“The triumphant return of the great leader,” I greeted with a sneer.

“It isn’t often we get a lost wolf out here, little one. What a treat.” His voice was low and boomed with such volume he must have lungs the size of a furnace. I bet he could howl like a motherfucker in his wolf form.

“You’ll be in for a real treat when I get up there.” The words could be mistaken for innuendo if not for the venom in my tone.

“Girl, you are a spirited animal. Do you know what I do with animals who have too much spirit?”

I didn’t answer.

“I break them.”

“I have a proposition for you, Carnie.”

The wolf had probably expected me to quake in my boots at his threat, but my boots weren’t made for quaking. And I remembered what Holden had said on the riverbank. With wolves it all comes down to two things, pride and power. Feral wolves were no different than pack wolves when it came to that. If pride goeth before the fall, I was going to make Carn fall hard.

He regained his composure. “You may speak.”

“You and I are going to fight.”

Carn began to howl with laughter. “I do like a little fight in my women. It isn’t fun when they just lay there.”

“No, you misunderstand the proposal. You and I are going to fight…and if I win, you will give my companion and me a boat and safe passage.”

He started to protest, but then gave me a once-over and laughed again. “And when I win?”

“Well, then, I guess I’m all yours.”

“What if I say no and take you anyway?”

“Then your men will always wonder if it was because you were afraid to be beaten by a girl.” It was the oldest goad of all time aside from “are you chicken?” but I crossed my arms and stared hard at the giant man, knowing it was only a matter of time before he caved.

“What are you doing?” Holden asked in a whisper so low it was as though he hadn’t spoken at all.

“I’m going to kick his ass, and then we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“Secret, he’s huge.”

I shushed him. I knew very well that size was an illusion when it came to measuring strength. Sure, Carn was a mountain, and I was a mouse. But I still believed I’d kick his ass into next week. I had rage on my side, and he underestimated me in every way.

“I don’t want to bruise you before the sex,” Carn suggested, the wolves at his side snickering.

“Think of it as tenderizing.”

Mohawk let out a low whistle.

Carn’s face twisted, exposing his true feelings about my sassy mouth. I was making a fool of him, and he appreciated it about as much as I liked being caged in a dirt hole.

“Bring her. The man stays.” With those words he vanished.

It wasn’t that I was doubting my decisions per se, but when I was standing on one end of a hard-packed dirt circle and looking at Carn from eye level, well, I was less cocky than I’d been inside the pit. He was at least six and a half feet tall and even bigger up close than he’d appeared from within the pit. His body was a mass of hard-toned muscle with arms as big around as my waist.

“You’re a big boy,” I commented.

“In every way.” He grabbed his crotch with one hand in case I hadn’t figured out what his words meant.

“I’ve found that men who need to brag about the size of their cocks are usually the ones with the tiniest packages.” I’d struck my first blow and I didn’t even need to throw a punch.

He growled. “Well, I’ve found that bitches with loud mouths are usually the first to choke on my tiny package.”

Ewww.

I’d removed my jacket and stretched my bare arms. I’d replaced my favorite yellow tank top recently, and it looked like I was about to ruin another one. Blood was such a bitch to get out of brights.

“If you’re just going to stand there and talk at me all night, I’m going to think you’ve got a pussy under there. What’s the matter, Carn. Got your monthlies? Aunt Flo in town? I know…cramps can be such a bit—”

Carn weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds. That was the best estimate I could give when he threw all of his weight into me at a run and sent me flying across the circle and into the woods.

The wolves howled their approval. My ribs groaned in protest as I staggered to my feet, thanking me for what was likely a hairline fracture. Bones healed. My ribs would have to suck it up. Rotating my shoulders to keep the pain from making me stiff, I walked back into the circle. The wolves stopped howling. Guess they’d thought I was down for the count.

“Was that the best you’ve got, big boy?” I danced from foot to foot, prepared for the next attack. “My grandmother throws harder hits than you.”

This time I saw him coming. He ran at me with his arms extended outward like a battering ram, bent at the elbows so they wouldn’t lock when he collided with his target. I’d give him credit, the man knew how to fight.

I leaped up when he was within range, landing on his rigid arms as if they were a springboard. Before he had a chance to drop me, I pulled my foot back and kicked him square in the face. I tucked in a low crouch while he swung blindly for me, blood spraying from his broken nose.

