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For a moment, Matthews looked ready to shift and start round two right there. His scent spiked with rage—hot metal and burnt pride. Then, with visible effort, he smoothed his expression back to marble perfection.

"As the Council wishes." Each word sounded like it physically hurt him. "I look forward to the remaining trials. Without interruption."

He spun on his designer heel and stalked away, the twins falling into step beside him like synchronized shadows. The crowd parted, nobody wanting to get in the path of that much contained fury.

"Well," Beatrice said brightly, "he took that well. And by well, I mean I'm pretty sure he just plotted seventeen different murders in his head."

"Eighteen," Mia corrected. "You missed the eye twitch when Jim smiled."

"Ladies," Jasmine rejoined them, the medallion now wrapped in silk that muted its nasty aura. "We have a problem."

"Just one?" Mia asked. "Because I count at least twelve."

"Matthews' reaction to the vampire evidence was wrong." Jasmine kept her voice low. "He wasn't surprised enough. And mentioning his vampire contacts..."

"Was either spectacularly stupid or deliberately revealing," Mia finished.

"Could he be working with vampires?" Beatrice whispered, looking scandalized. "That's like... like putting pineapple on pizza!"

"Worse," Jasmine said grimly. "It's treason."

They stood in a tight circle, processing the implications. If Matthews was collaborating with vampires, it wasn't just about the challenge anymore. It was about pack security, territorial integrity, the fundamental safety of everyone Mia had sworn to protect.

"We need proof," Jasmine said finally. "I'll analyze this medallion, see if I can trace its origins."

"And Jim?" Mia asked, her gaze finding him across the clearing.

He was helping clear debris, working alongside pack members who followed his lead without question.

Natural leadership, her wolf noted approvingly.

A medic approached to check the burns on his shoulder—when had those happened?

—and Mia felt a growl building in her throat.

"Careful," Jasmine murmured, watching Mia's face with knowing eyes. "You're looking at him like he's already yours."

"He's not," Mia said firmly, even as her wolf snarled 'LIAR.' "He's just another contestant."

"Right. That's why you nearly shifted when that medic touched his shoulder." Beatrice's grin was wicked. "Your claws are out, Mia."

Mia looked down. Damn it. She retracted her claws, ignoring her friends' knowing looks.

"Jim has secrets," Jasmine said, gracefully changing the subject. "But I don't think 'vampire collaborator' is one of them."

"He saved people today," Beatrice added. "Matthews gave speeches. That tells me everything I need to know."

"The second trial is tomorrow," Elder Marcus announced, his voice carrying over the cleanup efforts. "Leadership and diplomacy. Dawn, at the pack house."

The crowd began dispersing, voices subdued but determined. Her pack was shaken but not broken—werewolves were nothing if not resilient.

"I should help with healing," Beatrice said, already moving toward the makeshift medical station.

"And I need to examine this before the magic degrades," Jasmine patted her pocket.

Mia nodded, the weight of alpha responsibility settling back on her shoulders like a lead blanket. "I'll coordinate cleanup."

As her friends departed, Mia stood alone at the edge of the destroyed arena. The competing scents—pack, home, vampire magic, fear, determination—created a symphony of chaos that made her wolf pace restlessly.

Movement caught her eye. Jim, pulling a stuffed wolf toy from beneath collapsed bleachers.

He brushed it off carefully before returning it to a small girl, his smile transforming his face completely.

For just a moment, he looked exactly like her Jim—the one who'd spend hours teaching her pack history, who'd held her through her first shift, who'd promised?—

No. She couldn't go there. Not now.

Jim straightened, his gaze meeting hers across the distance. The smile faded, replaced by that careful mask he wore now. But underneath it, she caught a flash of heat, of want, of the same desperate yearning that was eating her alive.

The space between them felt charged, electric with possibility and pain.

She wanted to cross it. Wanted to demand answers.

Wanted to trace those new scars and learn each story.

Wanted to grab him and shake him until he explained why he'd left, why he'd come back, why he was risking everything for a chance at something they'd already had.

"Go to him," her wolf urged. "Just go."

But Mia stood frozen, caught between desire and duty, between her heart and her pride.

This new Jim—with his secrets and scars, his impossible knowledge and perfect timing—had won the first trial. Six more to go.

Six more chances to watch him risk his life. Six more opportunities for her walls to crumble. Six more trials of pretending she didn't want to grab him and demand answers—or grab him and demand nothing at all.

"We're so fucked," Mia muttered.

"Language, Alpha," Gerald appeared at her elbow. "But yes. We rather are."

At least her pack understood understatement.

And at least she had six more trials to figure out how to keep Jim alive while maintaining the fiction that she didn't care if he lived or died.

Her wolf laughed at the lie, but Mia was getting good at ignoring inconvenient truths.

Just not as good as she was at loving Jim Miracles.