Alphas of Raven: The Forbidden Triplets

Chapter 13

Aria's POV

"Have you lost your mind, Aria?" Sole grabbed my arm, twisting my body around so that I was facing him. "You can't fight her."

"Let go, Sole," I warned him, in no mood for his drama. "People are watching!"

He quickly let go of my arm.

That always did the trick; he was just too stuck up about his image.

"What are you even doing here, Aria?" he said in a hushed voice.

"Sparring," I stated the obvious, not that he deserved that one-word answer.

"Really? What do you think fighting is like?" He raised his eyebrows. "This is not you taking a walk in the mall?

I just rolled my eyes at him as I slipped on the knee pad that Max had passed on to me, not bothering to reply to Sole.

"Why are you doing this? She is one of their top warriors; I have seen her in fights before."

So, she was one of Xaar's top warriors. Warrior and f**k buddy, or worse, his girlfriend.

It didn't matter; my wolf had been itching to take her down since she laid her hands on that jerk.

"You have no experience. Do you even know what you are getting yourself into? You will be beaten. black and blue."

"Well, then so be it. And besides that, it is none of your business." I told him point-blank.

Sole, just assumed I had no experience. Just like he assumed that I would take him back even after I found out about Rhea.

He had never let me train with him, nor did he encourage it. He believed it was his job to protect him, so I did not need to train.

Not that it stopped me from training with my dad and our warriors anyway, like I had been doing so since my childhood. I was to be the future Alpha of my pack, did he think that I would not learn to fight?

Our pack warriors were considered second to the Ravens. We always followed a rigorous regime.

Dad made sure of it, just like he ensured that I made up for my slow healing, by training me in Jiu-Jitsu as well as Krav Maga.

Both of these were martial arts that focused on close-range and long-range attack and defense techniques that let you gain an advantage over the opponent in a way to minimize the damage to yourself.

Making certain that I had a lesser chance of injury.

She might be one of the top warriors or whatever, but I was confident I would give her a tough fight, even with my wounded ankle.

"Come on, baby. This is not you."

The audacity of that man had no bounds.

"Don't baby me," I warned him, "and as I said, Sole, it's not your business. You go worry about your mate."

I did not appreciate what Sole was doing. We had broken up, and the world knew about it.

But he still seemed to think he was entitled to interfere in my life.

He had moved on with Rhea, and he just needed to let me go as well.

"Excuse us," I told Sole as politely as I could, walking towards the sparring zone with Max and Jacob, who were watching the whole scene quietly.

"See, I told you it would be entertaining." True to her character, Max commented, referring to our exchange.

"I know he is sexist." Max looked at me, a little concerned.

"But tell me you have got this. Because all you need to do is say the word, and I will stab Jacob here, so we can get out."

I smiled at her suggestion.

Unlike Sole, Max was not dismissive about the whole thing, she was just offering help.

"I think I am good." I gave her an assuring smile.

"Great, then I will be cheering you on." She winked.

"Remember, Paris is much taller than you and physically stronger." Jacob pointed out. "Don't let her get her hands around you."

I nodded at that, trying to center my emotions before the fight. It was like Dad always told me to. Fight it with your head.

Xaar's voice loomed over the ground. "I know there are no rules on the battlefield, but since this is just the beginning of the session, we are going to have to do this with the rules."

" Rule No. 1, no using your wolf." Xaar started to spell the rules out, "Rule No. 2, no using your aura."

That rule had been made for me since I had Alpha genes.

" And Rule No. 3, and the most important one, is that if one of the fighters is pinned to the ground, she will be given three chances to submit. If she does, there is no need to get them to pass away."

He looked at that Paris girl, as stated in the third rule.

"Not that it will happen, but what do we do if they do not give up?" She snickered at me. "Can we beat them up till they pass out, then?"

She was overconfident and already celebrating her victory.

"No, you don't. You just count until five, and if they can get up, you would have won. You know the rules, Paris." The warning was clear in his voice.

"And while this is not a rule," he said, glancing at me this time, "please do not even try to claw anyone's eyes. This is real combat, not the sparring you did with kids back home."

The only eyes that I did want to claw out were his and his warrior girlfriend's/.

The crowd erupted into cheers the second we entered the arena, but most of those were from Paris's minions and packmates, who were cheering her on. The others were just happy to see a fight between the two of us.

Only Max and Jacob were in my corner; Sole stood right behind them with a sulky face.

At the sound of the whistle, the fight commenced, and Paris did what every physically stronger person does.

She ran right at me, wanting to tackle me upfront.

How predictable!

While she charged towards me, I stood firm in my place, looking right at her, unmoving.

I could hear the grasps from the crowd, who all thought that I was frozen by the show of her ferocity, but the truth was that I was just waiting for the right moment.

Just as she jumped towards me, bringing her fist up to my face, I ducked.

My body moved so quickly that she did not even notice that I had wrapped my injured legs around her foot, causing her body to swivel with mine.

