Rejected Revenge

The Warrior's Summit

Angie was one of the wolves who'd submitted to the Beta, and as she slowly got to her feet, she stood before me bowing her head and showing her neck to me in submission. 

"Damn, Violet.  I know we never trained together but...I never knew you were capable of that."

"What are you talking about?  Capable of what?"

Fear shone in her eyes as I took a step toward her, and I frowned in response.  Angie had never acted like that toward me before.  Ever.

"You're kidding, right?  You can't tell me you don't know what you just did?"

"No, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Beta Thorne must've overheard the conversation with his enhanced hearing and ambled over toward us, his large dark body covered only by a pair of khaki shorts.

"Violet, do you not have any memories of your wolf competing in animal form at the Warrior Summit?"

Flashes of violence and rage—terror and blood and claws and teeth and—

"Holy shit."

My eyes widened in realization as everything came crashing down upon me all at once. 

I'd hidden away in wolf form for the rest of the day and night and had awoken to sounds of fighting in the woods nearby. 

I hadn't stopped to figure out what was happening—only allowed my instincts to guide the hunt and the fight until I was the only wolf left standing.

I didn't have time to react as I launched myself behind a bush and emptied out the stomach full of blood out onto the ground before me, wincing as I picked out pieces of fur and skin mixed in along with the blood.

How had I fought each and every single one of these wolves and not have a single major injury on me at all?  

There must've been twenty wolves competing in the Summit.

"The following wolves have been disqualified for lack of skill shown in battle:  Lucas Cartwright, Devon Shaw, Monte Laurent, and Kacey McGovern.  Everyone else will meet me on the pitch in the training field in six hours.  Good luck."

The Beta's dark and wise eyes landed on me, a glittering promise seeming to writhe somewhere in their depths, before sauntering off and slinging an arm around an un-mated adult woman he must've brought from Moon Valley Bane if the Intermediate Mark burned into her right thigh was any indication.

If I made it to Moon Valley Bane, I'd train until I was awarded that very same mark. 

And if I made it to Lupus Bellator?  Maybe I'd work hard enough to earn the elusive Elite Mark on the right side of my neck to show any and all wolves just how dangerous I really was. 

But those marks took years to complete, and was I really going to participate in the Summit? 

After the carnage around me, I was starting to realize that I didn't really have a choice.

 I might've not chosen to join the Warrior's Summit to begin with; but it had sure as hell chosen me. 

I took one last, gluttonous and weak glance back at Jackson as his father just as one of the she-wolves I was starting to recognize as his girlfriend, Lyssa, bounded up to him to celebrate her not being disqualified from the Summit yet.