She held her hand up as she backed up to the ring of rope. When her back hit it, her hand clenched. She jerked it down to her hip in one sharp movement.
Julius sprang with a growl that was half human, half animal. His body shifted into tiger form as he lunged through the air at Marco. But Marco was prepared. He shifted and dashed low under the larger cat, spinning to scratch at the tiger’s belly as he slid out of reach. Julius roared. Four thin red lines formed against his fur.
“First blood!” someone in the audience hollered. Someone else let out a whoop. I assumed that was good for Marco. My hands had closed around the rope in front me, the coarse fibers digging into my skin.
“Wow,” Kylie murmured. “They really aren’t playing around.”
No, they weren’t. Not at all. Julius whirled around, still plenty fast despite his size. My gut sank, seeing just how much bigger he was than Marco now. The tiger had to be at least twice as brawny as the jaguar, taller and longer and more solidly built. If he pinned Marco even for a second...
That was obviously Julius’s intention. He leapt at Marco again, swinging a paw as if to cuff his alpha. Marco dodged to the side, not quite in time. The tiger’s claws raked over his haunch. He didn’t make a sound, but I saw his lips curl back in pain. I gripped the rope tighter.
“So... how far exactly do they go?” Kylie said in a smaller voice than before. “How do we decide when someone’s won?”
“When one of them can’t get back up,” West muttered.
I swallowed hard. Murmurs were rippling through the crowd again. Were they upset that Marco hadn’t really fought back yet?
He must have been working up to it. Feeling out his opponent’s style before he took the offensive. Before Julius could make another lunge, Marco dashed at him with a yowl. The tiger lurched forward to try to batter the jaguar into submission, but that was exactly what Marco had expected. At the last second, he darted around the bigger cat and lashed out at Julius’s belly again.
The tiger was moving forward with too much momentum to dodge. Marco’s claws opened a deep gash in Julius’s side.
A nice bluff. Of course, if Marco was going to win here, he had to put on a front, prey on the larger shifter’s confidence. That was the cunning his kin were supposed to be known for. And none so much as their alpha.
It wasn’t so different from how he’d bluffed about his attitude toward me to his kin, put on a front of seeing me as nothing more than a means to an end. But I knew with every thud of my pulse that he’d used those words the same way he’d made that mad dash. A distraction, a show of force, to open up the way to what he really wanted. When this kind of hostility was what he’d had to face, month by month, I wasn’t sure I could even blame him anymore.
Julius whipped around, his yellow eyes flashing. Marco sprang nimbly out of the way. But the tiger didn’t seem slowed down by the gouge over his ribs. He hurtled after the jaguar like a Mack trunk, and Marco couldn’t keep out of the way quite fast enough. The larger shifter bowled him over.
I flinched, my heart thumping so fast I thought it would explode from my chest. A scream caught in my chest. No! Not my alpha. Not my mate.
Nate set his hand over mine, squeezing my fingers, but the contact barely registered. I couldn’t pull my eyes from the fight.
Marco rolled onto his back, all four sets of claws scraping at the tiger’s hide. Julius smacked him in the head and snapped at his neck, but the jaguar twisted out of the way and the last second. He sank his teeth into the tiger’s foreleg. When Julius flinched, Marco shot out from under him. He flung himself toward one of the trees, ricocheted off the trunk, and slammed into the tiger’s side right where he’d clawed him before.
Julius let out a snarl that was as much pain as anger. He charged after Marco, clearly aiming to pummel him to the ground again. Marco slipped around him, but he wasn’t moving quite as fast now. Blood dripped from where the bigger cat had clawed his shoulder and haunches.
“Geez,” Kylie said, even more faintly. “They’re really taking this to the end, aren’t they?”
The fear in her voice wrenched at me, as much as seeing Marco battered and bloody did. Every nerve in my body was shrieking at me to intervene, to protect my mate. I held myself back by the barest of threads. If I stepped in, if I messed up this challenge somehow, the victory might go to Julius by default.
I wouldn’t let him kill Marco. Not if it came to that. I knew that much right down to my bones.
Marco picked up his speed again despite his wounds. He raced around Julius, biting and clawing at the tiger’s legs at every opening, leading the tiger in a whirling chase around the arena. Julius pounded after him. With each turn, his orange and black fur darkened with more streaks of blood.
“All right! Let’s end this!” someone hollered from the crowd. I didn’t know which of the shifters he was supporting.
For a moment it seemed like Marco was gaining the upper hand. Then his pace started to lag. He nipped the tiger’s hind leg and barely scrambled out of the way of Julius’s smack. But the tiger kept coming, his lips curled back over his huge fangs. The jaguar stumbled, and Julius pounced. Marco tumbled under him.
A cry broke from my throat then. My hands flinched where I was gripping the rope. Aaron’s arm came around me, holding me steady as Nate held onto me too.
Marco lay, his black-furred body limp, under the tiger’s huge form. Julius raised his head with a victory roar—and the jaguar leapt up. Marco caught the tiger by the neck, sinking his teeth in deep around the most tender point of his opponent’s throat. At the same time, he kicked out at one of Julius’s legs.
All his scratches and bites and the strain of running around the arena must have weakened the tiger’s muscles. The bigger cat toppled over, Marco rolling with him. The jaguar came to rest poised on Julius’s vulnerable chest. He raked his claws over the paler fur there and yanked at the tiger’s throat.
Julius’s eyes rolled back. He heaved at the ground, but Marco held on tight, managing to keep him pinned.
My breath had stopped in my lungs. I let it out in a rush. A cheer rose up around the ring. “Marco! The alpha wins!”
Marco sank his teeth even deeper with a low growl of warning that was almost a question. The tiger’s head swayed as if he couldn’t quite find the will to keep it off the ground. Then Julius slumped down, his body sagging. The shift rippled through him. Marco sprang off as the tiger turned back into a man.
The cheers grew louder, the crowd whooping and clapping hands. A few of the waiting attendants darted into the arena to tend to the unconscious Julius’s wounds. And to their alpha. Marco listed a bit to one side, blood smearing the grass under his paws—and plenty of it was his own. He pushed off the ground and shifted back into his human form, raising his hand in victory.
The tension in me broke, relief rolling through me. I raised my voice with a cheer of my own.
Chapter 18
Nate