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“And say goodbye,” I said.

“Yeah.” Hawk nodded. “Yeah. I think… I think I’ll need that.”

“Consider it done. Now, come on. We need to get ready.”

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of preparations: moving our families into the clubhouse where they’d all be safe together, gathering our weapons, and making our attack plans.

Just before sundown, Sean sent the coordinates for the meeting place.

It was northwest of Lakeview, not far from Sean’s compound, but still in the middle of nowhere.

It was deep in the woods, where no one would hear the sounds of our battle.

The clearing was only accessible via a narrow, poorly maintained dirt road.

A half-mile away from the coordinates, Tank, Striker, Hawk, and Rome all peeled off into the woods to find safe scouting locations.

They’d be close enough to hear my call, but not so close that Sean would catch their scent.

I rode up the dirt path at a slow, steady pace.

My draconic senses were attuned to the woods around me.

It was quiet, save for the rustle of animals in the underbrush and the breeze rustling the canopy overhead.

The sun had just fallen under the horizon, and darkness began to descend over the forest.

The forest opened up to a small clearing.

There was a small, half-collapsed cabin at the far side of it, nearly overtaken with weeds.

The rest of the clearing looked like it may have once been a large garden.

Whoever had lived deep in these woods was long gone now.

I cut my bike off and dismounted, then cast my eyes around the darkening woods.

My nostrils flared. The wind brought me a tiny piece of Harley’s scent: sweet, musky, tinged with anger.

My mate wasn’t afraid at all. She was just as pissed off as I was.

Then I smelled the rest of them: Sean, and a swirl of rotten, unfamiliar scents. So I was supposed to come alone, but of course, he hadn’t.

My claws extended and my fangs dropped. My dragon was furious, but now, it was a controlled, slow-burning anger. Finally, I was going to get my fangs in Sean.

Sean stepped out of the trees and into the clearing.

He was dressed in black, and the scar over his eye was red and irritated.

His skin was sallow, and he had a manic grin on his face.

His fangs were dropped, and his dragon was burning in his eyes, but it wasn’t like any dragon I’d seen before.

Instead of a solid flash of color, his dragon seemed to swirl in and out of his irises, like it was breaking the surface and then retreating, over and over again.

Uncontrolled.

Dangerous.

Four other men stepped out of the clearing behind Sean.

They all had bulging muscles, but none of them looked like they were in particularly good shape.

One had a limp, another was jaundiced. One kept twitching erratically.

I knew Sean had been struggling to find guys willing to work for him, and it seemed he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

“What happened to meeting alone?” I snarled.

“I told you to come alone,” Sean said with a smirk. “I didn’t say anything about me. Besides, I’m the weak one, remember? You’re the big, strong alpha. Who can blame me for bringing a little backup?”

“Don’t be fucking cheeky. Where’s Harley?”

Sean snapped his fingers. Then, from the forest, Harley emerged.

My dragon roared with both rage and relief. Harley was being marched into the clearing with her hands tied behind her back. Her chestnut hair was a mess, and her clothes were dirty. She smelled furious and a little scared. Her eyes locked on mine, and her lips parted.

“ I’m sorry, ” she mouthed.

I wanted nothing more than to grab her, shift, and take us both far away from all of this mess, but I couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I dealt with Sean… and Blakely, too.

Blakely was the one who marched Harley into the clearing. She was keeping Harley’s bound hands tight behind her back as she maneuvered her. But Blakely was not exactly a picture of confidence. She was trembling as she pushed Harley into the clearing, and her eyes darted around nervously.

She was in over her head, yet again. This time, I wasn’t going to let her off easy.

“Blakely,” I snarled with the full force of my dragon’s rage in my voice.

Her gaze snapped up to meet mine, and her face paled.

“You’ve made a serious mistake,” I hissed at her, “and you’re going to pay dearly for it.”

“Ace…” she whispered.

Harley stomped her heel down hard on Blakely’s foot. “Let me go, you bitch!”

“Hey!” Blakely stumbled back, but didn’t let go. “Watch it!”

I smirked. It wasn’t just me who wanted to kick Blakely’s ass.

“Get her under control!” Sean snapped.

Blakely wrestled Harley back as Harley struggled half-heartedly against her hold. It looked like they’d been grappling like this for… Well, if I knew Harley, she’d probably been fighting Blakely off the entire time.

Silence fell over the clearing. I stood with my arms at my sides, claws out, fangs bared. I met Sean’s gaze. “Well?” I said. “I’m here. What now?”

“Now?” Sean smirked. “Now, Ace, it’s time for you to die.” He stepped forward into the center of the clearing. His four lackeys and Blakely hung back behind him.

