Page 15 of In Your Eyes
“I’m the Alpha’s mate. No matter what the writings say, my place is by his side,” she said when I informed her that her presence wasn’t required under pack law.
Figuring that was one of those unwritten cultural norms my father was forever trying to teach me, I accepted her explanation without further argument. I would have pushed harder if I had thought my father could be truly hurt in the battle. As it was, I knew Dirk Keller, and even though he was only a few years older than my father—forty-seven to my father’s forty-four—he wasn’t as tall, wasn’t as strong, wasn’t as smart, and wasn’t as skilled. In other words, he was no match for my father.
After accounting for my mother and me, three spots remained for our side. My father filled them with his inner circle, the men who had been his friends since childhood and who still remained his closest confidants—Roger Huntsworth, Walter Clemson, and George Griffin. The battle ring was placed on the intersection between the two packs, with five feet in Miancarem’s territory and the other five feet on Yafenack land. We arrived at sunset and remained beside the half of the ring on our territory, awaiting the moment when the sun completely left the sky and the battle would begin.
Everything was exactly as I’d read a challenge would be, with one exception: the presumptive Alpha of Miancarem wasn’t there. Three times I’d counted the number of people on the Miancarem side, and three times I’d reached the number five despite the fact that Korban Keller wasn’t present. His mother had passed when he was a child and his father had never remarried, so there wasn’t a wife or other children to support the Alpha. My knowledge of the Keller clan was limited to information directly related to Korban, which meant I didn’t know what other kin Dirk had. Based on scent, I suspected at least one of the five men he brought to the challenge was related to him. The scent was close enough to Dirk’s that I suspected he was Dirk’s brother.
But having a member of Dirk’s family present didn’t explain Korban’s absence. His father was embarking on a fight to the death. That alone was reason for his attendance. Aside from that, he was the presumptive Alpha of the Miancarem pack, which meant he would have to step into the ring to defend his position when my father won the fight. If Korban was out of the picture, my father would be the only person with a claim to lead the Miancarem pack.
No matter how many times I rolled it over in my mind, I couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for Korban to miss such an important event. I considered the possibility that he had taken ill, which made my chest tighten inexplicably, but I quickly regained my breath when I remembered that Dirk Keller was the one who had issued the challenge. There was nothing special about that crisp October evening, nothing that would warrant calling an immediate challenge unless all the parties were in optimal health. So surely Korban wasn’t sick.
Certain he was on his way and would switch places with one of the other witnesses on the Miancarem side at any moment, I watched for him. Wondering about Korban Keller was an effective distraction while we stood and waited for the fight to start, but once the council member started talking, I turned my full attention to the battle.
“We’re here tonight because the Alpha of the Miancarem pack, Dirk Keller, challenged the Alpha of the Yafenack pack, Tom Goodwin. The battle will start in your human forms and last ten minutes before switching to your wolf forms. This will continue every ten minutes. I will give you a warning thirty seconds in advance of the ten-minute mark, at which point you can shift forms. I will notify you again at the ten-minute mark and then when thirty seconds have passed. If you fail to complete your shift by thirty seconds after the ten-minute mark, you will be automatically disqualified and lose the challenge.” Heath Farbis paused and looked at my father and Dirk before continuing. “You must remain completely inside the ring at all times. If you find any part of your body outside the ring, you must immediately return to the ring or you will be disqualified. Are there any questions before we begin?”
No Alpha with an ounce of intelligence would have shown up to the challenge without knowing the basic rules. Asking a question at that point would have shown weakness, which neither challenger could risk, so it was no surprise that both Dirk and my father remained quiet. I wasn’t worried. The council member’s explanation matched my understanding of the rules surrounding a challenge, and so, if nothing else, I had prepared my father well on that front.
“With no questions spoken, we’re ready to begin.” The council member stretched his arm out and gestured to the circle. “Both challengers may now enter the ring.”
My father stripped out of his clothes and stepped over the rocks delineating the battle ring. He remained on the Yafenack side and looked his competitor over. Dirk Keller did the same on the Miancarem side. Comparing the two men based on their physical appearances made me wonder how Dirk could think he stood a chance against my taller, stronger father. The people around me relaxed, no doubt having made the same assessment and feeling confident our Alpha would prevail.
“The first ten-minute round starts… now!” Heath Farbis said.
