My heart started to thump harder the moment we reached the challenge area. It wasn’t really anything more than a glade in the tropical forestland, a stretch of open grass maybe twenty feet in diameter surrounded by thick foliage. But Marco’s people had clearly prepared it, as he’d said they would.

The grass was trampled flat as if the ground had been pounded as smooth as possible. A green smell like a fresh-mowed lawn hung in the air. A rope hung across the trees around the ring, separating the spectating area from the fighting turf. Lamps hung from a few of the branches, casting an eerie yellow glow over the space. The one near us emitted a soft electronic hum.

Marco walked ahead of me, right into the ring. Kylie and I drifted to the side, the other alphas and Alice surrounding us. Nate rested his hand on my shoulder. “If it’s too hard for you to watch,” he started.

I shook my head before he could continue. “I’m staying. I need to be here for Marco.”

More feline shifters gathered all around the glade. It looked like everyone who’d been at the dinner had come. Why not? The leadership over their kin group might change tonight.

“Where’s the tiger?” Kylie asked, craning her neck. “Maybe he chickened out at the last minute?”

Before I could even dare to hope, Julius came swaggering down the path. He sauntered into the ring across from Marco, flexing his bulky arms. Marco watched him calmly. With a casual ease, he pulled off his shirt, then his pants, folding his clothes one piece at a time on the ground at the edge of the glade. Julius bared his teeth and started undressing as well. Of course, they’d fight as animals.

I looked around the ring at all the faces I recognized. Coreen and her husband, the cheetah shifters from dinner, Silvan and the over-eager snow leopard Phillipe, others I’d met during the luncheon. None of them, not even Phillipe after his impassioned speech, looked all that concerned about what was going to happen. The vibe in the air now was swelling with anticipation.

Were they all sure Marco would win, or did they just not care that much either way who was ruling over them? From what I’d seen of the feline kin so far, I didn’t have any trouble believing it might be the latter.

Kylie must have been thinking along the same lines. “Imagine having that musclehead as an alpha,” she whispered to me. “I wouldn’t trust him not to spend all day chasing his own tail.”

My mouth twitched. I wasn’t so tense that my bestie couldn’t get a smile out of me. “No kidding. They’d be begging to have Marco back in no time.”

Except he wouldn’t be around for them to bring him back, would they? My pulse sped up even more.

I hadn’t asked Marco what happened to him if he lost. I hadn’t wanted to take the possibility that seriously. Would they banish him like they’d banish Julius? Or was the punishment of losing after you were already alpha more severe? The new alpha wouldn’t want to risk you coming back to reclaim your position.

A chill trickled through me. Suddenly I was sure of it. If Marco lost, Julius would kill him. Maybe that was the only way Julius could win.

“The guards are still watching the edges of the estate, aren’t they?” I said to my alphas.

Aaron nodded. “I was there when Marco gave the orders.”

Alice gave me a meaningful look. “If you want the extra security, I could fly around and watch for any groups on the move heading this way.”

A tiny bit of the tightness inside me released. “Yes,” I said. “Please. And come back the second you see anything concerning.”

She nodded and slipped away between the trees. Clothes rustled off, and her eagle form leapt up through the branches. I watched her disappear against the darkening sky.

“I don’t know what they might have planned,” West said. “But I haven’t seen or scented any rogue presence nearby.”

“Neither have I,” Nate put in. “Maybe this is their plan. They’re staking everything on Julius defeating Marco.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense to me. They’ve never played by the rules before. There’s got to be something more to it. But maybe the challenge is a separate part of the plan. Maybe Julius wanted to get that over with, to prove himself in front of his kin, before he has the rogues take on the rest of us.”

Whatever happened, I needed to be ready. And I’d need to protect Kylie too. I edged a little closer to her. “If things get crazy, you stay with me, all right?”

She saluted me. “Got it, dragon queen.”

The smile tugged at my lips again. Then I looked into the ring, and any humor I’d been capable of feeling died.

One of the estate attendants had stepped into the middle of the glade between Marco and Julius. “A challenge for alpha has been called,” she said in a ringing voice. “When my arm drops, the fight may begin.”

She held her hand up as she backed up to the ring of rope. When her back hit it, her hand clenched. She jerked it down to her hip in one sharp movement.

Julius sprang with a growl that was half human, half animal. His body shifted into tiger form as he lunged through the air at Marco. But Marco was prepared. He shifted and dashed low under the larger cat, spinning to scratch at the tiger’s belly as he slid out of reach. Julius roared. Four thin red lines formed against his fur.

“First blood!” someone in the audience hollered. Someone else let out a whoop. I assumed that was good for Marco. My hands had closed around the rope in front me, the coarse fibers digging into my skin.

“Wow,” Kylie murmured. “They really aren’t playing around.”

No, they weren’t. Not at all. Julius whirled around, still plenty fast despite his size. My gut sank, seeing just how much bigger he was than Marco now. The tiger had to be at least twice as brawny as the jaguar, taller and longer and more solidly built. If he pinned Marco even for a second...

That was obviously Julius’s intention. He leapt at Marco again, swinging a paw as if to cuff his alpha. Marco dodged to the side, not quite in time. The tiger’s claws raked over his haunch. He didn’t make a sound, but I saw his lips curl back in pain. I gripped the rope tighter.

