Alec opened his mouth, then hesitated. “You all could tell if I lied,” he said. He raised up both his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Mary Jo.” He looked Darryl in the eye, and said, “Mary Jo outranks me.”
And chaos reigned. Paul stuck his head in Darryl’s face and raved. He was one of the very few people in the pack tall enough to stand eye to eye with Darryl. If there hadn’t been so much noise, I’d have been able to hear what he said—but I could guess. Paul liked Mary Jo. He didn’t want to kill her.
Mary Jo stood there; like Adam, she was an island of quiet in the uproar. She was small, but every ounce of weight she had was muscle. She was tough as boot leather, quick, and agile. I wasn’t as certain as Paul was that she’d lose—I wouldn’t want to fight against her. If she won, she could yield to Adam. If she decided to fight—and I didn’t think she would—she’d be coming into the challenge tired and possibly hurt.
Then I remembered the way Henry had thrown her into the island in the kitchen. She had either broken or cracked her ribs when she hit. Though I couldn’t see it in the way she was moving, there had not been enough time for her to heal. No one healed that fast unless they were an Alpha with a full moon outside.
“Enough,” roared Warren suddenly, his voice ringing out over the hubbub like a shot fired in a crowd.
Darryl turned to Mary Jo, and said, “No.”
“Not your call to make,” she informed him. “Adam?”
“I have a problem,” he said. “Justice demands that I must step away from this determination because I am more than a little vested in the decision. In the name of justice, then, let it fall to the next three in rank—Mercy, Darryl, and Auriele.”
He looked at me.
I know what I wanted to say. Auriele was likely to agree with Mary Jo—and we’d already heard what Darryl’s viewpoint was. Even if Mary Jo lost, it would help Adam. I looked at the wolves and saw a lot of resentful faces—they had done the math as well, and they were very unhappy with me being a part of the decision.
Then I saw some wiggle room.
“It seems to me that there is another problem,” I said. “If we agree that Mary Jo can fight because she ranks within three people of Paul. I submit that Paul does not stand within three people of Adam.” Like Mary Jo, I held up my hand. “Adam, then me.” I held up a finger. “Darryl—and Auriele, then Warren.”
“Then Honey,” said Warren with a little smile. “Then Paul.”
Paul snarled. “He has already accepted my challenge. That presupposes I have the right.”
I looked at Adam.
“Nice try,” he told me. “But I agree with Paul.”
“And the official code of conduct,” said Ben grumpily, “which I had to damn well memorize before I was allowed in the pack, says challenge within quote three men unquote. The important word being ‘men.’ ”
“So Mary Jo can’t fight,” said Paul with a relieved grin. “She’s not a man.”
“So Mary Jo’s claim is still valid,” I pointed out. “She’s within three men of your rank. Does the code of conduct say that the challenger has to be a man?” Kyle told me that one of the secrets of being a lawyer was never to ask a witness a question you didn’t know the answer to. I knew what it said, but it would sound better coming from someone else.
“No,” said Ben.
I’d done all I could do. Adam’s silent urging pushing me, I looked at Mary Jo, and said, “Like Adam, I have too much of a stake in this.”
“Mercy,” whispered Jesse fiercely. “What are you doing?” I patted the hand she’d locked on my wrist.
“Darryl, Auriele, and Warren will decide this, then,” said Adam.
Because my mate bond with Adam was sort of functioning again, I knew he believed that if I’d been part of the decision, it would have just become another point of contention. Another stupid thing that allowing a coyote into a pack of wolves had accomplished—instead of what it should be, a recognition of Mary Jo’s right to challenge regardless of her sex. I figured he was right.
“There are only three females in this pack,” said Darryl. I don’t think he forgot about me so much as he really meant three women werewolves instead of females in general. “That is typical for all packs. Most werewolves die before they have spent a decade as a wolf, but for women who are wolves, that life span is almost doubled because they do not fight men for dominance. And still they are so few. You are too precious to us to allow you to risk so much.”
It took me a while to realize he wasn’t talking to the whole pack, but to his mate.
