carried across 56

 

56 Pride 

Sera 

I opened my eyes fully. I stared at Taya’s thick legs. 

I didn’t push myself up to my feet. I stayed on the ground. I rolled onto my back and brought my knees up slightly, keeping my hands near my face. 

Taya looked down at me and laughed. “Giving up? Good. I’ll make it quick.” 

She stepped directly between my legs, aiming to drop down into a full mount and crush my face into the dirt. 

She lunged downward, throwing a heavy right punch aimed squarely at my jaw. 

I didn’t try to dodge. I didn’t try to block it with my forearms. 

I reached up with both hands and caught her right wrist. 

The momentum of her downward strike helped me. I gripped her thick wrist, pulled her arm tight against my chest, and simultaneously thrust my hips upward off the frozen ground. 

I swung my right leg up and threw it directly over her neck, locking my calf against the back of her head. I swung my left leg over her chest, crossing my ankles to lock her right arm completely straight between my thighs. 

Taya grunted in surprise. She tried to pull her arm back, but my entire body weight was anchoring it down. We hit the dirt together. She was trapped in a classic armbar, but she was incredibly strong. 

“Get off me!” Taya roared. She planted her free hand on the dirt and tried to stand up, attempting to lift my entire body off the ground with her trapped arm. 

She managed to lift my hips three inches into the air. 

I didn’t let her get any higher. I tightened my grip on her wrist, keeping her thumb pointed straight up toward the grey sky. I squeezed my knees together, locking her elbow joint perfectly in place against my pelvic bone. 1 

Then, I bridged my hips upward with every last ounce of brutal, desperate strength I possessed. 

The snap was sickeningly loud. 

It sounded like a thick, dry tree branch being broken over a knee. 

Taya let out a sound that I had never heard before. It wasn’t a roar. It wasn’t a scream. It was a high- pitched, inhuman shriek of absolute, unfiltered agony. 

But I didn’t stop there. 

The thing about wolf biology was that- the moment a bone broke, the wolf’s biology flooded the area 

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with accelerated cellular growth, trying to fuse the fracture back together in minutes. 

If I just broke it, she would heal, and she would kill me. 

So I kept my grip on her wrist. I violently twisted her forearm to the right, hyper-extending the shattered joint and pulling it entirely out of alignment. 

The broken jagged edge of her radius bone pushed sharply against the underside of her skin, tenting the flesh outward. I held it there, completely misaligned. 

Taya’s body immediately tried to heal the trauma. Steam literally rose from her skin as her accelerated healing factor kicked into overdrive. But because the bones were displaced, her body began fusing the tissue and marrow at a completely broken angle. 

The pain must have been blinding. Her body was actively trapping her in a state of continuous, agonizing trauma. 

Taya collapsed into the mud. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body convulsed, her left hand clawing uselessly at the frozen dirt. 

The crowd went completely dead silent. The cheering stopped instantly. The yard was so quiet I could hear the fabric of Taya’s leathers tearing as she thrashed. 

I uncrossed my ankles. I let go of her ruined arm. 

I rolled over, pushing myself up into a straddle directly over her chest. My legs pinned her torso to the ground. 

Taya looked up at me. Her face was pale, slick with cold sweat. Her jaw trembled. For the first time since 

I met her in the hallway of the guest wing, there was no arrogance in her eyes. There was only raw, unadulterated terror. 1 

She opened her mouth, choking on a sob. “Yield. I yi-” 

I didn’t let her finish the word. 

I drew my right fist back and drove it directly into the center of her face. 

Her nose shattered again under my knuckles. Blood exploded outward, splashing hot and thick across my cheeks and my jaw. 1 

I didn’t stop. I drew my left fist back and hit her cheekbone. The skin split wide open. 

I hit her again. Right. Left. Right. 

I put my hips into every single strike, using gravity and rage to fuel the blows. I was exhausted, my lungs burning, my arms feeling like dead weight, but I didn’t stop. I punched her mouth. Her lips tore against her teeth. One of her front teeth snapped and flew into the dirt. 

I hit her eye. The swelling instantly bubbled up, sealing it shut in a dark purple mass. 

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Smash. Smash. Smash. 

The wet, heavy sound of meat hitting meat echoed across the silent yard Blood coated my knuckles, turning my hands into slick, red weapons. Taya stopped trying to defend herself. Her head simply bounced against the frozen dirt with every impact. Her face was no longer a face. It was a ruined, unrecognizable mask of split skin, crushed cartilage, and dark, flowing blood. 

“Stop!” 

The voice tore through the horrific silence. 

“Stop it! She’s dead! You’re killing her!” 

It was Kael. He broke from the edge of the crowd, his face twisted in absolute horror. He lunged toward the ring, reaching for the hilt of his sword. 1 

He didn’t make it two steps. 

Two of Fenris’s personal guards stepped directly into Kael’s path. They moved with terrifying 

synchronization. They crossed the thick wooden shafts of their spears, creating an impenetrable barrier right at Kael’s chest. 

“Move!” Kael screamed, spitting as he yelled. He shoved against the spears. “Alpha! Stop this! She yielded!” 

“She did not finish the word,” Fenris’s voice cut through the air. It was loud, heavy, and final. “The match continues until the winner decides it is over.” 

Kael stopped shoving. He looked at Fenris, his eyes wide with disbelief. He looked back at his daughter, bleeding into the mud. He dropped to his knees in the frost, burying his face in his hands. 

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I stopped punching. 

My chest heaved violently. My knuckles throbbed, completely raw and bleeding. The adrenaline was slowly draining out of my system, leaving a hollow, freezing ache in its wake. 1 

I sat back on my heels, still straddling Taya’s unconscious, ruined body. 

I looked up. 

I looked past the silent, terrified faces of the Ironmaw pack. I looked past Torin, who looked like he was going to vomit. I looked past my mother, who had fainted and was being held up by two guards. 

I looked at Fenris. 

He was standing in the exact same spot. His arms were still crossed. 

But the blank mask was completely gone. 

He looked at my blood-soaked hands. He looked at the absolute destruction I had inflicted on his chief’s daughter. Then, he looked up into my eyes. 

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The corner of his mouth twitched upward. 

It wasn’t a kind smile. It wasn’t polite. It was a slow, dark, intensely possessive smirk. It was the smile of a predator looking at its equal. He was proud of me. 

A deep, overwhelming warmth bloomed inside my chest, melting the cold right out of my bones. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a fierce, vibrating high. I didn’t just survive. I conquered. 1 

I sat up straight, wiping the blood from my chin with the back of my ruined hand. 

I was Ironmaw. 1 

*** 

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