23

To the uninitiated outsider, they were four people—two couples, one grim and one strangely exhilarated—walking into an ordinary backyard, with a crowd trailing behind them. Somebody might have guessed that they were on their way to a particularly bizarre cookout, but Case was pretty sure that most people wouldn’t come up with “fight to the death.”

But as weird and wild it was that his life had brought him here, Case had absolutely no regrets, especially now. He had Lydia. He had their pack.

And Lydia and the pack had finally realized exactly who they were and exactly how much they could lean on each other.

“That was a hell of a speech,” he said quietly. “I liked it. Everybody else did too.”

She smiled, a graceful curve of the lips that looked happier and freer on her than he’d ever seen it before. Even if this was the end, it was a good end.

“I couldn’t have made it if you hadn’t made yours first,” she said. “And the reception was the best part, anyway.”

Amen to that. Case had felt a fierce, almost violent pride in his newfound home at hearing the pack shout out its defiance at Reeve. They were stirred up now, like Reeve had poked a hornet’s nest only to have the hornets finally remember their stingers. Case knew they would be okay, no matter what happened, but he was proud to fight on their behalf.

This was the synchronicity between alpha and pack that he’d been hoping for, that his wolf had instinctively known could exist. This was a bond that was about trust, choice, and loyalty that was freely given. It was the kind of bond Reeve would never have, no matter how many alphas he managed to kill.

“I’ve never been happier to call this place home,” Case said, knowing Lydia would understand everything he’d been thinking.

“Still glad you got that bottle cracked over your head, then?”

Case stopped her so he could kiss her, lingering on the velvety softness of her mouth.

He would never be sorry to have had any amount of time with her, even if it was going to all be cut short, but God, he wanted to win this fight. He wanted more of her. He didn’t want this to be their last kiss, no matter how good it was.

“I’ve never been happier to get my head cracked open in my life,” he said when they finally broke apart. “That was my only time, but if I’d known that you were waiting for me at the end of one, I’d have picked a fight for every drink I ever had.”

He had a hard time tearing his attention away from Lydia, but it was impossible to miss that Meg kept looking back at them over her shoulder. The crease of confusion between her eyebrows said that she wasn’t just waiting for them to catch up: she was trying to figure something out.

He wondered what her story was. Had her pack been so bad that any young woman would have wanted to leave it? If Meg was as revolted by him as she seemed to be, why had she agreed to mate with him and come so far for the sake of a fight she might not even win? What did she hope to get out of this, if she wasn’t doing it for Reeve’s sake? What was she willing to risk dying for?

He didn’t know, and he wished he did. If they could have talked to her, maybe they could have convinced her that this wasn’t worth it. Surely she didn’t have to fight alongside her mate if she didn’t want to.

She was obviously a lot more reasonable and empathetic than Reeve. But they might never get a chance to know more than that.

He had a hunch—a tiny one—that she was a little bit like him. She wanted a home. If that was true, then she’d just heard a whole crowd of people say that winning this fight wouldn’t give her what she needed. Would that matter?

Maybe. Or maybe he was wrong about the whole thing.

In any case, she was a wild card. Case just had to hope that she wasn’t secretly the greatest fighter the world had ever known.

Reeve was stripping his shirt off—purely, as far as Case could tell, for dramatic impact.

“Should I take my shirt off?” Case asked Lydia in an undertone.

Her lips twitched. “No, we’ll just have the moral high ground of knowing you’re better-built than he is.”

“Are you ready?” Reeve called over. His voice was vibrating with impatience and, to Case’s disgust, an obvious bloodlust. He sounded almost turned on by the prospect of doing his best to rip them to shreds.

Case did his best to tune him out completely for right now. The fight would force him to focus on Reeve, but the fight hadn’t started yet.

“Give us a minute,” he said sharply. “You came here knowing you were about to challenge us. Lydia was hanging up the dress she was going to wear to her grandmother’s funeral. We need a second to adjust.”

“A second’s all you’ll get,” Reeve said, with the return of the sneer.

Meg looked away from him in disgust—but still stood her ground, her shoulders loose and attention sharp, her body clearly ready to shift.

