Page 58 of Fated to the Wolf Prince

“We could make Jasline disappear. Ifshedoesn’t show for the challenge, it’s considered an immediate forfeit.”

I cringed briefly at the thought. It was dishonorable, and that rubbed my fur the wrong way. But how honorable was it to challenge a fated mate for bonding rites?

“I know, I don’t like it either.”

Apparently, I’d spoken aloud.

“But it’s the only thing I’ve got that doesn’t result in bloodshed. Tricky thing is, though,youcan’t be involved. If you—as the object of the challenge—are found tampering with the results, it also results in forfeiture. Of whichever opponent you tried to help. Meaning, you’d end up mated to Jasline, and Brielle wouldn’t even have a chance to stop it.”

My hackles rose, and my wolf howled his distaste in my mind.

“Let’s keep it in our back pockets. We have a week before the challenge. Maybe we can find something—an exception in the rules or some way to call off a challenge in the case of a fated mate bond.”

“I’ll make it top priority, Alpha.”

I nodded and began scraping the splinters out of my forearms as we walked out of the barn, shoulder to shoulder.

A week wasn’t much time to deal with a problem of this magnitude, but one thing was for sure. At the end of it, I wouldn’t be mating anyone except Brielle, no matter what the old laws said.

THIRTY-SIX

Brielle

Dear Goddess, what have I gotten myself into?Flat on my back, I stared up at the undersides of tree limbs overhead, trying to suck in a wheezing breath. Unfortunately, my lungs had decided that now was the ideal moment to take a vacation.

My life had taken a serious left turn since that one little note arrived announcing the mandatory pack gathering. Back then, I’d been happy and safe, if a little overly timid, tucked in my little office-slash-lab researching wolf shifter maladies and genetics. Trying to solve my mother’s case.Mycase.

No one had ever tried to tear me limb from limb back then. And I couldn’t lie, in that moment, I might have given anything to go back to that life. That perceived safety.

But had I really been safe? Had I really been happy? There was nothing wrong with my life, but this disease had still been coming for me. And I hadn’t had a mate, that soul-deep connection that burned in my chest, after spending two days away from Kane. Back then, I hadn’t known what I was missing, but now I felt the ache of his absence, and my wolf sulked in the back of my mind.

“Any time now, princess. You only have five days left, and we can’t afford for you to spend them on your back. You’ve got an alpha for that, right? Is he not giving you enough attention?”

Anger rose like a tidal wave surging through me at Gael’s taunts. He could go screw himself if he thought it was funny to pick on the fact that Kane and I weren’t speaking—let alone doing anything that involved being on my back—at the moment.

I levered myself up with one elbow, lungs burning, to give him a pissed-off glare. “Go. Screw. ’Rself.” I huffed and puffed, but the words still had no real venom. Venom required oxygen, which I was severely lacking.

Collapsing back to the earth, I screwed my eyes shut. This was hopeless. Gael was more likely to break my will to live than get me ready to face Jasline in the five days we had left. The first forty-eight hours had resulted in plenty of bruises, chafing, and intense muscle soreness… but no measurable increase in skill. I was a doctor, not a fighter. If only I weren’t too exhausted every night to treat myself for my thousand aches and pains beyond taking a few burdock root capsules.

“You know, that’s a real childish thing to taunt her with,” Leigh snapped at Gael. “You know as well as the rest of us that this has caused a rift between the two of them. You could at least have some sensitivity.”

Shay’s face appeared above mine a split second before she hoisted me up by the armpits. “There you go. Next time, come in lower, okay? You’re getting close to a takedown.”

I grunted, still unable to talk. I wasn’t so injured, though, that I didn’t get an eyeful of Gael and Leigh facing offagain. The two were like angry, magnetized hornets. They couldn’t stay away, yet all they wanted to do was sting, sting, sting.

Or have sex. It was a fine line.

“You think I’m blind?Sensitivityisn’t going to get her mad enough to get up and go another ten rounds.Sensitivitywon’t keep your BFF alive. You realize her being the last one standing at the end of this is more important than her feelings, right?”

She lifted her hands off her hips to gesture angrily. “Of course I do! But you can motivate her without poking at the biggest sore spot—”

“I’ll tell you what—if you think you know how to motivate someone so well, why don’t you show me how it’s done? Get her to last more than sixty seconds and I won’t say another word about her mate for the rest of our days of training.”

“Maybe I will. You better be prepared to keep your end of the bargain, though, because I know my girl.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then accusingly back at his.

Unimpressed, he tightly crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to work her magic.

Much as I hated to let one of my besties down, I didn’t see how she planned to keep me in the ring any longer. Shay was a friggin’ girl beast, and sixty seconds was a generous estimate for how long I was lasting. We hadn’t tried shifting to fight yet, since that could potentially knock me on my butt for days that I didn’t have to recover.

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