I stayed at the edge of the ring because my legs did not seem to remember how to move yet, and my heart was still slamming too hard against my ribs while dust from the fight hung low over the dirt like the field itself had not decided whether it was done with blood.
Ezra had Alpha John down. That should have meant something clean. It should have meant victory and breath and some kind of end. It didn’t.
Nothing in the clearing relaxed, and nothing in the pack shifted the way it should have after a challenge was won, because no one was looking at the ground where Alpha John lay pinned like the outcome had settled anything. They were looking at Ezra. The whole field felt suspended in something unfinished.
Ezra stood over his father with his breathing hard but controlled, and I could feel t