A second probably was all they would get. They couldn’t postpone this forever. Reeve and Meg wouldn’t put up with too much of a delay, and the pack deserved to not have an agonizing wait. But Case was going to take this chance to let the whole world narrow down to Lydia for what little time he knew he had left.

He ran his hands through her hair and kissed her full on the mouth, tuning out any sense of awkwardness from Reeve watching them. If he was wolf-whistling or hooting and hollering, Case didn’t want to hear it. All he wanted to know or think about right now was Lydia, and she kissed him back like she felt the same way.

“I love you so much,” she whispered. “You made my life so much better, Case, and if we get through this, I know it’ll keep getting better. You were right about the pack. They’re pretty great, aren’t they?”

“They are. And I love you too. You’re my home.”

“But a home you can take with you,” she said, with a sparkle in her eyes that he’d never gotten to see before. He hoped he’d get to see it again. “Where are you going to take me, Case? Where are we going to go first, after this is over?”

It was a beautiful question, and then what was even more beautiful to him—because it was even more Lydia —her practicality reasserted itself for a second over her fledgling romanticism:

“Well, we should probably go see your parents first so we can tell them you’re married and a werewolf, and I really do want to meet them. But after that.”

“After that,” Case agreed. He loved her so much he ached with it. He wasn’t worried about the fight or the future or anything else; all he could think about was his brave, practical, adventurous, gorgeous mate. “Well, I’ve got a couple places that are at the top of my list. You can pick whichever one sounds best for your first big outing.”

“I think I’ll like anywhere we go, as long as it’s together. But I’ll think about it.” She kissed him one more time. “Are you ready?”

“I think I’ll be ready for any fight we’ve got, as long as we go in together,” Case said. “To paraphrase somebody pretty great.”

He wanted to say again that he loved her, but there would never be a good time to stop saying it. They would have to win this challenge so he could keep saying it for years and years to come.

It was time for them to fight for their pack and their future.

He squeezed Lydia’s hand one more time and then, like Meg, fell into a relaxed, ready-to-shift pose.

“We’re ready,” Lydia said, lifting her chin. She lowered her voice and added to Case, “It’s going to happen f—”

Fast , Case completed as Reeve turned into a dark, wolf-shaped blur hurling itself in his direction.

He let his wolf take over, and he flowed into that shape, the ground coming up on him almost as fast as Reeve.

Almost, but not quite.

He couldn’t finish his shift in time to dodge Reeve’s assault, but he could at least roll into it, making it more of a tussle than an out-and-out attack. To a bystander, it probably looked like they were rolling around like dogs in a play-fight, and Reeve must have hated that. He snapped viciously at Case’s throat to make up for it.

Case tucked his chin down to keep him off. He couldn’t ward off Reeve’s teeth completely, but he at least made sure they didn’t sink in anywhere too vulnerable. And his wolf, thank God, had such a white-hot, intense focus on the fight that it barely felt the pain, which meant he barely felt it either.

He wondered if it was the same for Reeve. He didn’t think it possibly could be. Reeve didn’t have a real cause behind him, energizing him and blocking out everything else; he had wanted Mountainview because (at first) he’d thought it was easy pickings, and then he’d wanted it because he’d hated Lydia foiling him, and now that he knew the town would push back against him every chance it got, he mostly just wanted to save face. That wasn’t much to fight for. It certainly wasn’t enough to drown out pain.

He was glad Reeve was focusing on him. Meg might be just as good a fighter, but at least her wolf was smaller, closer to Lydia’s own size.

But that was the biggest advantage Reeve had on him, unfortunately. Reeve didn’t give a shit about Meg, so he could afford to keep all his attention on Case and Case alone. Case, on the other hand, couldn’t resist trying to look at Lydia whenever he could.

She was definitely holding her own against Meg, who was a small, blondish wolf—scrappy and capable, but not automatically deadly. That was good. If anything, he thought Lydia was holding back a little because she didn’t want to hurt Meg. She was hoping Meg would surrender before things had to go too far.

Case was hoping for that too, but he still wanted Lydia to be careful—

And Reeve ripping his shoulder open with his teeth reminded Case that he needed to be careful too. A sheet of blood ran down Case’s side, matting into his fur. Even his wolf had trouble ignoring the sharp pain there, but it did its best.