Auriele crossed her arms. “That makes sense in a species where women are important to survival. But we aren’t. We cannot have children—and so are no more valuable to the pack than anyone else.”
It had the ring of an old argument.
“I vote no,” said Darryl, snapping his teeth as he spoke.
“I vote yes,” responded Auriele coolly.
“Damn it,” said Warren. “Y’all are going to throw me in the middle of a marital spat on top of everything else?”
“Up to you,” Auriele said grimly.
“Hell,” said Warren, “if this ain’t a whole can of worms, I don’t know what is. Mary Jo?”
“Yes?”
“You sure about this, darlin’?”
It felt as if the whole pack drew a breath.
“This is my fault,” she told him. “That Adam got hurt, that the pack has been in an upheaval. I didn’t cause it all, but I didn’t stop it either. I think it’s time I make suitable reparations, don’t you? Try to fix the damage?”
Warren stared at her, and I saw the wolf come and go in his eye. “All right. All right. You go fight him, Mary Jo—and you damn well better win. You hear me?”
She nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“You do better than that,” he said grimly.
“Mary Jo.” Paul’s voice was plaintive. “I don’t want to hurt you, woman.”
She kicked off her shoes and started pulling off her socks. “Do you yield?” she asked him, while she stood on one foot.
He stared at her, his body tight with growing anger. “I stuck my neck out for you,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. And I was wrong to ask you to.” She tossed her second sock aside and looked at him. “But Henry used both of us to ruin our pack. Are you going to let him get away with it?”
It was very quiet in the garage. I’m not sure anyone was even breathing. Henry’s name had been a shock. Heads turned toward Henry, who was leaning against the wall between the garage doors, as far as he could get from Adam’s side of the mat.
Paul looked at him, too. For a moment, I thought it was going to work.
“Are you going to let some girl lead you around by your tail like I did?” Henry said, sounding miserable. “She wants Adam, and she’s willing to throw both of us away to get him.” It was a masterful performance, and Paul bought it—hook, line, and sinker.
“The hell with you, then,” Paul said to her. “The hell with you, Mary Jo. I accept your challenge.” He looked at Adam. “You’ll have to wait. I guess I’ll eat my dessert first.”
And he strode to the far end of the mat, next to Henry. Mary Jo walked up to where Adam was standing.
“Reparations accepted,” he said. “You remember he fights with his heart and not his head.”
“And he moves slower to the left than the right,” she agreed.
Adam left her. As he walked across the white mat, he left little traces of blood wherever his foot hit. Blood was better than yellow pus, right?
“Good job,” he murmured when he came up to me. “Thank you. I couldn’t tell if you could hear me or not.”
Warren yielded Adam his place between Jesse and me, moving around Jesse so he could still help her if he was needed. Sam moved around to my side and lay down on the cement with a sigh.
“See if you congratulate me when she’s lying dead,” I said, very quietly. I’d h
ave told him about her ribs, but I was afraid that the wrong person would hear, and Paul would find out. Henry knew, of course . . . but somehow I didn’t think he would tell Paul that he’d broken Mary Jo’s ribs. Paul wouldn’t understand—and Henry was smart enough to know that.
Mary Jo adopted Adam’s horse stance and faced Paul, whose back was to her.
“Challenge given and accepted,” Darryl said. “Fight to the death with the winner having the option to accept a yield.”
“Agreed,” said Mary Jo.
“Yes,” said Paul.
Mary Jo was faster, and she was a better-trained fighter. But when she hit, she didn’t hit as hard. If Paul had been nearer to her size instead of four inches over six feet, she’d have had a good chance. But he had over a foot of height, which translated into reach. I’d remembered from his fight with Warren that he was surprisingly fast for such big man.
Eventually, he landed a fist on her shoulder that put her down like she’d been hammered.
“Yield,” he said.
She stuck her feet between his and knocked them apart. Then she rolled like a monkey between his spread legs, elbowing him in the kidneys as she rose behind him. A second kick behind the knee almost had him on the ground, but he recovered.
