Excerpt
“Mate,” the alpha a few feet away said, pointing at Blade. “You’re my mate!” He looked shocked and elated at the same time.
Blade lowered her arms from her fighting stance and stared at him. She felt dumbfounded, and her mind raced with conflicting thoughts.
What was he playing at?
Blade didn’t have a mate, and it had taken her a long time to accept her lonely fate. And she was okay with it. She had Andy, her baby.
Nick had been her mate and rejected her because of Andy.
Presently, this was either a mistake or a nasty distraction on this alpha’s part. He wanted to confuse her. He was cheating. This was supposed to be a fair fight.
You’re not supposed to play with people’s feelings during a fight. You wait until after you’ve beaten them, Blade told her wolf, Talon.
To her surprise, Talon said nothing back.
Talon?
But Talon remained silent and stared at their opponent in front of them through Blade’s eyes.
Something is off, Talon finally said slowly. I can feel it. I can sense–something.
More than anything, Talon sounded just as deeply confused as Blade felt.
He is our mate, but I don’t know how or why that’s possible. Best be careful, Blade. I don’t entirely trust whatever this is.
Blade would resume the fight, but the fragrance was too much to ignore or discard as purely coincidental. It seeped into her nose with force, stirring one of her most precious memories: Roasted marshmallows and melted chocolate with hints of a smoky campfire. The opponent before her smelled of tranquil summer evenings eating s’mores with her twin brother Joaquin and their cousins while they had listened with rapt attention to their grandfather’s spy stories around a roaring bonfire.
But what about Andy? Will he want to kill our baby, too? Talon’s worried voice in her head asked. She remembered how Nick told her he would kill Andy if Blade didn’t do it first.
“I can’t have people thinking that’s my heir,” he said, “How humiliating!”
Even if she were his mate, the muscled beast before her would never accept Andy as his own. His alpha’s pride would expect Blade to discard her baby as Nick had demanded. Was she willing to give up Andy or watch another kill him?
Blade sprinted toward the alpha and took advantage of the alpha’s confusion as she jumped feet first and slightly rotated in the air. Her feet landed squarely on his massive chest, and she kicked him back with all of her strength. She finished her mid-air rotation and nimbly landed in a crouch, both hands on the floor before her.
The alpha flew back several feet and landed on his ass once and then again before landing on the floor on his back and head.
Blade had executed a perfect dropkick by even Uncle Danny’s ridiculously high standards.
But Blade couldn’t take time to celebrate, so she stood up.
She noticed the elite warriors staring between her and their alpha, completely silent. Blade hadn’t heard the slightest gasp. She also noticed that the training center was almost full of pack members who had seen their alpha get kicked down like a pup.
And then she saw something that truly worried her.
The alpha smirked.
