Page 69 of When Two Worlds Collide

We grapple like the wolves we trained to be—no wasted movement, no energy spent on display. Just brutal efficiency as we seek victory.

He breaks my nose with an elbow strike. I dislocate his shoulder in return. We paint the circle with our blood, neither yielding ground.

The incomplete bond makes it worse. Where I should draw strength from my mate, I find only echoing pain. Each blow reverberates through our connection, weakening us both.

Marcus senses it. “She makes you weak,” he pants, circling for another attack. “Can’t you feel it? The bond draining you?”

“The bond...” I dodge his strike, counter with my own. “The bond makes me more than muscle and fury.”

“Pretty words.” He catches my arm, uses my momentum to throw me. “Did she teach you those?”

I hit the ground hard and roll to avoid his follow-up. I come up inside his guard, driving my shoulder into his ribs. I hear something crack.

“She taught me...” I grab his throat and force him down. “That strength comes in many forms.”

We roll across the circle, each seeking the final hold. But I know Marcus’s patterns too, and I have something he doesn’t—desperation. Not just for victory, but for the future it represents.

When he leaves an opening, minute but there, I take it. My arm locks around his throat from behind, cutting off blood flow. He struggles, claws at my hold, but I’ve anchored it properly.

“Yield,” I whisper against his ear. “Please, brother. Yield.”

He fights until consciousness fades, until his body goes limp. Only then does his hand tap three times against my arm—submission.

I release him immediately, catching his weight as he gasps for air. For a moment, we remain there, alpha and former beta, brothers torn apart by changing worlds.

“The challenges are met,” Elder Riva declares. “Zane Blackthorn remains Alpha of the Shadow Wolf clan.”

But victory feels hollow as Marcus pushes away from me, unable to meet my eyes. He rises unsteadily, facing the pack.

“I invoke the right of exile,” he says, voice rough. “I cannot follow an alpha who chooses civilization over wild ways.”

My chest tightens. “Marcus?—”

“It’s done.” He finally looks at me, and I see tears mixing with blood on his face. “May you find wisdom in your choice, Zane. May it be worth what you’ve sacrificed.”

Seven wolves step forward to join him—not all who supported the challenge, but enough. They file past me toward the forest’s edge, each meeting my eyes briefly before looking away.

A third of my fighting force. Gone.

I stand alone in the circle as they disappear into darkness, body screaming with wounds, bond aching with incompletion, heart breaking for brotherhood severed.

Then Ember is there.

She enters the circle—technically forbidden until the ritual fully ends—and catches me as my knees buckle. Her arms wrap around me, holding my weight, sharing my pain through our damaged connection.

“You won,” she whispers.

“Did I?” I look around at my depleted pack, at the blood-soaked sacred ground, at the space where Marcus should stand. “What did I win?”

“The future,” she says fiercely. “The chance to build something new. Something neither fully wild nor civilized but stronger for being both.”

Elder Riva approaches, her ancient eyes unreadable. “The pack has witnessed. The challenge is settled. But Alpha...” She pauses, looking between us. “The bond remains incomplete. It weakens you both.”

“Tomorrow,” I promise, though standing seems impossible now. “We’ll finish what was interrupted.”

If Ridge Stormcrow gives us that long. If the council honors their word. If my remaining pack can accept what we’re becoming.

Too many ifs.

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