It didn’t snarl at him about not paying enough attention, though. It wanted to keep an eye on Lydia as much as he did.

He scored a few blows on Reeve, and he thought he was mostly succeeding at ignoring the rippling pain from his shoulder wound. But it was impossible to tell who had the upper hand ....

*

Lydia hadn’t been in enough fights in her life to know anything about combat styles, in or out of wolf form, but she knew what desperation and exhaustion looked like. Before she’d met Case, she’d seen it in the mirror on an almost-daily basis. It was impossible to miss it on Meg, especially now that the battle had started. Meg was fighting as hard as she could, but she was fighting like a grimly cornered animal. Not a frightened one—it was like she was past fear. Just like she was pushed to her limits and knew this was her only chance.

Lydia recognized that , too. It was how she had felt looking at a narrow, frustrated life where she could never stray too far or risk too much. She had needed Case to show her that there was another way. Somehow she doubted that Reeve had done Meg that same favor.

I can tell what you’re thinking , Lydia’s wolf said. And it means taking a big chance. She could tear your throat out. I can try to cover you, to take control and shift back if we need to protect ourselves, but it’s still dangerous.

I know. She jumped to the side, avoiding Meg’s next lunge. But it’s what Case would do. It’s time to try something new.

She felt her wolf’s silent agreement. It was as besotted with Case as she was, of course, and it almost made her grin.

Time to take a chance.

Lydia concentrated and drew herself back to her human form.

“It’s okay,” she cried out, as Case’s shaggy head swung in her direction. “Keep going, don’t let up on Reeve. Don’t worry about me. I just want to talk to Meg.”

The concern in Case’s eyes was obvious, but he turned all his attention back to Reeve. If anything, he fought him even more fiercely than before, because now, Lydia knew, he wanted to make sure Reeve would have absolutely no opportunity to jump in her direction. Case was going to keep him too busy for that.

Which was good, because Lydia couldn’t afford to take her eyes off Meg. Meg hadn’t sprung at her since she’d shifted back, but her muscles were still coiled. She wasn’t prepared to attack a human, but she wasn’t going to completely back down, either.

If anything, the aura around her of stress and barely controlled terror had gotten thicker. She didn’t know how to respond to something so unexpected, and it obviously worried her.

“I’m not surrendering,” Lydia said, partly for the sake of any confused pack-members and partly because she didn’t think she could stand the prospect of Meg getting hopeful only to have those hopes come crashing down. “But I wanted to say that maybe you could.”

Meg growled at her, baring all her teeth.

“I know that’s not what you want to hear. Maybe it’s not what you want to do, either. But if it is ... surrender doesn’t have to mean defeat. Reeve isn’t welcome here, but you are.”

She had a momentary fear that someone in the audience would object to that, but that was another time she’d underestimated her pack. They didn’t need new arrivals to prove their mettle or their deference to pack leadership, they just needed them to not be total assholes. Reeve had made himself an outcast in Mountainview, but all Meg had to do to belong here was to give up the fight.

Everyone here had struggled at one time or another. They all knew what it was like to be backed into a corner where it seemed like the only possible choice was a bad one. They could smell the desperation on Meg just like Lydia had.

“This could be your home, if you need one,” Lydia said. “I doubt Reeve told you that you could have a place here without bleeding and maybe killing for it, but it’s true. Case would tell you the same thing if he wasn’t busy fighting off the guy I don’t even think you want to be mated to.”

That would have provoked another growl if Meg had liked Reeve even a little, but it didn’t.

Instead, Meg shifted into her human form. Lydia thought she might be even younger than she’d realized at first, maybe only twenty-one or twenty-two.

“I got in some trouble in my last pack,” she said, a soft Southern accent coloring her words. “I liked the alpha’s son, and I wasn’t good enough for him. They kicked me out, and I didn’t know where to go. Reeve said that this town was dying like it was, and it needed somebody strong to take charge, and if I’d help him, I could stay.”

