Chapter 326
Athena
Tristan jumped over it without losing speed, the bike’s front wheel lifting and clearing the obstacle before slamming back down.
‘Jesus,‘ Orion breathed.
Behind him, Jensen wasn’t as lucky or skilled. He tried to swerve around the pipe, got too aggressive, and clipped it with his back tire..
The bike started to wobble, Jensen overcorrected, and suddenly he was sliding sideways. Marc couldn’t avoid him, they were too close, moving too fast,
and his front wheel hit Jensen’s bike.
Both riders went down in a spectacular crash of metal and sparks and screaming tires.
The crowd gasped as the two bikes tumbled across the track, but both riders were already rolling away, alive if not uninjured.
Two down.
Four left chasing Tristan.
Cole was in front of the pack now, riding recklessly, and the other three were right behind him. They’d lost their careful coordination and gone pure aggressive, no more strategy, just raw speed and determination.
The final turn was coming up, the same turn with the concrete wall, and they were right on Tristan’s tail. They’d learned from his earlier escape, spread out wider to cut off more escape routes.
Tristan went into the turn fast, leaning low, and for a second it looked like he’d take it clean and win.
Then Cole did something insane.
He sped up INTO the turn, his bike screaming, and deliberately clipped Tristan’s back tire.
The impact wasn’t huge but at that speed, at that angle, it was enough.
Tristan’s bike wobbled. The back end started to slide out.
Every person in that crowd knew what was about to happen. You could feel everyone hold their breath at the same time, the moment of frozen horror.
The bike was going down.
“NO!” The scream tore out of my throat before I could stop it.
But Tristan…
His Alpha strength did something that shouldn’t have been possible.
Instead of fighting the slide, he used it, letting the bike drop even lower while his leg came down to brace against the pavement.
Sparks flew from his boot as it scraped concrete, his leg taking weight that would have shattered human bones, and somehow–SOMEHOW–he kept the
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Chapter 326
bike upright through pure strength and balance.
The bike shuddered, threatened to go down again, and Tristan just muscled it back up. His thigh had to be screaming, his leg possibly broken from the impact, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t give up.
“That’s impossible,” someone in the crowd said. “That’s fucking impossible.”
“That’s Tristan,” I replied quietly.
He came out of the turn still in first place.
The finish line was fifty yards ahead and I could see it now, the white line painted across the cracked pavement, the crowd already pushing toward it.
Forty yards.
Thirty.
Vic was right behind him, Cole beside Vic, both of them pushing their bikes past safe limits, engines screaming in protest. The other two riders had fallen back, unable to keep up the pace.
Twenty yards.
Ten.
Tristan crossed first.
The crowd erupted and I was screaming, my voice raw, my hands shaking. Sarah was crying beside me, Orion was yelling something that might have been words, and Derek was just standing there shaking his head, a huge grin on his face.
Tristan had won.
He’d won against six riders who’d worked together to take him down, had survived attempts that should have killed him, and he’d done it while riding more carefully than he ever had in his life, holding back because somewhere in his mind he was thinking about the babies, about me, about the future we
were building.
“He did it,” I said, and my voice broke. “He actually did it.”
“Never doubted him for a second,” Orion said, but his voice was shaky too, giving away his relief.
I watched Tristan slow down past the finish line, watched him circle back toward the starting area where Derek’s truck was parked.
The crowd was already rushing toward him, people wanting to see the legend, wanting to touch him, wanting to be part of the story they’d just
witnessed.
Money was changing hands everywhere as bets were settled. I heard someone saying they’d just won three thousand dollars, someone else cursing because they’d bet against Tristan.
‘I can’t believe anyone bet against him,” Sarah said, echoing my thoughts.
“People always bet against him, Derek replied. “Makes the odds better for those of us who know better.”
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
