After Abandoning My Fated Alpha, I Built My Own Wolf Pack and Ruled

Chapter 4 Three Moves Were All I Needed

The instant I finished speaking, the force of Kyle's dominance crashed down harder.

The nearest worker buckled and dropped to his knees in the snow. Even Lily had to brace herself against a glass wall, her face pale. Yet she kept staring at me, waiting to see me bow before them all.

Kyle did not move.

He seemed certain his dominance alone would force me to my knees.

But he had forgotten what I had faced over the past 37 days: silver bullets, steel traps, and more than a dozen Hunter ambushes. On the northern frontier, no one spared me because I was to be their future Luna. The battlefield didn't care that I was wounded.

I lifted my head against the pressure. "Is that all?"

Kyle's expression shifted. "You asked for this, Sarah."

He stopped holding back. His eyes turned the dark gold of his wolf, and claws shot from his fingertips as he lunged for my injured right shoulder.

He was fast.

Just not fast enough.

Someone in the crowd started counting, as if measuring how many moves I would last.

"One—"

I did not retreat. I stepped into Kyle's attack. Just before his claws struck my shoulder, I slipped past them and locked my left hand around his wrist.

That was the first move.

Kyle reacted immediately, sweeping his other hand toward my throat. I ducked beneath it, drove into his guard, and slammed my elbow into his chest.

The blow landed with a dull thud.

The air punched from his lungs, and he doubled over.

That was the second move.

The man counting did not even have time to call out "two."

I wrenched Kyle's arm in tight, hooked my heel behind his knee, and used the force of his own charge to turn and drive him down.

An instant later, his entire body sailed over my shoulder and crashed into the glasshouse.

Glass exploded around him.

Before he could regain his footing, I yanked my battle-axe from the snow. The haft swept his legs out from under him, and as he fell, the sharpened blade came to rest against his throat.

That was the third move.

Fewer than five breaths had passed between Kyle's first strike and the moment I pinned him amid the shattered glass.

Silence swallowed the clearing.

The people who had laughed at me stood frozen. The guard who said I would not last a single move stared openmouthed, unable to make a sound.

Every trace of triumph vanished from Lily's face.

She stared at Kyle in disbelief. "That's impossible... Kyle wasn't ready."

"He unleashed his dominance first. He attacked first." I did not look back. I merely pressed the edge of the axe a fraction lower. "I didn't even draw my weapon until after he did."

A thin line of blood appeared on Kyle's neck. He tried to push himself up, but I planted my boot on his shoulder and forced him back into the broken glass.

The snow gave a quiet crunch beneath my feet.

Kyle's hands had fully shifted. His claws gouged deep furrows into the ground, yet he still could not throw me off.

This was not a narrow victory. It was complete domination.

If I had wanted him dead, any one of those three moves could have ended the fight.

Breathing hard, Kyle raised his head. Naked shock filled his eyes.

"All those times we trained... you were letting me win?"

I looked down at the man beneath my boot.

Every time we had sparred, I had deliberately left him an opening at the end. He was the future Alpha, and I knew losing to his own Luna in front of the pack would weaken his authority.

"Of course I was," I said.