Page 68 of The Moonborn's Curse

"About time someone taught her a lesson."

"She's too proud."

"Watch—Hagan will break her."

Hagan didn't hold back.

He came at her fast, striking like a storm—sharp, brutal, relentless. Seren dodged, blocked, and landed a few precise hits that might've made someone else stumble, but Hagan absorbed them like they were nothing.

He was stronger.

He was a wolf.

And his anger boiled over into something feral the longer she stayed standing.

But Seren—

She refused to yield.

They moved around each other in a blur of motion—kicks, elbows, sweeps. Her heel caught his thigh. His shoulder slammed into hers. She ducked under a strike and hooked behind his knee, almost bringing him down—almost.

Every time they collided, something sparked.

A current, electric and confusing, where skin slid against skin.

A pulse that distracted him, made him feel like something inside him was unfurling.

The press of her palm against his chest.

Her fingers brushing his forearm during a block.

Her breath, ragged and close. Her scent like night-blooming jasmine.

It wasn't supposed to feel like this.

It threw him off.

As they circled, she kept her stormy gaze sharp, her breathing steady, watching more than just his face.

And then—she saw it.

A slight hesitation in his movement.

A faint limp, almost invisible to anyone else.

He was favouring his right leg.

She didn't hesitate.

She feinted left, then darted in low, slamming her shin into the side of his weakened leg, following up with a swift push kick to his abdomen that sent him stumbling back.

That just made him angrier.

So, he drove harder.

Faster.

More savage.

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