Perfect Mate (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #2)(18)

"Give me back my granddaughter, Trax," Dee said. "Then we'll go in peace."

Trax laughed. Julia's fear rippled through Damien's body, and he willed her to be calm. If her fear struck him at the wrong moment during the fight, he would be done for. She seemed to realize this, for she was struggling to hold herself together.

"Do you think I'm afraid to fight you?" Trax bellowed. "A weakling, a blind man, and an woman as old as the moon herself. You might as well cut each other's throats now and be done with it."

Damien sensed the wolves next to Trax beginning to shift, their scent growing stronger. Immediately he followed suit, as did Jordan. Only Dee and Trax remained human.

"May the fight be fair," Dee said, Damien knew she was raising her hands to the sky in prayer. "May the gods take those who fall."

Damien howled first, and the rest of the wolves joined him, their calls spiraling upward to the sky in a terrible harmony that flooded the clearing and bounced back off of the trees. Damien could almost envision the stance of each wolf by the reflected sounds among them. Then the pack leader began to shift, and he knew the fight was about to begin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Julia gasped as Granny Dee stepped forward. The world went silent in her ears as she watched the pack leader talk to her grandmother. She was sure that any moment he would reach out and smash Dee with one hand, crumple her into bits. But he did not move close enough for that. He wasn't even confused by Dee showing up. And she realized as they spoke that his shoulders were raised tensely. He wasn't confused at all.

He was scared.

Damien and Jordan shifted along with the other pack's wolves, and although Julia had seen it twice before it was still a shock to behold. The horrific cracking of bone and tendon as the skeletal structures of the men shifted into that of wolves. Damien's face, his beautiful face, changing into the snout of an animal. And then fur covered them and they were all wolves, all of them except for the two standing in the middle.

Granny Dee raised her arms to the sky.

"May the fight be fair. May the gods take those who fall."

During all of this, Julia had not accepted what she knew in her heart must be true. Even as her grandmother prayed to strange gods, she wished that it would all go away, that she would wake up from the nightmare and go back to work at the library. She would shelve a hundred thousand books now if it meant the safety of her grandmother.

But then Granny Dee lowered her arms and stared forward into the face of Trax, and Julia knew before she shifted that she was not entirely human.

The leader changed first, his limbs bending and growing claws. Dark red hair sprouted and covered his torso. His body was nearly twice the size of Damien's, thick with knotted muscle. Julia did not pay attention to him, though, once she saw what her grandmother was becoming.

Dee's arms bent at the elbow and she fell forward into a crouch. Her clothes ripped as white fur emerged from her skin, her face growing thinner and longer. Julia gasped as Dee's lips drew back to reveal gleaming white teeth, and with a shake of the head the last of her clothing fell away from her. She stood in front proudly, a sleek white wolf with eyes that twinkled and told Julia that yes, this was the same person, this was her grandmother.

"Granny Dee," she whispered. The blanket around her shoulders slipped down slightly as her fingers went weak. She knew what this meant.

If Dee was a wolf, then so was Julia.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Damien stood in front of the male wolf, every sense of his at the ready. He could smell the scent coming off of the wolf's pelt, a mixture of sweat, fear, and fight. He could hear the leaves crackling as the wolf shifted his weight on the ground from one foot to the other. He was ready.

The first strike came to the side of him, and the noise almost made him jump before he could think. The female wolf had lunged at Jordan, and Damien could tell that the wolf in front of him had shifted to see the fight. Off balance for just a moment, it was the right time to make a move. Damien leapt forward and knocked into the wolf, rolling back before the jaws could snap at him. He yipped to keep track of the wolf's position.

The scuffling of paws told him Jordan and the female had broken apart. Dee and Trax had not yet started to fight, still circling each other in the middle. Neither seemed to want to make the first move. The initial seconds of the fight were crucial, once someone had gotten hold with a bite. Damien worried about Dee. She was so small compared to the leader, and although she seemed to have confidence in her ability, he could not help but be anxious about her survival. One blow from Trax's huge paws and she would be dead.

The wolf in front of him dug his claws into the earth. It was hard to keep the sounds separated now that there was so much going on, but Damien narrowed his attention to the space in front of him. A few feet were all that separated him from the other wolf. They circled, and Damien moved so that he would stand in between Julia and the wolf. The flames of the bonfire were hotter here, and he could feel Julia at his back, just behind him. He growled at the male wolf just as he lunged, and threw himself to one side.

It was not fast enough. The wolf snapped his jaws on Damien's scruff and got ahold of him by the neck. Then they were rolling and kicking, Damien letting himself go loose at just the right time to avoid his neck being snapped. The whole clearing erupted in howls and yelps as each of the pairs of wolves began to battle.

The leader had begun to fight Dee. Damien could hear the high-pitched yips and the light patter of her paws dancing across the earth. He could hear everything. Time slowed to a crawl and then he kicked out. A lucky strike. He felt his claws take hold and tear into the wolf's side, all the way down his leg. The wolf tried to stand but collapsed in front of Damien. He whimpered, his scent overwhelmingly that of fear. Damien knew that he was scared to die. Completely crippled, though, he was no danger to Julia or to himself, and Damien needed to help the others.