Chapter 56

Creed

Her scent was what dragged me forward.

I dodged other packs, some filled with males I'd known all my life, but in this moment, there was no recognition in their eyes. All they saw were potential threats or nothing at all. I shied away as soon as I got within their proximity, the submissive body language tricking their senses into seeking more dominant opponents while I searched. But right as I began to despair of ever finding our flag in the chaos, I caught it. A delicate, floral scent, like a wall of jasmine blooming in the moonlight. It grabbed me by the throat and hauled me closer.

Other males didn't matter. I ignored their growled threats, the need that burned inside me not allowing me to even acknowledge them as I passed. Just her. Every step I took it was closer to Jessalyn, and right now it meant that flag, so that's what I focused on. The wolf shifted, lending me his strength, the space between me and the buried flag becoming nothing. I followed the scent with all the single-minded focus the wolf used to bring down prey.

Only to find others had done the same.

The elders often buried the flags in groups. The point of this was to prove our worth, both to our mate and to the entire community. By testing each other during the melee, we got to know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

None of that mattered now.

They were near her flag. They were going to take her away from me. The wolf fought me for control because he knew. Their blood in his mouth, their flesh between his teeth, that was the only fitting way to deal with this threat. Of the same mind, a roar built in my throat, growing and growing as I sprinted at full pelt, only to be exhaled in a sound that seemed to rock the entire arena.

They were a young pack, these males. They skittered back like pups as I partially shifted. My skin itched like crazy as the wolf fought me for control. He knew what to do. He would bring these younglings to heel and then turn his attention to the others. All would fall before his claws as he cut a bloody swathe…

My heart raced too fast inside my chest as I struggled to stay in control. I couldn't let the wolf out, I couldn't. No matter what I thought, I found myself growing until I towered over the lot of them. One shook his head, trying to dismiss my obvious dominance over him, rising up with a snarl, but I managed to queer the wolf's aim as my claws thrust into the ground, not him, jerking away all three of the flags and then shoving one to my nose.

She always smelled so bloody good. Like the sweet breeze on your face during the early summer. Like the flowers that grew in my mother's garden. Like home. The pack dared to dart forward, seeking to snatch their flag from my grip, but I answered that the only way I could, crushing their dreams completely. Their flag and another fell to the ground in tatters.

"The Gorge and Jain packs are out!"

Wren's voice cut through the haze, commanding the unworthy off the field. I watched them go with satisfaction, right up until they joined me.

"You found it…"

I didn't like the look in Arik's eyes. The wolf decided there wasn't nearly enough reverence there, but before I could take him to task, I identified we had bigger problems. We'd destroyed a bunch of flags, dismissing many of the packs, but there were still a few contenders left. I didn't see them as familiar faces or strangers. I didn't even see them as fellow shifters. They were mere obstacles in my way. As I sucked in breath after breath of Jessalyn's scent, all I could think of was her.

Her hurt. Her betrayal. Her duplicity, but that was brought on by our negligence. My grandmother was right. I'd forgotten the wisdom of my ancestors, brought shame to my pack. The moment I held Jessalyn in my arms, I should've fell to my knees and promised I'd slay anyone who dared get in her way.

Even Arik.

My lips peeled back in a snarl, the cool air playing across my fangs, but Roan stepped between us, hands up.

"He's not the enemy, brother, they are."

The wolf and I, we re-focused then, seeing the packs that had us in their sights. Take out the most immediate threats, he told me, then we'd deal with Arik. I shoved the flag down my pants, glorying in the feel of something that belonged to Jessalyn against my skin, right as the others drew closer.

"You know the part of you that you always hold back," Arik said, smiling into my snarl. "The part that you keep down on the training ground and in battle." He nodded slowly. "It's time for that Creed to come out now. He knows what to do. He always has in the past, but especially now. Let him out, brother. Let him out."

Why was I put with three human miscreants when we were all cadets? Because I was a boon and a curse to the army. A wolf shifter of unparalleled size, strength, and ferocity, they saw in me a raw clay that could be shaped into the perfect soldier, except for one crucial thing. My control, up until meeting Arik, was terrible because I was feral.

The wolf burst forward without warning, attacking other cadets and officers for perceived infractions, unable to be stopped by any other than the strongest of the ranking wolf-shifter soldiers. There was talk of ‘putting me down' like a rabid dog, something I'd kept from my family. It was why the elders allowed me to form a pack with humans. With my brothers, I could maintain control, right up until such a point that it wasn't needed. I let out a long sigh, the breath torturing me the whole way out as I closed my eyes and summoned him.