“So... how far exactly do they go?” Kylie said in a smaller voice than before. “How do we decide when someone’s won?”

“When one of them can’t get back up,” West muttered.

I swallowed hard. Murmurs were rippling through the crowd again. Were they upset that Marco hadn’t really fought back yet?

He must have been working up to it. Feeling out his opponent’s style before he took the offensive. Before Julius could make another lunge, Marco dashed at him with a yowl. The tiger lurched forward to try to batter the jaguar into submission, but that was exactly what Marco had expected. At the last second, he darted around the bigger cat and lashed out at Julius’s belly again.

The tiger was moving forward with too much momentum to dodge. Marco’s claws opened a deep gash in Julius’s side.

A nice bluff. Of course, if Marco was going to win here, he had to put on a front, prey on the larger shifter’s confidence. That was the cunning his kin were supposed to be known for. And none so much as their alpha.

It wasn’t so different from how he’d bluffed about his attitude toward me to his kin, put on a front of seeing me as nothing more than a means to an end. But I knew with every thud of my pulse that he’d used those words the same way he’d made that mad dash. A distraction, a show of force, to open up the way to what he really wanted. When this kind of hostility was what he’d had to face, month by month, I wasn’t sure I could even blame him anymore.

Julius whipped around, his yellow eyes flashing. Marco sprang nimbly out of the way. But the tiger didn’t seem slowed down by the gouge over his ribs. He hurtled after the jaguar like a Mack trunk, and Marco couldn’t keep out of the way quite fast enough. The larger shifter bowled him over.

I flinched, my heart thumping so fast I thought it would explode from my chest. A scream caught in my chest. No! Not my alpha. Not my mate.

Nate set his hand over mine, squeezing my fingers, but the contact barely registered. I couldn’t pull my eyes from the fight.

Marco rolled onto his back, all four sets of claws scraping at the tiger’s hide. Julius smacked him in the head and snapped at his neck, but the jaguar twisted out of the way and the last second. He sank his teeth into the tiger’s foreleg. When Julius flinched, Marco shot out from under him. He flung himself toward one of the trees, ricocheted off the trunk, and slammed into the tiger’s side right where he’d clawed him before.

Julius let out a snarl that was as much pain as anger. He charged after Marco, clearly aiming to pummel him to the ground again. Marco slipped around him, but he wasn’t moving quite as fast now. Blood dripped from where the bigger cat had clawed his shoulder and haunches.

“Geez,” Kylie said, even more faintly. “They’re really taking this to the end, aren’t they?”

The fear in her voice wrenched at me, as much as seeing Marco battered and bloody did. Every nerve in my body was shrieking at me to intervene, to protect my mate. I held myself back by the barest of threads. If I stepped in, if I messed up this challenge somehow, the victory might go to Julius by default.

I wouldn’t let him kill Marco. Not if it came to that. I knew that much right down to my bones.

Marco picked up his speed again despite his wounds. He raced around Julius, biting and clawing at the tiger’s legs at every opening, leading the tiger in a whirling chase around the arena. Julius pounded after him. With each turn, his orange and black fur darkened with more streaks of blood.

“All right! Let’s end this!” someone hollered from the crowd. I didn’t know which of the shifters he was supporting.

For a moment it seemed like Marco was gaining the upper hand. Then his pace started to lag. He nipped the tiger’s hind leg and barely scrambled out of the way of Julius’s smack. But the tiger kept coming, his lips curled back over his huge fangs. The jaguar stumbled, and Julius pounced. Marco tumbled under him.

A cry broke from my throat then. My hands flinched where I was gripping the rope. Aaron’s arm came around me, holding me steady as Nate held onto me too.

Marco lay, his black-furred body limp, under the tiger’s huge form. Julius raised his head with a victory roar—and the jaguar leapt up. Marco caught the tiger by the neck, sinking his teeth in deep around the most tender point of his opponent’s throat. At the same time, he kicked out at one of Julius’s legs.

All his scratches and bites and the strain of running around the arena must have weakened the tiger’s muscles. The bigger cat toppled over, Marco rolling with him. The jaguar came to rest poised on Julius’s vulnerable chest. He raked his claws over the paler fur there and yanked at the tiger’s throat.

Julius’s eyes rolled back. He heaved at the ground, but Marco held on tight, managing to keep him pinned.

My breath had stopped in my lungs. I let it out in a rush. A cheer rose up around the ring. “Marco! The alpha wins!”

Marco sank his teeth even deeper with a low growl of warning that was almost a question. The tiger’s head swayed as if he couldn’t quite find the will to keep it off the ground. Then Julius slumped down, his body sagging. The shift rippled through him. Marco sprang off as the tiger turned back into a man.

The cheers grew louder, the crowd whooping and clapping hands. A few of the waiting attendants darted into the arena to tend to the unconscious Julius’s wounds. And to their alpha. Marco listed a bit to one side, blood smearing the grass under his paws—and plenty of it was his own. He pushed off the ground and shifted back into his human form, raising his hand in victory.

The tension in me broke, relief rolling through me. I raised my voice with a cheer of my own.