I expected the challenge to take place in a week or so. Instead, my mate announced that the challenge would take place only two hours later. Two fucking hours later.

He dragged me to our wing of the castle to await the fight. Dolrich would wait his turn outside the castle. Served him right. Even as a cousin, he didn’t deserve to stay in our home a second longer. As the door shut behind us, palpable fear settled in the pit of my stomach. The fear I’d barely contained on the night of our mating was child’s play next to this terror. Harrison sat on the window seat where we had marked each other.

“You can’t do this, Harrison. All you have to do is have Dolrich tried by the Bear High Council in Alaska for murder or accessory to murder. He won’t become alpha that way. Your mother is in her room grieving. Don’t make her grieve a son and a husband on the same day. Don’t make me a widow.”

Before I muttered another word, Harrison’s hands were on my shoulders, and the focused, stern look on his face frightened me. “I am the alpha. I won’t lose. I’ve been losing all my life. Hiding in this castle. Taking whatever was given to me without question. My life and yours and the future of our kingdom rides on this fight. I won’t lose. You hear me?”

His eyes grew darker as he spoke to me, bearing down on my own. Hearing the hard decision in his voice, I knew there was nothing I could do. Finally, this mate of mine who had stood in the shadows all of his life, some of his own making and some put over him, was now becoming what he was born to be.

It was about fucking time.

Despite the fight, watching this evolution was only making me fall in love further.

I put my hands on either side of his face and leaned in so that our noses touched. “I believe in you, Harrison. You are the true alpha of this kingdom, and alphas don’t lose a fight.”

“That’s my girl.” The pride came off him in waves, along with a tinge of fear and trepidation. Fear was inevitable. It would strengthen him in battle.

We stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like hours, though I knew it was only minutes. “Harrison, let’s not waste this time.”

The last word barely escaped my mouth before his lips crashed down on mine with a force that bordered on dangerous. His words conveyed bravery, but his kiss said this may be our last.

Our clothes were scattered around the room in a matter of seconds, and all else was forgotten, or at least, shoved to the backs of our minds. The air around us crackled with a new power. Our bond now emitted the power of an alpha couple. His inner strength entangled with mine as we deepened our bond in that span of time between our past and our future.

Afterward, we lay together in silence, constantly touching and reaffirming all the things we had yet to say.

Chest to chest, we contented ourselves with simply being close.

“It’s time for me to go,” Harrison groaned before placing a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“I know.”

He moved to get out of the bed, but I stopped him with my hand gripping his arm. “You fight like hell, Harrison. You kill that bastard for trying to take away what is yours by right. He’ll kill me if he becomes alpha, and if he gets the chance, your mother too. Don’t let him take away my family.”

That was the first time I’d called my new mate my family.

“He won’t take anything away from me.” I let him leave, but instead of walking away to get dressed, he turned to me. “You know I love you, right? I know you meant to leave me just like I meant to let you go, but fate had other plans. I’m fucking in love with you, Atlas Xavier.”

“I fucking love you too, Harrison Xavier, alpha of the Black Bears.”

We both laughed before we dressed, stealing glances at each other with each stitch of clothing.

* * *

Dolrich and Harrison met on the front lawn in front of the castle and then proceeded to the fields in the back, beyond the gardens. This would be a battle to the death. Challenges for the position of alpha came with no rules. There would only be one victor. One hole would be dug for the defeated.

I barely contained my shiver as I watched Oscar begin the battle with some kind of muttered words, said too softly for even my shifter ears to hear.

Harrison gave me one look and a wink before I heard the first shattering of bones. They both shifted into their animal counterparts at once. It was the fastest shift I’d ever seen in my life. Most of our kind took their time in shifting, to manage the pain and allow their bears to take over their consciousness.

With the anger like a thick blanket over us all, their shift was fueled in a matter of seconds.

Harrison’s bear took a minute to find his comfort zone. His sheer size made my chest constrict. Other than a few males in my old clan, I’d never seen a black bear reach almost seven feet in height when shifted. One of his rounded ears, tipped with cinnamon, twitched, ready for action. A roar boomed through the open space, filling my ears and causing me to shiver. He swayed from foot to foot, getting used to the shift.

And while he did, Dolrich made his first strike, right at Harrison’s belly.

I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth to quell the scream. I was beat by another hand, a hand that smelled familiar. “Don’t scream, my dear. He will become distracted by your fear. If you can, propel all your bravery and love to him. Your connection is strong. My son will be able to hear you—to feel your strength build on his.” Divine spoke to me with her face close to my ear and her other arm wrapped around my body. That arm was the only thing keeping me upright as Dolrich continued to blast Harrison with blow after blow.

Closing my eyes, I pictured my energy, all the power and courage I could muster, being a strong gust of wind that flowed to Harrison in the air with the force of a winter storm.

“There you go, dear. It’s working. See your mate. He is strong because of you.”

Divine held me tighter around my waist, murmuring comforting words as Harrison began to fight back. He slashed at Dolrich’s chest and abdomen, making contact time after time.

The pair went at each other like bears in the wild over a female, except this was no mating war. This was war for a kingdom.

I thought Harrison was winning, and he was, until Dolrich bent and tore three shreds into Harrison’s thigh, causing him to falter and crash to the ground at Dolrich’s feet. Dolrich took advantage of the position and punched Harrison on his skull with a force that I swore shook the ground below us.

“He needs to hear you now, Atlas. Scream his name. Make him remember why he fights. Yes, he wants to be alpha, but the needs of his mate will come before it all.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The shaking had taken over my body. Behind me, Divine sweetly cheered me on until sweetness, she realized, wasn’t quite working. “Now, Atlas. Don’t you let my son die!”

Her scream somehow became my own as I used my every capability to cry to my mate, to let him know that I loved him, to know that he could not lose, to let him know that he wasn’t alone.

“There. Look. His eyes have opened. He sees you.”

Across the field, Harrison was alert and had lunged forward, taking a gaping bite out of Dolrich’s leg. With his cousin now seriously wounded and bleeding, my mate, the alpha, went in for the kill. His movements were pointed and stealthy again. His blows, each and every one, were sharp and targeted at his prey.

And with one final swipe of Harrison’s bear claws at Dolrich’s throat, it all was over.

Harrison took one look at me before passing out and shifting back to human.

Before I could reach him, he was taken into the castle. Oscar and Thad cleaned his wounds and had him resting in the bed while I watched on, silently praying and not so silently weeping.

“He is going to be fine. His wounds will heal soon. He is a strong shifter. We have a powerful alpha. Is there anything else you need, Alpha Queen?”

The only thing I needed was for Harrison to wake up.