He didn't care about the community, the games, or the other packs, just her. Even with my brothers, he was standoffish. They made too many decisions, allowed too many things to take place that he violently disagreed with. He'd fought me like hell each time we escorted a princess to the capital, only the very real threats to all the people we loved enough to keep him down, so he didn't want to come forth now. The recalcitrant bastard thought to punish me for repressing him for so long, but then I replayed for him the memories of Jessalyn being captured. In my mind, I recast the bandits as the competing packs that were drawing closer, and that's when it happened.

It was like taking a breath, a real one, not the short shallow ones I was forced to take in human company. My chest expanded, my lungs unfurling in my chest as my body began to shift. Humans called the process of turning from human to wolf shifting, but to me it was becoming. All my rage, all my need took the form of fur along arms that became packed thick with muscle. My jaws ached from keeping them clamped shut all the time, but now, the bones themselves split and reformed into a muzzle. My fangs lengthened, my hands became claws, and when I let my true self free, with it came my voice. My roar reverberated through the entire arena, announcing my claim.

I would fight every single one of the contenders to the death if required, because if this stupid game was what was required to earn me a place by my mate's side, I'd win it. But those other shifter packs that ranged around us were driven by the exact same instinct.

A howl, then another, came in answer to mine, from several of the packs closest to us.

"What's the plan now?" Silas asked in a thin voice.

"Same as always," Roan said with a grin. "Try and keep up. Take them out, brother!"

I didn't do this for him. Not for the baying crowd, nor the family that sat up on the hills, watching me transform and unsure if I'd win the day or just cause chaos. There was only one set of eyes I could acknowledge, in the pale face of a woman so beautiful my breath caught in my chest, right as some stupid bloody contender launched himself at me.

Wolves rarely got into fights to the death. The waste of a life, of a useful set of paws and jaws was too much, but all that power, all that need to run and hunt and fight grew too much, and so even in animal packs, there were constant scuffles where one wolf pitted themselves against another to test their strength. I snarled at a shifter who tried to rise to my challenge. It was the only warning I'd give. But he didn't back down, he and his brothers thinking that a full-frontal assault would help them win the day.

And with any other wolf, it might've worked.

Instead, I sent the first one sailing across the field, tossed aside like a child might a doll, the others joining him in seconds. I held their flag up to the skies, making sure all saw it as I obliterated it.

"Janus pack is out!"

Theirs wasn't the only name called by the grim-faced elder. Wren watched me obliterate contender after contender with a well-practised eye, because she'd seen me like this before.

She was the one who advised my family to send me to the army. My fathers had died in the service of the king, and so my mother had protested at sending me too. She was within her rights to keep me back, the family needing at least one male to watch over it. But the incidents in the playground and then the training ground had swayed the lot of them. They'd hoped the army would instil a kind of self-discipline I hadn't been able to master at home, but it was now that she saw what they created. A machine made for spilling blood, knocking heads, and destroying all obstacles in my way. She called the names of the packs fallen out, over and over.

But I wasn't done.

My whole body heaved, my muscles twitching, my breath rattling in my chest, ready to stop, but the fire in my heart wouldn't allow me to rest. I slept poorly since the moment I met Jessalyn, something that had Arik fretting because he knew. We kept the beast locked down tight inside me, because if I let him out…

There was always a risk he'd never go back in again.

"Enough, brother." Arik's face swam into view, blurry through the red haze covering my eyes. "Enough. You've won the day, as you always do."

I listened to Arik. He was my commander, and he steered us true enough of the time that my human brain accepted his role as pack leader. But the beast… He bore no ill will to the shifters he'd tossed around the arena. They were just a means to an end. But him…

I remembered Jessalyn's tears. The way her eyes shone in a curious mixture of both pain and fury, her body too small to contain the anger inside her. He'd hurt her, we'd hurt her on his order, so I hunched my shoulders, claws outstretched, ready to fight the real enemy here. He was the thing that stood between me and my mate. Him.

Feral, that's what they call it when a wolf shifter forgets the faces of his ancestors and loses himself in the savage music of his instincts. Pack doesn't matter, nor does family. Just blood, only blood, and right now, I was determined to shed some of Arik's.