Page 11 of Ruthless Alpha
“No honor on the battlefield,” someone called from the back.
“No honor on the battlefield,” I confirmed. “No one’s going to wait for you. They see a chance, they’ll go for the throat.”
Tanner responded exactly as I predicted: by coming at me from behind. I might have been looking out toward the others, but all my other senses were trained on Tanner behind me. I heard his exhale as he stood up straight, felt the vibrations of his feet hitting the floor, and the slight shift of the air. Twisting around, I grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted it hard. Something gave a wetcrack,and Tanner screamed at the same time. A collective hiss came from the assembled fighters.
“What was Tanner’s second mistake?” I bellowed over the noise.
“Left himself open.” That was Trent. He was a good kid, and he was right.
“Attacking recklessly gives your opponent an advantage,” I said. Tanner was still on his feet, leaning over to cradle his left arm.
“You still going?” I asked him, and he gritted his teeth.
“Yeah,” he said. Idiot.
“Alright.” My right hook found his jaw. Blood sprayed onto the floor of the ring, hitting a young fighter who was leaning against the ropes. “Tanner’s third mistake, anyone?”
“Not protecting his injured side,” answered Damien, one of my Betas, looking amused from where he was leaning on one of the corner posts.
“Correct. Tanner, you’re out. Stay here and watch the others—maybe you’ll learn something—and then you can go to the med building.”
Tanner nodded weakly, struggling to keep his balance as he ducked down to pass between the ropes. No one helped him. On any other day, he’d have been helped down like a hero for staying upright through that beating, but no one wanted to risk my ire.
“Chase, you’re up,” I announced. To his credit, Chase didn’t hesitate before jumping over the ropes and into the ring.
“You learn from Tanner’s mistakes?” I asked him, and he nodded.
“Good.”
I lost count of the fights pretty quickly after that. Rather than being satisfying, my easy victory over Tanner left me chomping at the bit, needing something to really sink my teethinto. Chase was no better: he was out cold in under a minute, without me ever needing to shift. After that, a few of the old hands tried their luck. They were better. It was easy to get lost in the rhythm of swing, dodge, kick, and duck, man and wolf becoming one as I shifted for a bite before returning to human form. Every shift was a risk, and when someone finally got me back, the adrenaline coursed through me like a drug.
This was what I was born for. The rush and the thrill and the sting of every blow only pumped me up harder, higher—I was so concentrated on what came next and how my opponent moved that every thought of the morning’s argument and my problematic young wife melted from my mind. I was no longer a creature of thought, only instinct that drove me to keep going, keep winning, keep showing this Pack that I was strong, that I deserved to be their leader.
I barely even registered when someone called out to me from the door.
“Alpha.”
I landed a knee to the stomach.
“Alpha!”
An elbow to the back of the neck.
“Alpha!”
Knee to the nose, and my latest opponent—a Beta wannabe who was never going to make rank at this rate—slumped to the floor.
“What?” I snapped.
It took a long few seconds for the haze in my mind to clear enough to process what I was seeing: one of my Betas, Cole, was standing in the doorway, looking deeply relieved he was on patrol duty that morning, but I barely spared him a glance. Rosiestood next to him, held in place by a firm hand around her upper arm, clutching a box in her hands. She looked nothing short of terrified, her eyes darting from one injured fighter to another, taking in their bloodied mouths and knuckles, the bruising already showing on their ribs and stomachs and, in Tanner’s case, all across his shoulder and down toward his elbow.
“I found her wandering through the male dormitories,” said Cole, and my stomach lurched. If anyone but him had found her—I couldn’t stand to think about it. She was wearing her dress from the previous day, its skirt short, its neckline scooped low, and there wasn’t a male Ensign who could have ignored her. It was my fault she was here. I hadn’t told her that females shouldn’t travel alone on Ensign, hadn’t even considered she might try to leave the house. Fuck—she looked so frightened, but there was nothing I could do to comfort her now. Every eye—or at least the ones that weren’t swollen shut—was on me; kindness would be seen as weakness. Any tenderness would make her a target.
“What are you doing here?” I asked bluntly, wiping away a trickle of blood as it ran out of my nose. Rosie said nothing, her eyes once again trained on the floor.
“I’m talking to you, Rosie.” My tone was hard and irritated, making her flinch at the sound of it, but I couldn’t treat her differently than I would any other interruption.
“I—I—” she stammered, “You didn’t take anything with you when you left this morning, so I—I brought you a lunch. Um—and there are some cookies in there, too.”
