The Minotaur wore his fighting gear – spiked tridents on the tips of his aged ivory horns – and he stomped into the ring as if expecting trouble. He halted in the center and snorted into the air, sending a puff of fog to burst through the thick ring in his nostrils. The rain only emphasized his muscles, matting down his shaggy fur to reveal the thick slabs of muscle covering his body. He wore a set of prayer beads on his chest and a tattered skirt of some thick blue cloth with white embroidery on the hem. The white was stained here and there with flecks of blood.

His eyes narrowed as he spun in a circle, glaring at everyone in silent warning. Then he bellowed, but to me it just sounded like a murderous MOO!

The sound somehow shared both the anguished cry of a beast being slaughtered, and the victorious roar of the beast doing the slaughtering. Like a homicidal harmony.

You know how they combined a bunch of unique animalistic sounds to make that T-Rex roar in the dinosaur movie? This was kind of like that. A mixed drink of seemingly random animals, but spiked with an extra shot of nightmare juice.

It made the hair on the back of my arms stand up, and anyone who hadn’t been paying full attention suddenly whipped around to see what was happening. An old man slipped into the ring, wearing a brilliant white suit and a pair of expensive leather loafers. Because this old man was kind of a big deal, he had someone holding an umbrella for him.

A full-grown chimera walking on his hind legs.

The monster was easily ten feet tall, larger than even the Minotaur, and it held that tiny black umbrella in a thickly furred paw as big as the old man’s head. The chimera was a demonic hodge-podge of three different kinds of monster. Above the shoulders it was a fire-eyed, horned ram. On the chest was the head of a snarling lion. But to top it off, a hooded cobra as thick as a python made up its tail, wavering back and forth as it hissed in every direction.

And it was holding an umbrella for the little old man – King Midas.

But where had he gotten a pet chimera? This one was much bigger than the chimera I knew.

The white-haired old man cleared his throat audibly as the Minotaur and chimera flanked him on either side, the Minotaur facing Gunnar’s pack and the chimera facing Zeus’ pack.

“We gather here today for respect and power. Gunnar Randulf has been challenged for his position as Alpha of the St. Louis werewolves by…” he leaned closer, listening as the Minotaur leaned down to speak into his ear. Midas nodded, turning back to the crowd. “Zeus Fletcher, Alpha of a pack in Illinois.” The Minotaur leaned closer, and Midas nodded after a moment. “The pack in Illinois,” he corrected, dipping his head at Zeus apologetically. “I’m not too familiar with the shifter nations unless they’re for sale. Old men must have their hobbies, after all,” he chuckled. But the glitter in his eyes put the lie to his words.

I hadn’t noticed Zeus Fletcher standing before his pack of wolves. He had both feet inside the ring and a thickly muscled woman stood beside – and slightly behind – him. She was easily over six-feet-tall, and thicker in the arms and legs than I was. Considerably.

Zeus didn’t acknowledge Midas’ comment – just glared ninety degrees to his right towards the edge of the ring. I followed his gaze to see Gunnar staring at him, his eyepatch glittering.

But he wasn’t standing with his wolves behind him. There was literally no one behind him.

I frowned. Why wasn’t he standing before his pack, directly across from Zeus? And where was Ashley? Wasn’t she his second in this fight?

I scanned the perimeter of the ring, searching for her, and saw her standing directly across from Gunnar, glaring at Zeus and the woman. Was this some tactic? Divide and conquer? Midas didn’t seem to mind, and neither did the challenging wolves. Although they did look curious.

Midas cleared his throat again. “Asterion,” he said, and then stepped to the side.

The Minotaur cleared his throat, and then spoke in a low, deadly tone. “I have lived for thousands of years, and killed many.” Zeus’ pack studied him with renewed interest. “I am the Minotaur. I’d like to clear the air. I have heard whispers as I walked through the crowd that this arena may in some way be tainted by our history with Gunnar and Ashley Randulf…”

Murmurs of agreement and protest, both, began to drift through those gathered, and I found I wasn’t the only one of my friends leaning closer. What was this all about?

As if on cue, Gunnar and Ashley both strolled forward, staring at Zeus and his partner as they walked towards Asterion. Neither looked at the Minotaur as they approached, leveling their flat, murderous glares at their challengers. It was… oddly chilling.

Gunnar stopped before the Minotaur and then tugged off his shirt, leaving him only in his khakis, his hair plastered back against his skull as the rain poured down. Many of the females behind Zeus grumbled their appreciation, and I saw Zeus’ face tighten angrily as he noticed. Gunnar’s open chest faced the Minotaur but he kept his face locked on Zeus, flashing a smile as he spoke. “Missouri wolves don’t turn their backs on pain.” Without warning, the Minotaur slashed his head down, scoring a diagonal gash across Gunnar’s chest from pectoral to stomach, drawing blood. I gasped as the blood continued to flow. That had not been a shallow cut.

Gunnar didn’t even flinch. Then… he laughed, a great echoing sound in the valley.

“In fact, we kind of like it,” he told Zeus with a wink. Or a blink. Whatever.

And the Minotaur slashed again, this time from the opposite direction, making a bloody X across Gunnar’s chest. Gunnar’s torso was a sheet of blood as he smiled at Zeus. Then as slowly as I had ever seen him shift, he morphed into Wulfric, over the space of fifteen long, excruciating seconds. As he stretched taller and taller, his pants popped, snapped, and a button flew off, sparkling as it whipped off into the crowd. I barely noticed Talon’s instinctive reaction as he jumped to his feet as if to chase it down. Then he grunted in embarrassment and sat back down.

Fur slowly sprouted all over Gunnar, instantly painted red as the slowly increasing downpour of rain spilled down his chest, spreading the blood over his snow-white fur. His arms elongated, bulging with thigh-thick muscles, and diamond encrusted claws erupted from his fingers as his snout finally erupted from his face, his teeth chomping at the empty air.

His crystal blue eye never blinked as he stared down Zeus.

Ashley interrupted the stunned silence with a sudden shout. “GERI!”

I spun to see the chimera slash across her chest just like the Minotaur had done to Gunnar.

“This might be the greatest day of my life…” Carl hissed, leaning forward hungrily.

I ignored him as I stared at Ashley. Why were they purposely injuring themselves before the fight? I would have thought this some kind of ritual, except every wolf looked just as startled as the rest of us. Well, Zeus’ wolves looked startled. Gunnar’s wolves looked… proud.

“FREKI!” Ashley snarled, and the chimera slashed her again, making a gory X across her chest that matched her husband’s. Then she duplicated Gunnar’s impressive feat of slowly shifting into Wulfra form – which had to be painful. Before now, I hadn’t even known it was possible.

But I knew one thing. It was a very poignant display of their confidence, control, and willingness to bleed for their pack.

Ashley dragged a claw through the blood of the first wound. Then she dipped another claw into the blood of the second slash. “For Odin’s wolves, this bride will make a wedding dress out of your hide…” she snarled, staring right at Zeus’ second. Then she licked up the blood and waited, chest heaving.

The Minotaur stared at Zeus. “I hope this shows our… neutrality.”

In answer, Zeus and his second exploded into their wolf forms. They were big – huge as hell, in fact – but not as intimidating as Wulfra and Wulfric – who had chosen their wild Fae wolf forms. But I’ll say this, before I had taken Ashley and Gunnar to the Fae, I had never seen them look as deadly as the two challenging werewolves.

Midas called out in a clear voice, vacating the ring with the Minotaur and chimera.

“There will be blood. Submission or death. St. Louis or die.”

And the crowd went wild.