Chapter 9: Ten Points for Execution

I didn't flinch. I needed Rafe arrogant. I needed him sure of his conquest, leaning close enough to leave the side of his neck unguarded.

His breath scorched against my collar, heavy with stale whiskey and triumph. He lowered his head, dragging the tips of his canines across the cold skin of my throat, teasing the flesh before driving them in.

Come on, I thought, letting my frame go slack beneath his bulk. Lean in. Mark me, you piece of shit.

I had no intention of taking his claim. I was baiting him. My right hand stayed buried beneath the dead leaves, fingers locked around the jagged edge of the river flint. If he gave me two inches of clearance, I would drive the sharp point straight into his jugular.

Before my arm could swing, the air cracked.

A blur of dark mass slammed into Rafe's flank with the force of a battering ram.

The impact tore him off me in an instant. Rafe went airborne, crashing through the brush and slamming hard against the trunk of a hemlock. The violent jolt ripped the jagged stone from my numb fingers, sending it spinning into the dead leaves.

Two shadows collided on the forest floor, a thrashing knot of muscle, claws, and snarling fury.

This was no rescue. Another Alpha tracker had followed my scent, and now two predators were ripping each other apart for the right to claim the prize.

Under pack law, tradition was clear: a tribute waited on her knees, head bowed, throat bared to whichever victor rose from the mud.

I glanced at the tree line.

Screw tradition.

I scrambled backward through the mud, pushed off the ground, and bolted toward the dense timber.

Behind me, the snarling cut off.

The silence that followed was instant and lethal.

I looked over my shoulder. Both men had frozen on the torn earth. Two pairs of glowing amber eyes snapped onto my retreating shape, their panting breath clouding in the freezing air. I had broken the sacred script. A tribute didn't run from the claim; she submitted.

An outraged roar tore through the clearing.

One of the shadows pushed off the ground and charged into the brush, his heavy strides closing fast.

I tore through the dark timber, ducking beneath low boughs and driving through thorn thickets that ripped at my bare arms. I wove between the pine trunks, doubling back along dry creek beds to break my stride and throw off their pace.

High above the canopy, the crimson hue of the blood moon was bleeding away. A cold, pale blue began to wash across the eastern sky, thinning the shadows along the ridge.

Dawn was breaking.

The law of the Chalice was absolute: once the first rays of the sun cleared the mountain peaks, the Hunt was legally dead. No Alpha could force a mark against a female in daylight. If I could outlast them until the sunrise horn sounded across the gorge, I would return home unmarked.

My parents would face the shame of an unwanted daughter. The pack elders would brand me an undesirable defect. But an undesirable defect still owned her skin. An undesirable defect could walk back through the front door to Elsie.

A woman's shriek tore through the timber half a mile north, high and frantic before cutting out in a muffled gasp. Then came the deep, echoing howl of an Alpha sealing his brand.

Another tribute down. The hunters were closing the net.

Every stride across the mountain flint drove sharp stone into the raw cuts along my bare soles. Fresh blood slicked my heels, leaving wet crimson streaks across the damp moss. In this forest, pain didn't matter, but scent did. I was laying down an open trail that even a novice tracker could follow in his sleep.

Deep in the dark of my mind, Valka remained silent, smothered under the Chalice's binding seal. Shifting was barred until sunrise. I had to survive this on two human legs.

Another branch snapped behind me along the upper ridge, followed by the heavy thud of running boots.

They were cutting off the trail ahead.

I couldn't outrun them across open ground. My only play was to disappear.

Twenty yards ahead, the earth dropped into a steep, shadowed ravine. The northern wall was eroded, carved into a deep undercut bank tangled with exposed hemlock roots. If I could wedge myself into that hollow and stay motionless, the morning mist hanging over the creek would mask my heat and scent until the final horn blew.

I limped toward the lip of the drop, aiming for a patch of dry ferns near the bottom.

I shifted my weight to jump, but my torn foot found slick mountain clay instead of solid rock.

My footing vanished in a heartbeat.

Gravity took hold with violent speed. I tumbled headfirst down the steep bank, branches whipping across my face and loose shale tearing at my bare legs as the slope dragged me down. I hit the creek bed hard, slamming sideways against the packed dirt with an impact that drove every shred of breath from my chest.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Dirt and rotting leaves coated my tongue, tasting of copper and grit. I pushed up on one shaking elbow, desperate to crawl toward the undercut bank, but my muscles refused the command. The forty-eight hours of ritual fasting had hollowed me out completely. My starved frame had run out of fuel.

"Ten points for execution."

The voice drifted from the shadows behind me, smooth, low, and laced with dry amusement.

Panic snapped the fog from my thoughts.

I scrambled backward on hands and knees, dragging through the wet gravel until my spine hit the cold rock face of the ravine.

"Show yourself," I rasped, forcing the tremor from my voice.

Footsteps crunched against the dry gravel of the stream bed, steady and unhurried.

A shadow detached from the hemlocks, moving with the unhurried confidence of a hunter who knew the perimeter was locked. Before I could reach for a stone, he covered the distance in a blur.

Heavy hands caught my wrists, pinning them back against the cold rock behind me.

I braced for the stench of stale whiskey. I braced for Rafe's jagged canines tearing into my shoulder.

The morning light broke through the canopy, washing over his face.

The terror fractured.

"Conrad," I breathed.

He stood over me, unmarked and uninjured, his dark hair ruffled by the mountain wind. The cocky, easy grin from the parlor was back on his lips as he looked down at my bruised, mud-soaked frame.

He hadn't thrown himself into the brawl in the clearing. He hadn't chased me through the thorns. He had simply waited, tracking my trail with cold calculation while Rafe and the others tore each other apart.

"You're a difficult girl to run down, Wren," he murmured.

He shifted his grip, wrapping one broad hand around both of my wrists and holding them locked against the rock above my head. His hold was effortless, an immovable wall against my ruined strength.

His free hand reached out. Calloused fingers brushed against the curve of my neck, tracing the skin just below my ear.

My thoughts cleared, sharp and cold.

A Chosen Mark was a brand of ownership, a chemical leash carved into flesh by an Alpha's venom. Pack law allowed a female only one mark in her lifetime, but high-ranking Alphas took whatever they pleased. Conrad already had eight mates waiting for him in the northern territory. If I yielded to him, I would simply become number nine.

Yet after watching Rafe corner Gwen in the hall, after spending the night running from beasts who would snap my bones for sport, Conrad was the only mercy this forest had to offer. He was arrogant, but he wasn't feral. He played the game, but he didn't butcher for amusement.

Between being mauled by Rafe and claimed by Conrad, there was only one choice that kept me alive.

I stopped fighting his grip. I lifted my chin, turning my head to the side, and bared my throat to the morning air.

Conrad caught the movement. The easy amusement faded from his amber eyes, replaced by a dark, possessive resolve.

He leaned in close, his warm breath cutting through the freezing chill along my collar.

"This will hurt," he whispered.