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She searched faces as she followed the spiced musk scent. It could be she was smelling someone who had been with him, or maybe his laundry.

The enticing aroma was there and gone again. Her task forgotten, all her attention narrowed and focused on Kane. She had some things to say to that absent man.

She followed a gravel road that curled around tall trees toward the back of the property. Never having explored here, she thought it was a forested area or a park. She hadn't expected to walk up a slight incline, pass a guard checkpoint, and suddenly find herself looking down on a military exercise arena.

Shirtless, wearing some sort of belted, skirt like cut-off pants, Kane was a giant in the center of the ring of alpha males. Holding two thick bladed swords, he used the weapons to strike and pummel the men who attacked him with their own weapons in numbers of threes and fives.

Many of the men wore padding on their chests, legs, and arms. Kane's strikes made loud thwomping noises that echoed through the air. As she got closer, Sasha could see that Kane's swords were only wood, while the attackers used the heavy blades owned by those who'd served in the king's army for thirty years or more. Alphas only.

He was the alpha of alphas. A warlord. Any man who could beat him in challenge would be honored, might even take over Kane's compound and station, because breed respected strength like no other species. The old and the weak did not rule; they were