Page 37 of Silver Claw

He would do that.

And I could focus.

But that slight hesitation gave Voss, in an awful way, the upper hand. He was no longer playing, and right at the end of Sam’s promise, the wolf went for the very thing I’d known he’d go after.

The blade.

He tried to slice my hand off with his razor claws to get it, and he very nearly succeeded. He raked his claws over my face, and as I was blinded by my own blood, he used his other claws to try to get to my blade. And he didn’t care if he had to take my hand with it.

I dropped the blade, but even half-blind and with fire eating the wound of my forearm, I shifted.

I shifted to my wolf, because scrambling around looking for my blade or even calling it to me was something I simply had no time to do. I should fight another shifted alpha as my wolf, anyway.

My wolf, she was ecstatic.

One of my people would retrieve my blade. They knew what it meant to me.

As I had no time to look for the blade, neither did Voss.

And wolf against wolf, we began to fight in earnest.

The Iron Fang alpha was a huge, meaty man with messy, thick hair, looking like someone who might have lived in another world, in another time. His wolf looked like him. Three times my size, meaner than a rabid dog, and not for one second believing a small silver wolf could take him on.

His wolf was bigger than mine, but my rage…

It was bigger than anything.

We collided in the air, and yeah, it hurt me. It hurt me a lot. But it hurt him as well. I saw the flash of surprise and pain in his eyes.

I snarled, going for his throat and his belly, the two most vulnerable parts, while trying at the same time to protect mine from him. We fought for what felt like hours, a savage, brutal battle, and I wasn’t really sure how I was still fighting.

Maybe it was sheer hatred that kept me going.

I could not lose this fight. I could not.

Not with my magic gone, when I—and everyone else—thought I might be weaker, might be less. No. I couldn’t lose.

I wouldn’t back down, either. I’d win the battle, or I’d die.

Simple as that.

No one else was fighting now. They stood on separate sides, Voss’s wolves on one and Jared’s wolves on the other, watching the alphas battle it out, none of them really sure what would happen after.

Iknew.

Whether I died or not, Voss was finished. A lot of his wolves were already dead. He’d brought what looked like half his pack with him, but it didn’t matter.

I was no longer feeling anything. No pain, no fear, no tormented thoughts or worry over those I loved.

And in the end, when I found his throat, finally, and forced my claws through his thick fur to the flesh below, he was the one who ended the awful fight. He was the one who surrendered.

As he admitted defeat, there before his people and mine, I still would have killed him if I’d had the strength. But I would let him believe I was showing him mercy.

I saw something in his eyes, but the raging black brain of my wolf wasn’t sure what it was. Not then.

He backed up, limping and growling, then wheeled away, slinging blood as he went. The number of his wolves had diminished to barely more than a dozen, and when they followed him, no one stopped them.

He could go back to Colorado and tend his own pack, if Jared would allow it.