Page 12 of For Her, He Falls

I circle him warily, my eyes never leaving his. He snarls, baring his teeth in a show of dominance, but I refuse to back down. He'll expect me to watch him, to wait and defend myself once he attacks first. But the memory of my mate's words echoes in my head:

I am petals and poison, and a flower cannot fail.

I lunge.

Viktor dodges me, but he's too slow. He wasn't prepared for me to make the first move, and my claws tear at the flesh on his shoulder.

My training kicks in as muscles go taut and my mind races. But Amara showed me how to fight in human form. I hadn't manifested my wolf when she taught me to defend herself. All the moves and strategies flash behind my eyes, trying to convert them into a different body, but I don't have the time to think before I act.

Viktor retaliates, his jaws snapping shut just inches from my throat. I leap to the side, narrowly avoiding his attack, but he is quick to recover this time. The initial shock has worn off, and his eyes narrow on me with deadly precision.

Amara's lessons weren't just about technique. It's instinct. I have to use my momentum with intention. When I can't use my fists, use my head. Be smarter and faster.

Viktor spins around and comes at me again, his teeth flashing in the daylight. It's too bright out. It feels like it should be dark. There should be smoke or thunder or some sign that the world as I know it is coming to an end.

But today is not about me.

I remember Amara's agonized howl on the other side of the gate. Mark's bloody features and the pain behind his hardened gaze when I saw him in the keep. Nico's shaky voice, breathless and ragged with fear and exhaustion. The way Lucy smiled in spite of her fear and regret before the battle began. Helena abandoning her healing robes for battle armor. Vicious gashes across my father's chest, just over his heart, bleeding before he vanished from the bridge. My mother, hanging dirty, bruised, and unconscious in his arms. The carnage I flew over on my way here, nightwalkers, Banes, and Rovers alike, their bodies wracked with pain as their wounds bleed out onto the battlefield. The look on Triststan's face before I flew off, and the certainty that even now he is fighting his way toward me.

I was the daughter of moonlight and monsters, born of bane and betrayal. I am a child of starlight and shadow, covered in the scars of a survivor. I will be the avenger of the innocent.

This is no time to pace myself.

I leap toward Viktor again, and I tackle him, but my teeth clamp on empty air, the force of it rattling in my skull. He dodges my bite as I grapple him. Viktor knocks me to the ground, pinning me down with his massive paw. I writhe against him. We're locked in a fierce struggle, dodging and striking, biting and bleeding. He has me trapped, and I can feel the weight of his body pressing down on me.

I am a feather fighting a brick. I do not bend or break.

With a burst of strength, I shove him back, my claws slicing across his underside, shredding through fur and skin and the warmth underneath. I roll over him, pinning him down just as he had done to me.

I can kill him. I should kill him after everything he's done. I should make him pay. I should bite out his heart. I'm going to-

My murderous thoughts are silenced by a familiar scent, and it shakes me out of the violent trance. I let my senses unfocus, yanking my tunnel vision away from Viktor long enough to detect a commotion to my left, beyond the wolves surrounding us. When I turn to look, the sight sucks the air out of my lungs.

Tristan is covered in blood. He struggles against four warriors at once, limping through the fight. He battled his way through the bridge, almost all the way across.

But there's no more fight left in him.

Chapter Eight

Tristan

'Stop!' the girl snaps at Viktor and anyone else who can hear her, screaming the word through the mindlink. She looks like a wrathful spirit, her silky white fur covered in the blood of her enemies, her violet eyes almost glowing with intensity.

'Let him go. Let Tristan pass, or I swear by the goddess I'll kill your Alpha,' she threatens, her claws digging into Viktor, who lay helpless and wounded beneath her.

She looks down at her uncle, and while everything inside of me screams to keep going and reach her, I hesitate. There is such emotion in her gaze, such strength in her words. She has to make this choice for herself. She needs to be the one to finish this.

'Yield,' she hisses at Viktor, her voice dangerously low with a sort of threatening command that I did not know she possessed.

Viktor bares his teeth up at her but does not move, not with his insides bleeding under the weight of her as she's poised to tear out his throat.

'Get it over with, bitch.'

But something shifts in her eyes, and I see the change happening within her. It's not an obvious transformation, like when she first manifested that stunning wolf or when she burst into a cloud of moonlight-colored bats. It's subtle and silent, but I sense the strength it takes for her to finally let go.

She will not kill a man while he's down and bleeding. She won't end Viktor, no matter how much he deserves it. She is a kinder soul than I am.

This man robbed my mate of her childhood. He denied her a name, denied her family, and any sort of decency. He broke things that will never be whole again.

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