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SKYE

M y heart sank as Trace threw down his challenge. I looked at Remy and swallowed hard. Bruises were already forming on his chest and torso. His shoulder was bloody and likely needed stitches, and his wrist... His wrist was destroyed. No way he could take on Trace like this.

Rhodes slowly approached with Remy’s clothes, dropping into a crouch beside me.

“Hey!” Trace yelled. “Did you hear me? I said I challenge —”

“We fucking heard you, dipshit,” Rhodes snapped, standing up with a growl as people gasped. “Calm the fuck down. We all know there’s protocols and he doesn’t have to accept your challenge right this goddamn second.”

Trace’s eyes went wide. “Who do you think you’re addressing, beta ?”

“Enough!” Griffin’s voice cut through the bickering and whispering. “Rhodes is right. There’s protocols for a rebuttal challenge. Remy has the right to respond to the challenge within the next three hours. Calm down.”

“Fine,” Trace spat. “Take all the precious time you need.”

Rhodes and I helped Remy into his clothes and off to the side where our friends and my family were waiting.

“Let me see the arm,” Lulu demanded, pushing between Dimitri and my father. She drew up short and frowned. “I might be able to accelerate the healing, but it won’t fix the fact that your bones are broken.”

“No magic,” Remy told her, shaking his head. “We can’t look like we’re cheating.”

Lulu’s mouth flattened. “So, me just standing here and making his brains liquefy is also off the table?”

Ryder stared at her. “You can do that?”

Dimitri snorted. “Yeah. Don’t piss off the tiny magic wielder.”

Remy looked down at his arm, and I could already see the wheels turning.

“No,” I said with as much force as I could. “Rem, your arm is broken .”

“I know,” he murmured, frowning as he met my eyes.

Griffin joined our group, his eyes narrowed. “Look, you have a few hours. Maybe enough time to get your people out of here. Trace is stupid and these people aren’t inclined to follow him anyway. He’s not the Alpha his father was.”

“Running away from this won’t fix anything,” Dante argued.

“He’s right,” Nikolai agreed, nodding. “If anything it will make you look weaker.”

“He can’t fight with a broken arm,” I snapped, whirling around to glare at my father. I needed someplace to put all this fear and anger churning in my gut, and he was unfortunately about to be on the receiving end.

“If I may?”

We all turned to see Elias standing near us.

The old man cleared his throat. “Remy doesn’t have to fight.” Elias looked at me. “There are ways around it, especially since it’s a rebuttal challenge from an heir, not a recognized, true Alpha.”

I sucked in a gulp of air. I was Remy’s mate. I was an Alpha now.

“I’ll do it,” I said quickly.

“What?” Katy gaped at me.

“No,” Remy shot back. “I can do it.”

“You can’t do it,” I argued, pointing at his hand.

“Neither can you,” Nikolai said calmly.

“Yes, I can,” I insisted, gritting my teeth and glaring at my father.

He took my hand. “You can’t. Skye, when I gave you the Narodnaya pack, you stopped being a member of the Blackwater pack.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“You can’t answer a challenge to a pack you aren’t a part of,” he finished gently. “Sweetheart, you can’t be the one to step in.”

Remy sighed behind me, completely relieved as the news rocked me. I wasn’t part of Blackwater anymore?

That felt inherently... wrong.

“But this is one of the reasons Alphas have a beta. A second in command.” Nikolai looked over my shoulder to...

Rhodes .

“Precisely my thoughts,” Elias mumbled. “Rhodes could fight on behalf of his Alpha. It is his right and duty as a beta.”

“I’m in,” Rhodes said instantly, not seeing Larkin go pale next to him.

Remy swallowed, looking gutted at the idea of risking his best friend. “Rhodes—”

“Skye’s right,” Rhodes cut him off. “You can’t fight Trace like this. It’s me or we give up.”

“Trace is an Alpha,” Tate murmured, covering her mouth with her hand. “Rhodes, you’re... not.”

“But Trace is also a bitch and a mediocre fighter,” Rhodes pointed out. His gaze dropped to Larkin. “And I definitely have a score to settle with him.

“Not for me,” Larkin whispered, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare do this for me. I can’t be the reason you get hurt.”

“So little faith in me,” Rhodes commented quietly, a sad sort of smile on his lips.

Larkin’s shoulders dropped. “I didn’t mean—”

He silenced her with a fast kiss. “Trust me, baby girl. Okay?”

She nodded back at him, sniffling a little and blinking back tears.

“We still have a few hours,” Griffin pointed out. “Or you can accept the challenge and set the date for later on. You have a week after a challenge is issued to meet it. Remy will be healed in a few days.”

“No,” Nikolai said quickly. “That boy made his challenge in a moment of childish anger. He didn’t think it through. Don’t give him any time to prepare.”

“You think they should do this now ?” Katy demanded.

