Blood on the Moon

Rose

Genevieve scoffs, turning her back on me to face Asher and Margaery.

“This is your scheme?” She asks, patronizing. “This is your grand plan? It is what you choose to be your mate?”

“You may have gotten away with speaking to me that way, but you will not get away with it with her,” Asher warns, his eyes blazing as he squares up to her.

Margaery steps in and says, “Whether you like it or not, she has just challenged you. Will you choose to fight? Or abdicate willingly?”

“A vampire can’t challenge a wolf for a wolf title!” Genevive roars. “She’s not one of us!”

“Actually,” Wilson Kirk, a high-ranking politician who was once very close to Gen, but joined the cause in the early days. “I studied the laws of our land, and nothing in the code prohibits a vampire from challenging the title. All the legal code says for this is that ‘anyone who feels they are fitter for the title of Alpha or Luna may challenge one of them for the title.’ It does not say they have to be a wolf.”

“This is preposterous!” Gen cries.

“Are you throwing a tantrum because you’re afraid to lose?” I ask, widening my arms. “I’m not afraid of you. I say we do it the old-fashioned way, too. Get back to our roots.” I smirk, lifting my chin. “We fight to the death, not just submission.”

She huffs, turning to face me again as she laughs, “Are you willing to die for wolves? Does your Clan know you’re doing this?”

“I’m willing to die for people who have been under a cruel dictator, yes,” I answer. “Enough chatting. Let’s fight.”

Genevive pauses, looking around the room, possibly waiting for someone to object and defend her. Bring about a reason we can’t do this. But nobody speaks, so she’s in a corner. If she chooses not to fight, then she forfeits.

“Challenger picks the form.”

“It’s only fair that we do this woman to woman,” I say as a group of people move the table out of the center of the room so it is along the edge of the wall. They take up the sides as Gen and I circle each other, the space large. There is plenty of room to kill a power-hungry despot, in my opinion.

“That’s because you know you’d have no chance against my wolf,” she snarls.

“I’d beat your wolf just as easily as I’ll beat you,” I reply, letting the arrogance fill my tone. “I only wish to look into the eyes of the woman who hurt my mate so badly as I snap her neck.”

This sends her over the edge, and she sprints toward me, wrapping her arms around my waist as she tackles me to the ground.

We are evenly matched; I know this. She may even have an edge.

But everyone has a limit of endurance.

If I can survive her wrath and instigate her as much as I can to go at her full strength, she’ll tire out quickly, and that’s when I can deliver my blows when she’s too exhausted to defend.

All I need to do is survive her fury and try not to be distracted by Asher’s worry in the process.

She pummels me with her fists, and I quickly throw my hands up to guard, taking the blows to my forearms, keeping them locked despite her attempts to claw them away from my face. All I need to do is block bows to the head.

She lets out high-pitched war cries as she attempts to straddle me, but I keep my knees up to prevent that from happening. I hook my feet into her calves, keeping distance between us as she continues to strike at my face, mostly missing as I use the leverage I have with my legs to fling myself side to side, dodging her blows.

Her eyes glow with fury and frustration, paying less attention as she strikes to the point where her fist crashes against the floor.

The wood splinters under her knuckles, but she still lets out a cry of pain. I grab her forearm, quickly getting to my knees and throwing her over my shoulder. She crashes against the ground, and I stand.

It’s not time for me to take the offensive yet—just little tricks to piss her off.

She scrambles to her feet and wastes no time sprinting furiously at me, claws extending from her fingernails as her canines extend.

She slashes at my face, but I quickly dodge, but she counters, slashing my shoulder with her other hand.

I scream in pain, my teeth gritted, even if blood doesn’t pour from the wound.

My canines extend, the wound throbbing angrily as I shrug it off.

She launches at me again, and I hook her neck, putting her in a headlock, which I know she’ll quickly get out of, so I sink my fangs into her shoulder, injecting as much of my pain-inducing venom as I can into her before she easily wiggles free, shoving me with a force that knocks me off my feet. I slide against the ground, crashing into the spectators' shins, knocking them down like bowling pins.

I scramble out of the heap, knowing she won’t care about injuring bystanders as she reels from the venom I dealt.

Her muscles twitch, drool hanging from the corners of her mouth on frothy strands, her eyes crazed and hair tangled.

“Cheating!” She growls.

“You’re using your wolf teeth and claws,” I fire back. “Scared you can’t beat me?”

This sends her into a fiery rage, and she staggers toward me like a zombie, quick yet uncoordinated. I can hear her heavy panting, heart racing.

She’s getting tired. And I haven’t even broken a sweat.

She punches wildly, with no rhyme or reason to the blows, and I cover my face, taking a few to my ribs that send sharp pain through my bones. I let her use me as a punching bag, keeping my stance strong so we don’t fall to the ground.

Not until I’m ready.

I listen closely to her breathing as it grows more and more labored, her punches slower and less powerful as time moves until I can barely feel them at all, partly because my skin is numb.

I smirk, grabbing her wrist and yanking her to the ground. She falls onto her face as I keep hold of her wrist, pinning it behind her back as I mount her back.

I push her arm up with all my might, and she fights furiously. Her bones are stronger, sweat pouring from my hairline as I struggle to get her shoulder to snap.

“C’mon!” I scream as she squirms underneath me, my muscles straining as hard as they can, my body pushed to its limit.

Crack!

She howls in pain, and I let go of her wrist, wrapping my arm around her throat, pulling up to choke her. She only has one arm to defend, the other limp and useless.

“Is this how you choked Asher?” I taunt, digging my canines into her neck again to deliver most of my remaining venom into her. I can’t deal all of it, or else she’d turn, rising as an undead vampire whether she escapes this hold or not. But I think she knows it’s over because the rest of her body goes limp, and she stops fighting back, gurgling.

I keep my lock tight, not letting up, even as she smacks my arm a few more times in one final attempt to get away.

“M-Mercy,” I hear her wheezing just barely through my grasp, meaning she must be getting some air. So I squeeze harder.

“Would you have given me mercy had the roles been reversed?” I ask. “Did you show Asher mercy? Your pack? Your sister?”

Her skin is turning purple, the life draining out of her eyes as they roll into the back of her head.

“I bet you wish you hadn’t cared so much about an elk’s blood in your stream now,” I say, even though I’m not positive she can hear. I can still hear the faint beat of her heart and the whooshing of her blood. I need to hold a little longer.

How dare she ask me for mercy. After all she’s done? After all she’s put the people I love through.

It’s all a ploy to keep going another day. One last try at manipulation.

She should no better than to try that shit on me. Die with a little dignity.

“Your reign of terror is over, Genevieve,” I tell her as the last of her life drips out of her, her bladder emptying onto the floor as her heart sputters out like a bad car engine. “Ended by me, Rose Carver. The mate of Alpha Asher, Luna of Black Opal Pack, and Dame of the Crimson Night Clan.”

I chuckle softly, thinking about how poetic this end is for her. Her life was taken by a being she thought so little of. Someone she looked down on and thought she could push around.

Oh, how wrong she was.

“Me, a lowly bloodsucker.”