carried across 68

 

68 Survival 

Fenris 

The boy’s head hit the frozen dirt. 

It was barely dawn. The sun was still trapped behind the jagged eastern peaks, casting a flat, grey light over the fortress. The air was thin and bitingly cold, carrying the sharp scent of pine needles and fresh ice. My breath plumed in thick white clouds in front of my face. 

I stood at the edge of the secondary sparring ring. Yvara leaned against the heavy wooden fence post next to me. We were watching the morning drills. 

“You took her to your den last night,” Yvara said. 

She didn’t look at me. She kept her eyes on the two twelve-year-old pups circling each other in the packed dirt. 

“She was bleeding,” I replied. My voice was completely flat. 

“We have a healer’s wing, Alpha,” Yvara pointed out. “We also have a guest wing. And she has her own room.” 

She let out a low grunt. I looked at her. I saw the faint, mocking smile pulling at the scarred corner of her mouth. 

I shifted my weight. The cold wind whipped at the edges of my heavy fur cloak. I was uncomfortable with the underlying meaning in her tone. I spent the entire night sitting in a hard wooden chair, fighting my own primal biology, listening to Sera breathe. I didn’t need my second-in-command analyzing my choices. 

“Is there a problem, Yvara?” I asked. 

Yvara shrugged her shoulders. The thick leather of her armor creaked. “None here. I am just surprised you actually carried her up there yourself. I didn’t think you would start to care this early.” 

I looked back at the ring. “She is my mate. Why wouldn’t I care?” 

Yvara nodded slowly. “Yes, yes.” She turned her head and looked directly at me. Her dark eyes were entirely serious now. “Fenris. I saw her face when she looked at you yesterday after she broke Taya. She’s starting to adore you. She is entirely open to you. I can already smell an undying loyalty building in that girl.” 

She glanced around the empty sections of the yard. She stepped a fraction closer to me and brought her voice down to a low, rough murmur. 

“In a place where that commodity is getting incredibly scarce, you need to keep her very close.” 

I heard the warning. I understood exactly what she meant. 

I looked away from her. The heavy, suffocating guilt from last night settled right back into the center of 

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+25 Bonus 

my chest. Sera’s loyalty was a fierce, burning thing. But it didn’t belong to me. It was meant for a dead 

man. 

I focused my attention entirely on the fight in front of us. 

The two pups in the dirt were locked in a brutal grapple. One was bulky, thick-chested, and already built like a grown warrior. The other was wire-thin and quick, but he had made a critical mistake. He let the heavier boy close the distance. 

The bulky pup drove his knee hard into the smaller boy’s ribs, taking him down to the frost. He immediately flipped the thin boy onto his stomach. He grabbed the thin boy’s right arm, pulled it sharply behind his back, and locked it into a painful, unnatural angle. He drove his heavy knee directly into the back of the thin boy’s neck, pinning his face right into the ice and mud. 

The thin boy let out a loud, muffled groan. 

He kicked his legs frantically, trying to find leverage. There was none. The bulky boy pulled the trapped arm higher. The shoulder joint stretched to its absolute limit. 

The thin boy stopped groaning. He started to yelp. It was a high, helpless, pathetic sound. But he didn’t tap his free hand against the dirt. He refused to yield. 

We watched the struggle for a long minute. The bulky boy was just leaning his weight down, waiting for the surrender. The thin boy was suffocating in the mud, crying out, trapped completely. 

Yvara pushed off the wooden post. She stepped right up to the edge of the ring. 

“Get your ass up, Elian!” Yvara roared. Her raspy voice cracked like a whip in the freezing air. “Stop acting like a whipped bitch and break the hold! You have teeth! Use them!” 

The thin boy, Elian, heard her. He stopped kicking his legs. He stopped yelping. 

He went completely limp for a fraction of a second. The bulky boy felt the sudden lack of resistance and relaxed his grip just slightly, thinking the fight was over. 

Elian exploded upward. He twisted his torso violently to the left, ignoring the agonizing pressure on his trapped shoulder. He snapped his head back and sank his teeth directly into the bulky boy’s exposed thigh. 

The bulky boy screamed. He let go of the arm instantly and stumbled backward, clutching his leg. 

Elian scrambled up to his feet. His face was covered in freezing mud. He was panting heavily, favoring his right shoulder, but his eyes were entirely wild. He was ready to keep going. 

I smiled. It was a dark, genuine reaction. I respected survival. 

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