“He’s right,” Dimitri agreed, his gaze flicking to Rhodes. “Are you ready now?”

Rhodes nodded, not a trace of unease or worry in his eyes. “We do this now. End it now .”

Remy sighed, still reluctant. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” Rhodes replied honestly. “Go accept the challenge. I’ll kick Trace’s ass and we can all go home.”

“Okay,” Remy agreed quietly. He moved away from us and back towards Damien’s body until he stood over it.

“Ready to do this?” Trace snarled, stepping forward.

“I accept your challenge,” Remy told him in a firm voice that carried to the spectators. “But my beta will fight.”

Trace’s smirk slipped. “What?”

Remy lifted his injured arm. “I’m unable to fight, so my beta will. Now.”

Something like panic started creeping onto Trace’s face. “Can’t I bury my father first?”

“No,” Remy said flatly. “You wanted this challenge and now you’ve got it. As the responding pack, we can set the timing and we choose now.”

I had been so busy watching Remy and Trace that I’d missed Rhodes shifting. I jolted as I felt his fur brush past my hand as he padded slowly to Remy’s side.

A shudder rolled through Larkin and I wrapped an arm around her.

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered, not sure if I was trying to reassure myself or her.

Katy closed in on Larkin’s other side, winding an arm around her waist so she was supported on either side by us.

Griffin moved between Remy and Trace, looking at Trace. “Do you accept or withdraw your challenge?”

Trace’s eyes flickered around nervously for a beat. He was screwed either way, and he knew it.

“I accept,” he finally said, a small tremor in his voice. But a few seconds later he was stripping and shifting.

Rhodes’s brown coat looked golden in the late morning sun. The black tipped brown fur of Trace’s fur looked muddy and dirty by comparison, but both wolves were pretty evenly matched size-wise.

Remy came back to my side and grabbed my hand. “I hate this,” he muttered. “It should be me.”

“Rhodes has this,” Katy said from Larkin’s side. Her gaze jerked to where Maren was still being held. “He has to win.”

“Death or submission means the other wins,” Griffin told them before getting out of the way.

I half expected this to start the way I had seen Remy fight; with Rhodes watching and calculating, but Rhodes wasn’t Remy. He lunged first, surprising me and definitely surprising Trace who barely managed to dance out of the way of his jaws.

Larkin trembled and covered her face with her hands, peeking from between her fingers.

Rhodes didn’t quit; he never gave Trace a change to recover and constantly kept him moving as Rhodes stayed on the offensive. The more Rhodes advanced, the clumsier Trace got.

He was cracking under the pressure.

When Rhodes backed him towards his father’s body, Trace hesitated and it cost him.

Rhodes snarled and surged forward, his sharp teeth finding purchase on Trace’s ribs. I flinched as Trace yelped, the high-pitched cry scraping against my eardrums.

“That’s it,” Remy murmured, his eyes glued to his best friend.

Now Trace was even more unfocused as he moved around, clearly favoring his side. Rhodes got in several more shots: a swipe across Trace’s face, another bite to his left flank, and in one humiliating moment, he grabbed Trace’s tail when Trace turned to literally tuck and run.

Trace yipped again, sliding on the grass and his wide eyes unfocused as Rhodes kept coming after him.

With a vicious growl, Rhodes leapt at Trace and knocked him to the ground, rolling Trace under his body.

With a sharp whimpering cry, Trace rolled over.

My jaw dropped and I squeezed Remy’s fingers. “Did he just—”

“Submit? Yeah,” Remy finished for me with a bitter laugh. “He quit.”

Looking up, I could see the disgust on the faces of a lot of people from Norwood as Trace gave up. Some looked concerned, but a few also looked relieved.

Rhodes backed away from Trace, who was still on the ground.

“Norwood submitted,” Griffin announced. “Blackwater wins.”

Remy let me go and headed for the middle of the clearing. He gazed at the Norwood members, and then his eyes zeroed in on Maren. “Let her go.”

The men holding Maren released her suddenly, abruptly. She stumbled forward before breaking into a run and running straight to Katy with a sob. A second later, Tate was joining their hug as Dante and Ryder waited for their own chance to hug Maren.

“It’s over,” Larkin whispered. “It’s actually over.”

“Not quite,” Lulu said quietly, filling the empty space Remy had left. “We need to free those women, and I need to find that elemental they were using.”

Griffin joined Remy and arched a brow. “Any other challengers?”

I held my breath and waited. Challenges were almost entirely issued by Alphas unless it was a lower pack member trying to wrest control and power of a pack. Technically any of the men across from us could challenge Remy, which meant he or Rhodes would have to keep fighting.

A man stepped forward from the pack and stared hard at Remy for a moment before slowly lowering to one knee. One by one, the rest of the Norwood pack followed suit until they all submitted to Remy. To Blackwater.

I finally exhaled the breath caught in my chest.