Page 87 of Abel's Omega
But soon he realized that Sebastian was telegraphing his every move; that, or Abel had suddenly tapped into some psychic Alpha domain he’d never noticed before. He twisted and spun and pounded the other wolf with physical mass and metaphysical power, anticipating each of the other wolf’s moves with ease.
He’d driven Sebastian back against the rope, the other wolf’s hind legs tucked underneath him, paws only inches from the edge of the battlefield. Abel felt a burst of triumph, until turmoil in the crowd distracted him.
Abel turned his head to find the mass of pack members roiling in place like a kicked anthill. He caught a glimpse of Mac’s hair, and Quin, and then he was flat on the ground with Sebastian’s weight pressing the air out of him, and his enemy’s jaws digging for purchase on his neck.Trust Sebastian to aim for surrender and not just defeat.Abel squirmed underneath him, but Sebastian had nearly the same mass as Abel, and he was lying flat on top of him while he hunted Abel’s windpipe. Lights sparkled at the edges of Abel’s vision, and he knew it would only get worse if Sebastian succeeded in getting his teeth into Abel’s neck.
A small gray form broke out of the crowd, galloping across the circle directly toward them. In the distance, Bax cried out in horror. Abel’s eyes widened, and a painful shot of adrenaline pulsed through him. His legs spasmed, and he felt something tear in one hind leg as he dug for purchase on the grass. He twisted his head, going for whatever part of Sebastian he could get fangs on, but he was too late.
Fan barked his hunting bark and jumped on Sebastian, tiny puppy teeth sinking into Sebastian’s ear. He growled and chewed and Sebastian yelped in startled fury. He jumped off Abel and grabbed the pup by one hind leg, ripping him off his ear and then tossing him to one side. Fan yelped agonizingly as Sebastian flung him away, arcing through the chill air to hit the ground with an ominous thump. Abel watched frantically for any sign of movement in the little form, but Fan was still.
Abel had heard the stories of berserkers, remembered friends boasting about going berserk during fights, but he’d always been cool and calm, using intellect and skill to win.
No more tonight.
The rage that shrieked up through him was so hot it should have, by rights, turned the entire enclave into an inferno. He threw himself on Sebastian, biting and scratching at anything he could reach. Abel felt, more than heard, the pop of Sebastian’s hock as it broke, the bottom half of his leg sticking out at a forty-five degree angle. Sebastian screamed and attempted to hobble away, but Abel wasn’t done with him yet. He felt the sudden release as his fangs penetrated the skin at the back of Sebastian’s neck and he whipped his head from side to side, shaking the other wolf until Sebastian could hardly stand. Abel dropped him and took a grip on Sebastian’s throat. His fangs rested just over the frantically beating pulse and he pressed down, pressure just this side of piercing the skin and the fragile artery beneath it. He held himself there, breathing heavily and fighting the urge to just finish it and to hell with the rules of the fight and his desire to bring shifter-kind into the twenty-first century.
No, you can’t kill him.
It hurt to let go, to give Sebastian back the life he so thoroughly owed Abel now. Abel kept Sebastian in place with a heavy blanket of power, but the other wolf lay quiet in apparent defeat.
Abel didn’t give a shit anymore. He crossed the distance between himself and Fan, cradled in Bax’s lap, in two bounds.
“His leg,” Bax said, tears running down his face, though his expression was calm and controlled. “Holland is gone for a blanket so we can carry him to the clinic.” Bram and Cale hovered beside him, with Edmund standing guard and keeping the crowd away from the huddled group.
Abel nosed him gently, then turned to sniff Fan. Fan whined groggily and wagged his tail.
Thank the wolf goddess.Abel nosed Bax again and began to change back to his human shape. When he could once more stand on two feet, he turned to the assembled Alphas, gathered in a circle around him and Bax and the still prone form of Sebastian on the grass.
“Are we done? My son needs care.”
Louise hurried over with his mating suit. Abel thrust himself into it, then took the blanket Holland brought back and let Bax carefully lay Fan in the middle of it. Fan cried pitifully as his leg was jostled, but stopped when Bax reached up to stroke his fur and murmur soothing nonsense to him. Abel withdrew some of his power from Sebastian and laid it over Fan, coating him with warmth and lending his own strength to the unhappy pup. Then they carried him across the park to the clinic.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Oh, my poor, brave pup. I cradled a still-sedated Fan in my arms after Adelaide put his leg back in its joint. It had only been dislocated, thank heavens, and not badly, so while he was taped within an inch of his life and the leg was held up in a sling, he didn’t have to wear a cast. The punctures where Sebastian’s teeth had broken the skin were cleaned and stitched, and Adelaide gave Fan a long-acting antibiotic shot so we didn’t have to worry about trying to force medicine into him. She also showed both Abel and I how to support him, and warned us not to let him walk in wolf form for a couple of weeks, and to bring him in for a checkup before we did.
“What do you want to do?” Abel asked me when we were done and procrastinating in the waiting room with Mac and Holland before heading back out into the crowds.
“Sorry?” I said. I was confused—were there any choices here? In my current mood, all I wanted to do was take him home and put him to bed. Him, and all my pups. And then I wanted to crawl in with him. But I was Alpha’s Mate, or would be if we ever got those damned papers signed, and there was more to think about than just my own worries.
Abel put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Do you want to take him home and put him to bed?”
His hand on my shoulder was comforting, and I turned and leaned against him, taking comfort from his solidity and warmth. I wanted to say yes, but even as I opened my mouth, a thought occurred to me. If I did that, it delayed our mating and Sebastian’s unexpected appearance had left me nervous. “What was that fuss in the crowd?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Mac.
“It was Montana Border,” he said.
Abel pulled himself even more stiffly upright than he already was. “So they did try something? Was anyone hurt?”
Mac shook his head. “But it was a close call.” He rubbed the back of his neck and down onto his shoulder and winced. “If I hadn’t leaned down to tease Jason a bit, he would have caught me right on the back of the head with a homemade truncheon.” At my confused look, he added, “They put something heavy in a sock and swung it. Makes a pretty good blunt weapon.”
I nodded in understanding. Not that I’d tried one, but I’d heard of the alphas using them, though it was considered the mark of a weakling to have to depend on a weapon to win your fight. “So what are we going to do?”
Abel glanced at the door. His wolf side wasn’t so far under the surface yet, and when he spoke again, a low growl underscored the anger in the words. “We gather up the pups and take them home. Our home. And we call Buffalo Gap and the witnesses in and sign the papers in the living room. Then we kick every damn one of them out so I can deal with Montana Border.” He turned back to me. “I swear,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t invite Sebastian. And you can be sure I’ll find out who let him in.”
“I don’t care.” Oddly, I didn’t. But now that the emergency was over and I knew that Fan was going to be all right, my worries eased, and I wanted him, and my mating, and to shove it all in their faces that they couldn’t stop us. “What kind of message would that send?”