While he stomped around like a misguided Godzilla, trying to crush me under his massive feet, I swept my leg into his knees and brought him crashing into the dirt. I was feeling cocky now, but not stupid. I wanted to hop on his chest and declare the fight over, but I knew he wouldn’t give up that easily.

Sure enough, he clambered to his feet with a roar and lashed out with a hard left hook, feinting halfway through the swing when I dodged, and slamming his right fist into me with an uppercut that sent me flying.

I got up, wiping blood off my busted lip. “That’s more like it.”

“I am going to enjoy crushing your spirit, little girl.”

I cracked my neck, and the tendons sighed with relief from the flood of endorphins. If I had my knife, this would all be over. Even a mammoth like him would stay down if I severed his Achilles. I stretched out my fingers and assessed the distance between myself and his bare feet. I was strong, but my nails were trimmed short, and I didn’t know if I could claw through the skin before he yanked me off and threw me into the next parish.

So his heel was out, and I wasn’t going to best him with a facial beating.

There was one obvious way to bring this son of a bitch to his knees and have him screaming uncle. It felt weak, like a cheat, but I didn’t have time to trade jabs with him all night. I had a teenaged werewolf to find and a fucking wedding to get back on schedule.

I ran straight for him with breakneck speed. He reached out to snatch me mid-run, but within inches of his eager fingers I hit the ground like a ballplayer desperate for home plate and slid beneath his open hands and in between his legs.

He hadn’t been full of shit when he said he was packing huge equipment in his briefs, because his balls were so big they didn’t fit in the palm of my hand. Oh well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. That saying had never been truer than when I had an Alpha werewolf by the nuts and was squeezing them so hard I could feel the sensitive tissues rupturing more and more with each moment.

Carn howled, and there was nothing triumphant about it. He whimpered and crashed to the earth, but I still didn’t release my hold.

“My friend and I go free,” I said, crushing a little harder for emphasis.

He wailed, a high-pitched, pitiful sound.

“Your word.” When he didn’t reply immediately, I screamed, “Give me your fucking word.”

“My word. Go.” Tears were streaming down his red cheeks, and he was curling in on himself like a sleepy baby.

I let him go, and it took all my respect for the rules of a fair fight to not kick the bastard in his ruined testicles. Insult to injury wouldn’t do me any good here. Nor would his word. At best I’d bought Holden and myself a head start.

I ran from the circle back to the pit. Sure enough, I’d barely dragged Holden from the hole before I heard Carn’s raspy voice scream.

“Kill them. Make it hurt.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Going back the way we’d come was out of the question. There had been no exit from the island, no escape route, so when I grabbed Holden and screamed, “Run,” it was deeper into the woods we fled. We couldn’t escape their noses—the Loups-Garous would chase us until we were caught—and if that happened, I doubted Carn would let me barter with him again.

Holden and I barreled forward, moving with a speed only vampires could manage, giving us a slight advantage over the wolves. We needed to find where they kept their boats—they had to have at least one—and we had to be off the island before the ferals caught up with us. I clung to Holden’s hand as we ran, deathly afraid the moment I let him go he would disappear and be lost forever.

My lungs burned but still I ran. I ran until my blood was like acid, burning up the inside of my body with a vengeance for what I was asking my limbs to do for me.

The woods stopped as abruptly as they’d begun, and we found ourselves on a shoreline not unlike the one we’d been dumped on the previous night. Everywhere we looked there was nothing but sycamore and swamp water. No boat. No escape.

“We follow the shore. There has to be a boat somewhere,” I said, trying to squash my fear with a healthy shot of logic.

From the belly of the woods the racket of the pack pursuing us sang through the otherwise quiet night air. They were shouting what sounded like war chants to each other, songs of blood and revenge that didn’t sound fully human.

With Holden’s hand still clasped in mine I ran down the shore. No direction we turned felt safe. The hunting voices came from everywhere like a living nightmare. We ran, our feet slipping on the slick, mossy shore. The topography of the island itself was against us, trying to pluck at our ankles and throw us into the swamp. I staggered, and Holden pulled me up by my armpits, half-dragging me as he struggled to maintain our pace.