Page 14 of The Alpha's Temptation

He waited, as if he wanted me to surrender. But if I surrendered, I’d lose.

So I grasped the dagger with both hands and forced myself to stand again, earning another cheer from the crowd. Another low growl rumbled from his throat, and he stalked around me.

“Come on,alpha,” I said because I couldn’t stop myself. “What are you waiting for?”

What was I doing? Taunting him?! Why’d that have to come out of my mouth?

Lycos, please, don’t let me mess this up.

A single missed step, and Elijah would drag his claws across my throat, open me up, and leave me bleeding in the field. Everyone here would watch me die, including Caelan, and I… I couldn’t let that happen.

When Elijah sprinted toward me, it seemed like it was happening in slow motion. I could see the wind whipping through his fur, the saliva dripping off his snout. Terror built higher and higher and higher inside me.

Once his canines sank into my lower leg, everything sped up. Thunder cracked through the sky. Crimson red filled my vision. Heat flooded through my veins. The wolf’s ears suddenly flattened to his head, and he pulled his teeth out of me.

The blood began foaming in his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from lunging at me again. I ducked under his swing, seizedthe nape of his neck in my small hand, and sank the silver dagger deep into it.

He howled to Lycos, and I snapped his spine.

A bone cracked, then the one underneath it, then all down his body. I drew my dagger around the front of his throat, listening to the bones break one after the other after the other, shattering in my embrace.

One moment he was thrashing in my arms, and the next he was dead.

Just an empty corpse.

And when my vision cleared, I realized that I had just killed the son of an alpha.

CHAPTER 10

LIVIA

Suddenly,the open field disappeared around me, replaced by the crowded arena. Nobody spoke a single word, their expressions mirroring my surprised one. I looked at the crowd, then down at Elijah’s dead body at my feet.

“Livia from the Whitecrown Pack wins!” the announcer shouted over the tablet.

Yet still, nobody moved.

How did a girl who couldn’t shift defeat a wolf who had the powers of an alpha? What had happened? Why had my vision turned red like that? And that heat? What was that? It didn’t feel like the usual heat I had, because my fated mate hadn’t marked me yet.

It didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand it.

I… I…

Another quiet moment passed before the arena erupted in a stunned applause, even some cheers too. I stumbled back, swaying from dizziness. That strange power had flowed right through my body, leaving just as quickly.

Blood trickled down my side, tingling against my bare skin. I clutched my thigh, each breath like a stab through the ribs. Iopened and closed my mouth a handful of times. There was a body on the ground.

A body that I had killed.

Soon, it would stink like a corpse. Itwasa corpse.

I swallowed again and again and again, my vision focused on the wolf.

The wolf I had just killed.

“Livia!” Caelan shouted my name from the left.

My breathing quickened, reality finally setting in. What was going on? How had I done that? I had just killed a wolf. My hands shook uncontrollably. I… really, I didn’t mean… I’d thought that he would…

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