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As soon as the cage was on the ground, the handlers left the ring and locked the gates.

Ezra took a step back, then turned towards Alaroth with a confused eyebrow arched high. “Your Majesty?”

“Another test. Order them all not to fight,” he said. I should have been relieved that this round wouldn’t result in any more death, but the smile on his face made my blood run cold. He had something else planned, something far more sinister.

With a snap of Alaroth’s fingers, the cage disappeared, and the raging alpha lunged towards the soldiers.

He didn’t have weapons or clothes, and he was thinner than the others. More weak alphas, then? What was this test for?

The soldiers got into a defensive position, their swords drawn and shields out.

“Stop!” Ezra barked.

But the order only affected the armed soldiers. They froze in place as the wild alpha attacked them, biting into their necks and ripping them apart with brute force alone.

“I said stop!” Ezra barked again, a note of fear in his voice. But the wild alpha still didn’t listen.

It was sick, it was pointless, and it was… too much. Even Nivardi closed his eyes, turning his head away from the violence.

Alaroth refused to let go of me so I could return to my seat, no matter how hard I pulled against him. “Please,” I begged. “I don’twant to watch this.”

He ignored me.

The carnage was swift but brutal, blood soaking into the dirt as the anguished howls quieted and the previously victorious alphas now lay dead on the ground.

“Why didn’t he listen?” I whispered. My brother should have been able to control any shifter with his bark, but his command hadn’t worked on this male. What was wrong with him?

“Berserker,” Alaroth responded slowly. “We give the alphas bloodbane to keep them strong and to help them channel their aggression for battle. It keeps them socially controllable.”

The crazed alpha turned towards Ezra.

“But for a small percentage, it seems to turn them into these wild creatures. They don’t listen, they’ve forgotten what it is to be fae and have resorted to their animal ways. Even with the silver keeping them from shifting.”

I noticed the bands around his wrists, and that he was getting closer and closer to Ezra who barked at him in vain. My heart caught in my throat—was he actually going to try to kill Ezra? Could Ezra defend himself?

The gate opened again, and this time a small omega was shoved through, wearing nothing but a short, cotton dress. It locked behind her as she ran back, banging her hands and begging to be let out.

“We were just killing them for a while, but they are impossibly strong. I wondered if we might still find a way to use them. Then a few years ago I had the most brilliant idea. A hypothesis, really. Perhaps they can’t listen, but can theysmell?”

The Berserker stopped in his tracks as a wave of her frightened scent hit him and drew him away from Ezra, and he now bound towards the helpless female.

I gasped.

Ezra barked at him, the orders temporarily seizing my body but having absolutely no effect on the rampaging alpha. He reached the omega and grabbed her, tearing her away from the wall and digging into her neck with his teeth.

“No!” I turned towards Alaroth and grabbed his arm. “Why are you doing this? You have to stop him!”

Alaroth didn’t say a word, just observed intently as Ezra desperately tried to pull the alpha off the omega’s lifeless body. Her still eyes stared towards the platform where I stood, and I felt like Iwas going to throw up.

“So yes, they can smell, I discovered. But even the alpha instinct to mate with an omega is gone. Their only desire is to kill.”

Ezra and the Berserker now fought. Even his fingernails were sharp, and they tore against my brother’s skin, leaving jagged, bloodied stripes along his chest.

This couldn’t go on. I hated my brother, I’d told him I wished he was dead, but I couldn’t sit here and watch him get torn apart.

What could I even do, though?

“Alaroth, please…” I begged, gripping the railing in front of me.