Werewolf Wedding(65)

“Watch,” he whispered. “You think it worked?”

I couldn’t help but grin.

Terror spread across Dane’s face. “Wait, what? I won the challenge! What the hell does it matter what you think about all this? I’m the damn alpha. I make the rules!”

More general cries of “it’s not right!” and “who does he think he is!” came from the crowd. Then, Jake spoke up.

“He says he won a challenge – my brother, Dane Somerset, says he won a challenge. But did he really? Did he win her, or did he force her?”

“Quite forced, I’d say!” Barney’s voice came from behind the dais. “Get away from me!” he said, batting one of the goons away who tried to re-tie him. “He lured Miss Coltrane to the mansion and took me hostage.”

“Us,” Jeannie said, rubbing her wrists. “That crazy son of a bitch, he didn’t leave me anything to read except old back issues of Sculpting.”

The armor of smugness and overconfidence that had clung to Dane’s shoulders for as long as I’d known him began to crinkle and crack. “I’m the alpha!” he shouted again, as though that was going to suddenly convince anyone. “Who the hell are you?”

“They’re the pack,” I said. I felt my chest swell with pride. “Our pack. And this wolf,” I grabbed Jake around the waist, “is the one who won me. Not the one who kidnapped my friends and threatened their lives.”

“Game, set, and match,” Jake said, winking at me.

It was really hard not to roll my eyes, but I appreciated the effort. Dane, however, judging from his howling, wasn’t so amused. He rose to his feet, and tried to run, but Barney stuck out a foot, tripping the giant naked man and sending him sprawling to the ground. “Bad form, Mr. Somerset,” he said. “To run from a challenge? Shameful.”

“I didn’t!” Dane was protesting. “I didn’t run from anything. I won! He cheated, he...”

Jake strolled casually to where his brother lay on the ground, face a mess of dirt and blood and sweat. “Don’t look like a winner to me,” Jake offered.

Once again the crowd was roaring, in a way that reminded me of what it must’ve been like at the Coliseum in Rome right after a massive battle between two famous gladiators. The knife that Jake had dropped when he turned into a wolf, found its way back into his hand. He looked down at the curved, jagged blade, turning it around in his hand.

Then, he looked at Dane, who had pushed himself to his knees and was sweating profusely, breathing heavily, and in general, just a mess.

“Do it, then!” he hissed. “You want to prove you’re the big alpha? Do what you have to do.”

He tilted his head back. Jake grabbed Dane’s sweat-soaked hair and touched the tip of the knife to the place where neck met jaw. He dug the tip in just enough to draw a drop of blood. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t need to kill you.”

The knife fell to the ground with a clatter of metal on wood. “I don’t need your blood on my hands. Get up,” he said.

The hush in the audience returned. Everyone looking on, watching, waiting to see what happened next.

“Kill him!” someone shouted. Soon others joined in with calls from Dane’s head on a stick. Someone said something about dessert.

The cries were so loud a few seconds later that I could hardly hear myself think. Finally, at length, Jake lifted a hand to quiet them. “This isn’t us, brothers,” he said. “Senseless violence, murder in the name of tradition. This isn’t us. And anyone who thinks it is doesn’t belong in my pack.”

Dane’s eyes lit up.

“Anyone who thinks that our kind can survive with all the blood soaked things that Dane seems to love so much, feel free to join him.”

He turned his eyes on me. “Seems to me we have a whole lot of food and drinks and decorations to not have a marking,” he said. A smile crept across his face that warmed me to the core. “That is, if she’ll have me.”

“Yes!” I shouted, leaping up and throwing my arms around his warm, bronzed skin. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“Get out of here, Dane,” Jake said, punching at his brother with a toe, knocking him off balance and once again into the dirt. “No one wants you here. I hope this proved it.”

Jake grabbed me roughly around the waist and turned me to face him. He smiled through the busted lip and cuts all over his face, and pulled me in. I inhaled deeply, the smell of sweat, dirt and iron filling my nose.

When I pulled away and looked toward the setting sun, an almost red, deep orange color against the horizon, it was all I could do not to stare at Jake. The sun caught my attention though, and when I squinted into it, I realized Dane was still there.

“I’ve got more important things to do,” Jake snarled at his brother. “Get out of here and don’t try to come back.”

With a snarl, and a snap of his jaws, Dane looked like he was actually going to make another lunge. Two very large, very bald-headed wolves sidled up next to him and grabbed his elbows. “Want us to take care of him?” one of them asked.

I looked at Jake, waiting for the answer. I wasn’t the only one. The entire audience was staring at him in something that could only be described as awe.

“No,” Jake said. “But thanks for the offer. He’s going to turn into a wolf, and scurry off. Just like he did before. Isn’t that right, Dane?”