It didn’t even sound like Reeve had assured her that she’d be his co-alpha, even though being his mate would have usually put her in that position automatically. Lydia could have kicked him for taking advantage of a lonely, hurt young woman with nowhere else to go.

“You’re strong,” Lydia said, as calmly as she could. “Plenty of wolves don’t survive being exiled from their pack, even when their pack is full of assholes, and it sounds like yours was.”

Meg’s laugh seemed to startle even her. “Yeah, it was.” She breathed in. “Okay. I surrender.”

Reeve’s growl tore through the air, reverberating like thunder. Lydia, to her disgust, knew exactly what he was thinking. Meg was supposed to be his pawn! How dare she make a decision of her own, for her own well-being, when she was supposed to swallow his plan hook, line, and sinker?

All around them, the pack applauded.

Lydia knew what Reeve was hearing. Their embrace of Meg made their rejection of him clearer than ever.

Once upon a time, the town had quaked in terror when Reeve had threatened to make life hard on them, and they’d come close to saying that Lydia should give him whatever he wanted to smooth out the transition. Now, with Case’s belief in them, with the knowledge that they could stand up for themselves, they weren’t giving an inch. Now they were throwing down the gauntlet: You thought you’d make our lives hell? Buddy, we’ll make your life hell . If we’re your prize, we’re going to make sure you choke on it.

For a second, she felt the wild hope that Reeve would give up. The second she shifted back to wolf form, the battle would be two-to-one. He would be outnumbered, and even if he somehow defied the odds and killed them both, all he would get for it would be a pack that wasn’t afraid of him anymore. That couldn’t be a very satisfying victory for a bully.

But she was underestimating Reeve’s anger. At this exact second, he wasn’t thinking about his long-term plans at all. The only thing inside his head was pure, vicious fury.

It gave him the strength to sink his teeth into Case and twist hard , tearing into his flesh and flinging him aside at the same time.

“Case!” Lydia cried.

She barely registered Reeve springing in her direction, but her wolf did, and it took over. She had at least partially shifted by the time he collided with her.

This is a pattern of his , she thought dizzily, as his greater weight knocked into her and sent her flying. He did the same thing with Case when the fight started. Only Case survived it, and I’m not sure I will.

But she had to. She needed to live, because if she was dead, she couldn’t make sure Case was back on his feet after that awful ripping sound Reeve’s teeth had made. She couldn’t protect the pack that didn’t need her protection but deserved it all the same.

And I need to live because Case is going to take me to meet his family, dammit, and we’re going to see the world and have adventures. I didn’t finally realize that life was possible just to die in my own backyard.

She summoned all her strength to snarl into Reeve’s chest, and then she used her smaller size against him to wriggle out between his legs. He snapped at her ears and the scruff of her neck, but she had no problem ignoring those little flare-ups of pain. She had to make sure Case was okay.

And he was—

He was right there , barreling into Reeve before he could take another nip at her. He was covered in blood, both fresh and drying, but it wasn’t stopping him. Nothing would, Lydia realized, as long as his mate and his pack were in danger. He would fight until his last breath.

She would never let him fight alone.

She joined him in his onslaught on Reeve. It wasn’t slanted as far in their favor as it could have been, given the odds: Case’s last wound had really hurt him, and she was too small to offer too much support. But they still fought together, moving in sync almost effortlessly to assail Reeve from both sides. He was a strong fighter, so he was keeping up with them, but Lydia’s wolf burned with white-hot, diamond-bright certainty that they would overcome him.

Surrender, surrender, she mentally chanted. Accept it already! Even if you win, you’re not going to get what you want, and you know it. Back down and leave us alone!

It was like he heard her—and that idea made her shiver. She didn’t want him inside her head. He retreated a little, looking at them with hungry eyes. Saliva dripped from his jowls.

It would be an understatement to say that there was something in that look she didn’t like. There was nothing in him she did like, and there never had been.

She watched him transform, not letting herself feel anything more than guarded hope.

The damage from the fight carried over to his human form but not to his clothes—Lydia would never understand how that particular bit of magic worked—so even though his shirt wasn’t torn at all, fresh patches of blood soaked through the second he shifted. It was eerie, even though she was sure she’d had the same effect when she had shifted back, and even though she hadn’t even noticed it on Meg. Everything about Reeve gave her the creeps.