Knowing the rules of a challenge didn’t mean I had any idea how the people in the ring would actually proceed. I hadn’t had enough time to give it much thought, so I didn’t have a vision in my head of how the fight would go minute to minute, but I was surprised by the mild reaction at the beginning. It was somewhat anticlimactic, hearing the shout that signaled the start of the most important event I would ever witness and then… nothing.
My father and Dirk continued staring at one another, their expressions unchanged. Neither man leaped forward or growled; neither made a move to get closer to the other. Instead, they remained deathly quiet and slowly circled the ring, their gazes locked together.
“He’s going to be okay,” my mother whispered to nobody in particular.
“Yes,” I replied distractedly as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
My father wasn’t violent, short-tempered, or easy to inflame. Because of that, quietly watching Dirk rather than jumping into combat made sense. What I couldn’t understand was Dirk’s reaction.
For years Dirk Keller had been quick to blame my father for the problems he had created within his own pack. He was disrespectful and thoughtless. Plus, he had issued the challenge. With what I knew about Dirk, I would have expected him to throw the first punch or least the first verbal barb.
And yet he didn’t do either of those things. The clock ticked and nobody got within fist’s reach of each other. I wasn’t the only person confused by the direction the battle was taking. The brush on the forest floor rustled as the men around me squirmed uncomfortably. One of them whispered, “What are they doing?” and I was certain the others were wondering the same thing.
We weren’t the only ones who recognized the oddness of the situation. My father’s expression had gone from intense to confused. He was still watching Dirk, still holding a stance ready to defend any attack, but his eyebrows were knitted slightly closer together, his lips were pressed a smidge tighter, and his head was tilted a hair to the side.
Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but Dirk’s behavior was off. He wasn’t acting like himself or even like what I would have expected of any Alpha who issued a challenge. I wondered if he was employing a complex fighting strategy and internally kicked myself for never having thought of studying something like that. An Alpha challenge was unheard of in modern times, but that wasn’t an excuse for being unprepared. I had learned all aspects of shifter culture and rules; I should have also taken the time to learn about the best way to implement them.
I was about thigh-deep in internal reprimands when sudden movement in the ring stole my focus. My father was rushing across the circle, aiming for Dirk. Though I hadn’t expected that turn of events, I sighed in relief, certain it meant he had figured out Dirk’s strategy even when I couldn’t.
From the first strike, there was no doubt about which shifter was stronger. Dirk widened his eyes in surprise and threw up his hands in an attempt to defend himself, but he didn’t succeed. My father pushed past his outstretched arms, landed a perfect right hook on his jaw, and then grasped his throat, squeezing tightly as he raised the weaker man off the ground.
His face turning darker, Dirk clawed at my father’s arms and wrists, trying to loosen the grip cutting off his air supply. He flailed his legs, making occasional contact with my father’s thighs and knees. The kicks did nothing but elicit an occasional grunt from my father. He held firm, occasionally shaking the other Alpha like he would an animal he hunted in wolf form.
Just as Dirk was about to crumple into unconsciousness, he seemed to gather all his remaining strength, and then he swung hard. I doubted he had the skill or wherewithal to aim well, but he got lucky and hit my father directly on his throat. Whether it was the unexpected pain or having his breath cut off, I didn’t know, but my father must have relaxed his grip because Dirk managed to slip through his fingers.
After landing on the ground, the man gasped for air for less than a second before he shook his head, blinked rapidly, and darted his gaze around. My father coughed for a few moments, and that was all the time Dirk needed to identify the Miancarem half of the circle. He started scurrying backward, his backside dragging on the leaf-covered ground.
“Thirty seconds before the ten-minute mark,” the council member said, pitching his voice to ensure he’d be heard.
My father wasted no time, immediately shifting into his wolf form. I would have expected Dirk to do the same, but instead, he continued dragging himself further toward the edge of the ring, where his pack members were crouched low to the ground. I hoped he was trying to get away and that he wouldn’t stop until he left the ring entirely, which would disqualify him and end the battle without my father having to live with the guilt of killing him. It would be the perfect outcome.
“Ten minutes,” the council member said. “You must shift into your wolf form immediately.”
Dirk still hadn’t shifted. He had thirty seconds left before he’d be disqualified for an entirely different reason than leaving the battle ring. He had reached the edge of the ring, and I was hopeful he would cross over, but suddenly he stopped, presumably remembering his pride and changing his mind.