Allowing me to land my first punch in her stomach, followed by another swift one to her jaw.

From the look on her face, it was clear that she was not expecting it, and neither was the crowd that went completely silent.

As I had expected, the first blow left her flustered and frustrated. She was desperate to get a hit, which led to a fair amount of poor decision-making on her part.

And she just threw a series of punches and kicks my way, and while all of them were skilled and powerful, they were rather direct and obvious.

I was able to block most of them, defending myself in the process, as well as landing a couple of strikes in return, and some of them stung pretty badly.

Granted, she was physically stronger, but I had better weight distribution, giving me better mobility and agility against her. Though it did end up leaving my already injured leg more strained.

The whole dance between us lasted for about five minutes, after which she backed away and started circling me instead as she reassessed the situation.

I was impressed.

Not many could step out of the emotional frenzy of a fight so quickly. I had seen experienced warriors caged by their feelings, not ready to admit that they had made a mistake to start with.

There was no way that I was going to attack her right now, and she knew that now.

She mock-lunged at me from the left and then from the right, but did not follow through both times. But my reaction had given her what she wanted to know; she had gotten a read on my footwork.

I had to give it to her; she was a good warrior, smart even.

Anyone who was watching the match carefully enough would have figured that I was favoring my left leg a lot more, avoiding the injured right one.

Capitalizing on that, she threw her next punch from my left side, leaving me no option but to move to my right, putting weight on my injured leg. My right ankle twisted, causing sharp pain and opening the wound again.

I could feel the blood seep through the bandage.

While nothing was visible, I could see her nostrils flare up as she smelled the blood, giving her the opportunity she was looking for.

But she still did not move for the next couple of seconds and continued circling me, pretending like she was still evaluating.

I let her believe that she was successfully weaving a false sense of relief, as I focused on her heartbeat along with her movements.

The second her heart rate increased, I knew she was going to attack.

She tried to punch me again from my left side, making me duck right, only for her to throw another punch from the right.

This one connected with my jaw; fortunately, it was not that impactful, but before I could recover my balance, she elbowed my ribs with all her force.

The crunching sound confirmed that I had broken one of my ribs. This was going to take a long time to recover.

'Head in the game, Aria.'

The words my father had repeatedly drilled into my head, echoed in my mind, reminding me to focus on the present, to be present.

Relishing in her victory, Paris went for another long-range shot, aiming for my face again.

The second her hand was inches away from my face, I grabbed her fist with my hand, overextending it to the side of my face.

I pushed my legs with all my strength, using my hips as a lever to attack the elbow joint of her extended arm while hooking one of my legs around her neck.

We both crashed to the ground, me on top of her, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

Using that to my advantage, I quickly re-adjusted my knee and leg to strangle her neck, getting her in a chokehold position.

"Are you ready to submit?" I asked her, pinning her to the ground.

She kept struggling against my hold, making me ask her again.

"It's over, just submit." I asserted.

"It's not over till it is." And with that, she scratched my injured foot with her claws, breaking the no-wolf rule.

I winced in pain as her claws dug into my injured foot, but I refused to let go of my hold, instead, I tightened my grip around her neck in response, as I asked her again.

"Last time, tap the ground to submit."

I certainly hoped she knew that this was the end, but instead, she just drilled her claws right into my wound, penetrating it further and causing me to cry out loud.

Bloody b***h!!

She was certainly hoping that I would jerk away from the pain, but little did she know that my threshold for pain was far higher than hers.

Most wolves never had to nurse a wound or manage pain, thanks to their fast healing. Lucky for me, I had plenty of experience in that department.

"One, two, three," I started counting, ignoring the searing pain in my foot and the oozing blood that had my breath weakened.

"Four, Five."

"Break it up," Xaar commanded the second I finished counting.

Letting go of the skank, I rolled over on the training mat, only to end up in a pool of my blood that was scattered all over the ring.

That was just ewww.

I quickly pushed myself up and came face to face with an angry pair of obsidian eyes that bore into mine.

His anger was palpable, rolling off in waves across the ground. It was so intense that no one in the crowd gave a single reaction after the fight was over.

Guess he was not happy that I had beaten his cheating girlfriend's sorry ass.

Too bad for him.

For all I cared, he was free to play the angry boyfriend to his 'Paris Hilton.' I had just kicked that miserable piece of tiny ass, and my wolf was ecstatic about it.

My work here was done!

"Permission to disembark?"

I asked him respectfully, but without waiting for his response, I began walking toward the locker room.

"That was savage girl!!" Max whispered in my ears, following me to the locker room.

No media drama, almost little Sole-Rhea drama, and a big bruise on that ass's ego.

Maybe this was turning out to be a good day.

My happiness was short-lived because the second it crossed my mind, a guy entered the ground and he came running towards me.

"Aria White, you have to report to the dean's office as soon as possible. There is a complaint against you for breaking the Ravenwood Code of Conduct."

The messenger was loud enough for the world to hear.

And that was the end of my so-called "good day".