but he popped up, looking hardly worse for wear.

Tripping wasn’t fun, obviously, but both the potential Alphas looked like they were handling the few bumps and bruises they’d acquired well enough.

I really wished I could say the same.

Watching Grayson made my guts churn, my skin flushing with anxiety and restless energy. All I wanted was to go back to Kaiden’s house and be left alone.

But I couldn’t.

As the two wolves barreled through the maze, they each got closer and closer to the section that led out into the forest. I could see it waiting there on a screen near the top of Aspen’s setup.

Come on, Grayson. Just get this thing over with so we can get home.

At once, Choal and Grayson’s paths converged, and they crashed into each other as they both sprinted for the wooden arch in front of them. They tumbled, but when Grayson got out of the skirmish to run for the forest, Choal reached out and snagged his leg, yanking him down to the ground.

He hit with a solid thump, and the people around me groaned in sympathetic pain. Grayson kicked back at Choal, an expression on his face that was barely readable on the insignificant screens. It sort of looked like an expression of surprise, like Grayson had expected Choal to fight fair, and I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, come on. What did you expect.”

Kit leaned over toward me. “Huh?”

“He thought that Choal was going to play nice. Dumb mistake.”

She hummed, considering, and then turned back to me. “Why don’t they shift?”

I sighed, shaking my head before I just let it hang down.

“Because we’re not always as useful in a shift. Wolves are faster, yes, but they don’t know what types of traps they’re going to face. Being in their human form might be better.”

When I looked back over at Kit, she was eyeing the screen. I suddenly remembered this was her brother I was talking about, and my stomach clenched. Everything would be so much easier if I didn’t know her and if she didn’t know Grayson. But here we were, both nervous about this outcome for unrelated reasons.

“It’ll be fine, Kit. Grayson has a way of sidestepping the trouble he’s gotten himself into.”

She looked over with a nervous smile and then took my hand, her attention going back to the screens.

I didn’t want to feel sorry for her. I didn’t want to feel worked up and useless because I couldn’t help Grayson, which, of course, I didn’t want to be doing either.

Wanting to help him is not good, Kenz. Stop it.

But my wolf howled in my head, and that pull in my blood started to pick up. I reached into the pocket of my jeans—black and sleek on my legs—and pulled out one of my contraband pills. It was easy enough to fish it out and put it in my mouth, given how distracted everyone was.

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