She didn’t trust him, no matter what form he took. She especially didn’t trust the smile on his face.

“I guess this is it,” Reeve said, causing more cheers to erupt from the crowd. His smile twisted even further, turning in on itself and becoming a horrifying grimace. He met Lydia’s eyes. “I offered you the chance to be my mate. And you turned me down, all stuck-up and smug. Right now you’re probably thinking you made the right decision.”

Well, she wouldn’t necessarily have rubbed it in of her own accord, but since he had brought it up ....

“I did,” she said, melting back into her human shape. She had to hide a wince as all her aches and pains suddenly made themselves known all over again, inflicting themselves on fresh nerve endings. Beside her, Case shifted back too.

Lydia felt a rush of joy at seeing him back in his most familiar form. She was sure that sooner or later, she would get equally used to seeing him as a wolf, too, but—with all apologies to her own wolf—she was pretty sure this version of his face would always be her favorite.

“He’s my fated mate,” Lydia said simply, not because Reeve needed—or deserved—to know, but because she hadn’t gotten tired of telling people yet, not by a long shot.

“Huh,” Reeve said in a strange, hollow voice. “Go figure. I guess that makes this even sadder, then.”

What?

“You should have said yes, Lydia,” he said, and he put one hand behind his back—

“He’s got a gun!” Meg yelped.

And sure enough, there it was. He’d had it tucked into his jeans at the small of his back, and now he was bringing it forward, the sunlight glinting on the barrel.

Shifters didn’t fight like this. An alpha challenge was fought in wolf form, always . But why had she ever imagined Reeve would care about the rules? He talked a lot about tradition, but he didn’t actually believe in it. He had almost killed her the day she’d turned Case, just because he’d seen a good opportunity for it.

It only took a split second for her to get over her stunned shock at him violating one of the basic werewolf precepts, but that was too long. She’d frozen, but Case, who hadn’t been raised as a wolf, didn’t hesitate. He reacted at the speed of light, throwing himself in front of Lydia as Reeve raised his gun to fire.

He was going to take a bullet for her.

“No!” Lydia screamed.

Case collided with Reeve, and the gun went off. Both men were still.

There was a horrible hush all around, as everyone held their breath. Lydia’s throat still felt raw from her scream, and she couldn’t get herself to make a single noise.

It had occurred to her that they might both die today, but she’d never once thought about what would happen if she lived and Case died. She couldn’t think about it now, either.

Maybe her voice wouldn’t work, but the rest of her could. She forced herself forward, casting her shock aside as best she could.

“Case?” She knelt down in the grass and rolled him off Reeve, not even sparing her old enemy a glance. He wasn’t moving, so either he was dead or unconscious, and either was good enough for her. She only had eyes for Case. “Case?”

He opened his eyes, blinking at her in confusion. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Are you okay?” he said too loudly.

Of course that was his first question.

“I’m fine,” Lydia said, stroking his hair. “I just need to know how you are. Are you hurt?” It was impossible to tell whether the blood on his clothes was from the fight or from the gunshot.

“I can’t hear you,” he said, still in that kind of controlled almost-shout. “The gun went off right in my face. I think I’ve heard it takes a couple hours to wear off. Sorry, hitting him knocked the wind out of me.”

If the gun had gone off right in his face, where had the bullet gone? She couldn’t ask him, not when he couldn’t really make out what she was saying. She squeezed his hand instead and looked over at Reeve. The collision had probably left him winded too, but he could be up again in a second—

No. No, he really couldn’t.

When Case had rushed him to stop him from shooting Lydia, he had barreled into him, and that must have knocked Reeve’s hand up, flattening his arm against his body. When pure reflex had made Reeve fire, the bullet had gone straight up through the underside of his chin.

He was dead. In trying to kill Lydia, to punish her for having gotten in his way, he’d accidentally killed himself.

Lydia stood up, helping Case to his feet as well. She wrapped her arms around him. She was shaking, but she was still mostly whole, and so was he, and so was the pack. It was finally over, and they all had each other.

They always would.