Sean met my gaze. I searched his eyes, which were still swirling dark brown and gold. Despite what I’d told Hawk, part of me still hoped to see the brother I remembered. “Sean,” I said in a low voice, just for us to hear. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“Of course it does,” Sean snarled.

“We used to be a family. A real clan. You used to want to have a clan of your own. You used to have values. The values Dad taught us.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Sean said. “All Dad ever did was take what was rightfully mine and give it to you. That ends tonight.” It wasn’t just gold shining in his eyes now, there was red, too.

Red. The color of a feral dragon.

Sean had never known those values. He’d never cared.

All he cared about was being the alpha of Lakeview.

And now, that desire had been rotted away by his desire for revenge.

My clan was my heart, my foundation, the support system that kept me strong.

Sean had none of that. All he had was emptiness and hate. He’d let it consume him.

“Stephan Cole,” Sean snarled, “Alpha of the Lakeview clan. As the rightful alpha, I challenge you for the leadership of the clan.”

The challenge.

Finally.

After all this time, everything had led to this moment.

For as long as I’d been the alpha of Lakeview, I’d never been challenged.

I’d never thought that I would ever be challenged.

Dad had been the one to tell me how challenges worked—how an official challenge could not be refused, lest the challenger take the clan, and how it could only be resolved on the battlefield.

The winner won by submission or death. He had also told me that challenges were an ancient rule, part of our long dragon history.

The way my father had told it, dragons were challenging each other before we even had a written language.

But he’d never told me how it would feel.

I felt the challenge wrap around my heart.

It activated some deep instinct within me.

An old, ancient magic. My enforcers seemed to fall away around me, as did the raggedy muscle-for-hire behind Sean.

All I saw was my mate, struggling against Blakely’s hold, and my enemy, staring down at me with red bleeding into his gold eyes.

I understood why dragons never turned down a challenge. I physically couldn’t. The intensity of the feeling shocked me and stomped out any remaining doubt.

This alpha had kidnapped my mate. He was trying to take my clan.

And I was going to kill him.

I whistled once. It was a long, low note that carried on the wind like an owl’s cry, summoning my enforcers out of the woods and to the clearing. They’d ensure this was a fair challenge, between Sean and me, without his hired muscle getting in the way.

Sean bared his teeth. His power crackled through the air like lightning.

He shifted, but it didn’t look smooth or relaxed like it did for my brothers in the clan.

It looked painful, like his dragon was forcefully ripping out of his skin.

His bones cracked as they snapped and reformed into the longer, stronger skeleton of his dragon.

His scales ripped out of his skin and cascaded down his back.

His spine lengthened, neck to tail, and long, scarred wings pushed out of his back like a moth from a cocoon.

Though we were twins, our dragons had never looked identical.

My dragon was sage green, dotted with gold.

Sean’s had always been the ash gray of a thundercloud.

When we were teenagers, the gray would catch the sunlight and shine like gunmetal.

Now, his scales were dull and flaking. His eyes were gold, swirled with red, and his wings hung heavy like they were weighing him down.

I glanced to the side. Hawk stood at the edge of the clearing, one hand on the hilt of the knife on his belt, pain marring his face. Seeing Sean’s dragon in such a sickly state wasn’t easy for him, but it was proof of how far gone Sean really was. He met my gaze and nodded once.

It was time to end this.

My dragon surged forth. I shifted in the space of a breath.

My dragon was so close to the surface, chomping at the bit to be freed, it was less of a shift and more of a release.

I stretched my wings and whipped my tail, then flapped my wings once, hard enough to send the hired muscle behind Sean stumbling back a step.

In my dragon form, I smelled the feral edge to his dragon.

It smelled sick, like he was rotting from the inside out.

Sean roared, loud as a clap of thunder, then charged at me.

I lunged forward. We collided in the center of the clearing, our twin roars booming through the air.

I dug my shoulder into Sean’s chest and heaved forward, trying to slam him backwards, but Sean’s claws only dug deeper into the dirt.

His chest heaved, and he swung his head wildly, snapping his jaws as we fought for dominance.

He was strong. Stronger than I had expected, based on the poor condition of his scales.

But it was a rapid, uncontrolled strength.

The challenge’s magic had activated something instinctive deep inside me—had it done the same for Sean?

Had it awakened some ancient, hungry part of him?

I was willing to do anything to defend my clan, and now he was willing to do anything to take it from me.

Drool frothed around his fangs as he growled and hissed.

Rage and hate fueled him. He’d never stop coming for me, my clan, my mate, my son.

My claws tingled, and my teeth throbbed. I was ready to tear out his throat.