“Yield like hell,” she gritted, when she was a few body lengths from him.
“Quit being easy on her,” said Darryl heavily. “This is a fight to the death, Paul. She will kill you if she can. If you accepted her challenge, you have to give her the respect of fighting her honestly.”
“Right,” said Adam.
Paul snarled soundlessly, and stepped back to the edge of the ring, raising both arms to a high block position, his feet perpendicular to each other, hands loosely fisted, deliberately inviting a strike to the torso.
Trouble with baiting a trap like that was that if Mary Jo handled it right, she might be able to turn it into a very big mistake. I grabbed hold of Adam’s arm and tried not to dig in my fingernails. He was tense beside me, muttering, “Watch out, watch out. He’s faster than he looks.”
Mary Jo went slowly left, then right, and Paul turned easily to face her. She shifted her weight to the right—but with a blur of speed, she broke left and moved to the attack, dropping into a long, low lunge that looked almost like something a fencer might use, her fist blurring as hip and shoulder rotated into line, driving it forward like a lance. It was a perfect strike, delivered with superhuman speed.
Paul rotated smoothly as her fist flashed through empty air, just grazing his stomach. He brought both fists down like hammers on her unprotected back, driving her flat to the ground with a sound like distant thunder. Next to me Adam grunted, as if he felt the impact of Paul’s fists himself.
Mary Jo was obviously dazed. She lay on her stomach, blinking myopically. Her mouth and throat worked like a fish’s out of water. Then she drew in a long, shuddering breath and her eyes focused. If her ribs had been hurt before, she must be in agony after the blow she’d just taken.
Any sane person would know the fight was over, and beg to yield, but she was slowly struggling to get her elbows under her and lift her body from the mat. Paul’s mouth twisted in a mirthless smile as he watched her efforts.
“Stay down,” he told her. “Stay down. Yield, damn it. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
She’d gotten to her elbows and was pulling her knees up when he did a flashy skip-step and brought the edge of his foot down on the back of her thigh, driving her flat to the mats again. A short scream tore from her throat, but she jerked her knees underneath her and popped to her feet.
Her guard was too low, her right elbow pressed tightly against her injured ribs. Below her elbow, a small stain of bright red blood was slowly spreading. Every wolf in the room could smell it, and so could I. I was afraid that one of those damaged ribs had punctured a lung. Her left leg wasn’t working quite right, and she took a simple stance with most of her weight on the ball of her right foot. She stood at the very edge of the ring, which eliminated her ability to retreat but also meant Paul couldn’t circle behind her.
Paul advanced slowly, carefully, a predator stalking wounded prey. But I saw him frowning at Mary Jo’s ribs. He was trying to figure out how she’d hurt them.
He moved left and right, forcing her to use the injured leg, his head tilted. He must have heard the same thing I could—the faint burble of a collapsing lung. Her mouth was open as she tried to get more oxygen.
Paul struck with a powerful front kick with no trace of finesse, but power to spare. Mary Jo snapped both arms down and slowed the blow, which had been aimed at her injured leg, but it still flung her stumbling backward off the mats.
She kept her balance, barely, but the leg was obviously almost useless. A ragged sea of hands pushed her, not ungently, back into the ring where Paul was waiting for her.
“It’s okay,” Adam said. “It’s okay. Yield, Mary Jo.”
Mary Jo looked beaten, but as she entered the ring, her injured leg suddenly shot up, toes pointed like a prima ballerina’s. Her kick was as simple as Paul’s had been. Straight up, angling between his thighs.
He tried to block, but it was already too late. There was a muffled impact, and Paul’s breath exploded outward. He backed up rapidly, bent forward with fists crossed over his groin, every muscle in his torso tensed in sudden pain. Mary Jo followed, though I could tell that it hurt, and took advantage of his dropped guard to hit him with a hammer fist to the back of the head.
A perfect nerve strike, I thought. Good for you, Mary Jo.
If he hadn’t been a werewolf, he’d have been seeing lights and hearing bells for weeks. His eyes were wolf-pale, and his arms moved strangely as bones began to shift beneath the skin. Paul shook his head, trying to shake off the effects of the strike. If she’d been in better shape, she could have finished him.
But Mary Jo was too slow. He straightened and pulled his hands back to guard position with obvious effort. Then he came at her slowly, implacably, simply walking to close the distance. Her right fist shot toward his throat, but he blocked it with his right hand, then pushed her elbow with his left, turning her body, then smashed a knee into her injured ribs, hard. She went to the mats, facedown and coughing blood. Paul followed her to the mats, landing astride her shoulders. He grabbed one of her legs and began to bend it back, bowing her back into a tight arch. There were faint popping sounds, and Mary Jo scrabbled at the mat frantically, her control shattered and the wolf fighting for survival.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “Yield. Don’t make me kill you.”
For some reason at that moment I looked at Henry. The bastard was watching without any emotion on his face at all.
“Yield,” Adam roared. “Mary Jo. Yield.”
Mary Jo hit the mat with her right hand, twice.
“She yields,” Paul said, looking at Darryl.
“Paul wins,” said Darryl. “Do you accept her yield?”
“Yes, yes.”
“It is over,” declared Darryl.
Paul jumped off of her and rolled her over. “Medic,” he said, sounding frantic. “Medic.”
A few heads turned to Sam. He stayed where he was, but he all but vibrated with the need to help. He closed his eyes and finally turned his back to the scene. It was Warren who pulled up Mary Jo’s T-shirt, and Adam who grabbed the first-aid kit.
I grabbed Jesse, and we both stayed back. Within a few seconds I couldn’t see what was happening for all the people who crowded closer.
“Got to pull the rib out of her lung,” said Adam tightly. Then, “Just toss the broken bits. They’ll regrow.” Medicine among werewolves is, in many ways, much simpler—if more brutal—than for humans. “Hold her down, Paul. The more she struggles, the more this is going to hurt.” Then in a much softer voice, Adam crooned, “Just bear with us a bit, baby. We’ll get you so you can breathe better in just a second.”
“I didn’t hit her in the ribs,” Paul said.
“Henry knocked
her across the kitchen,” said Auriele. “Here. Don’t get that Vaseline all over. Just a little around the wound to seal the Teflon pad, but you’ve got to tape three sides of the pad, andthat will work better if you aren’t taping to Vaseline-covered skin.”
There was a wave of relieved silence as whatever they’d managed to do seemed to work and Mary Jo could breathe again. People backed away, giving her space since she was out of immediate danger.
The dojo came equipped with a stretcher—a very basic piece of equipment, just a metal frame with canvas stretched around it and a pair of grips on each end. Alec and Auriele picked Mary Jo up on it and carried her into the house. A human would be down for a long time with a punctured lung. With a few pounds of raw meat, Mary Jo’s lung would probably be fine in a few hours, if not sooner. The ribs would take longer, but she would be back to normal in a few days, a week at most. No worries about infections or secondary infections while missing pieces of rib or lung regrow.
Henry hadn’t moved from his place. I noticed that he was getting looks from the rest of the pack. And when they started to move back off the mats in preparation for the final battle, there was a space around Henry—and there hadn’t been before.
As a couple of wolves swabbed up the mess, Paul retreated to his corner of the mat and Adam to his.
I kept my eye on Paul. That nerve strike of Mary Jo’s . . .
At first I thought he’d just shrugged it off; his walk to his end of the mats had been pretty steady. But before Mary Jo’s blood was completely cleaned off the mat, Paul shook his head slowly and raised a hand to rub at his ear, avoiding the spot where he’d been struck. He blinked rapidly and seemed to be having trouble focusing.
Then Paul blew out a long, even breath and found his center. His body stilled, and his breathing became deep and regular. He stood like a statue, bare chest coated with a light sheen of sweat. There was no fat on the man, and he looked like a cross between a Calvin Klein ad and an Army recruitment poster.
After the wet spots on the mats were perfunctorily dried, Darryl stepped back into the center.
Silver Borne mt-5 Page 20
