Maisie

I moved first.

It was Mercer’s idea. Tessa was faster. Tessa was stronger. Tessa had her full Lycan abilities under her belt, all honed to perfection. Tessa could fight for hours and not get tired.

I didn’t have that luxury. I was already exhausted. I had barely taken one bite all day. I’d been fighting all day. If I was going to come out on top, I had to overwhelm Tessa in the first few minutes, before I ran out of steam.

The problem was, Quinlan was right.

Not only was Tessa taking me seriously, I hadn’t taken into account the fact that fighting against a shifted Lycan was like fighting a golem.

When my right leg lashed out against her side, she absorbed the first blow like she was made of stone and took a step back in retreat. My foot that had connected with her ribcage was hurting.

I restrategized. And found that she was adapting, reading my eyes and my movements.

You think with your face.

No. It wasn’t just that. When I went for her vulnerable spots, I realized she was mirroring me. The crook of her elbow and mine were identical. When my fist smashed into her throat, hers slammed into mine.

And goddess, it hurt.

My blows landed twice, because she knew to expect them. Hers landed six times, even if I could read her.

She lifted her left leg in the same moment I lifted mine.

And it was in that moment it dawned on me that she wasn’t mirroring me. We were moving through the same fluid moments because we had been taught by the same person.

Mercer.

But in this case, what I didn’t have to breach the gap, she had in abundance. She was a far better student than me.

Her lips tipped into a wicked smile as we studied each other. "Mercer’s a brutal teacher, isn’t he? Almost as cruel as when he fucks.

I was cycling through every movement in my head while she rattled on and on, trying to get a rise out of me.

"I know exactly how each of them likes it. How they groan. How they knot. How they look when they come," she continued.

I fought the urge to give into the irritation building in my gut as we went at each other. I abandoned what I’d learned since it was useless against her, and managed a blow to her face and two to her stomach.

She’d landed far more than I could count. I was still losing.

"It may not seem like it, but Jericho’s the sweetest. You expect him to be a brute between the sheets. Don’t get me wrong. In the right mood, he fucks like something dragged straight out of hell. But he’ll kiss you first. Softly. Slowly. Sweetly."

Her eyes shined with knowledge. "He’ll kiss you until you start to want it. Until you start to beg for it. Until you’ve parted your legs for him like a slut."

Dark eyes ran down my body as I struggled for breath. She hadn’t even broken a sweat. "You wouldn’t last thirty seconds with him, not to speak of the others. I doubt you’d even know what to do with men like them."

My face felt hot. I knew I shouldn’t let her get into my head, but vehemence began clawing at my chest. "Experience mustn’t be as important a prerequisite as you think it is, considering they still didn’t pick you."

She came at me.

It was three strikes in rapid sequence, each one flowing into the next without pause and I blocked the first, took the second on my forearm, and missed the third entirely.

It caught me across the face.

The world went sideways and I hit the floor. She followed me and I rolled to avoid getting stomped and kicked in the ribs.

She was angry and it made her erratic.

Her strikes widened. Her breathing changed from controlled to shallow. She was aiming now with her claws and I knew if she got them in me, I was dead.

So, I lured her in, pretending to stumble back, and when she moved in immediately, I kicked her directly in the solar plexus with all of my strength.

Tessa staggered, and I took the moment to launch myself at her wildly. I slammed my fist into her temple and her left eye in quick succession.

Shocked murmurs erupted over the gathering when she fell.

A part of me hoped she would stay down but she dragged herself forward, blood trickling down her eyes.

She blinked it away and glared up at me with those black eyes.

Her eyes screamed murder.

The next time I threw a punch she grabbed my arm and pulled me in close. My breath hitched. She raked her claws across my cheek, down to my collarbone like she was trying to tear off my face.

Pain burned down my skin and I cried out, jerking my arm out of her grasp and cycled backward in rapid retreat.

She followed, slamming us both down into the earth.

And then, she slapped me.

The crack of her open palm across my cheek echoed across the gathering and reverberated off the walls of the caves. "Know your place, bitch," she hissed in my face, the words laced with pure contempt.

The edges of my vision darkened and blood pooled in my mouth. My ears rang.

She grabbed the arm I tried to shove her off with and wrenched it leftward viciously. I screamed as the loud pop of my shoulder dislocating from its socket filled my ears.

"Everytime I hit you, remember this is what happens when lowborn trash dares to reach for the stars," she purred and I heard the crack in my ribs before the pain registered.

Pain exploded through my chest and I curved inward, trying to get away from her, trying to buck her off.

But she drove her fist into my dislocated shoulder, grinding it viciously into the dirt until I was beside myself with pain.

Somewhere distant, I heard the Queen’s sharp command. "Hold them down. You will not interfere. She must yield herself."

Yield.

It should’ve been easy to say the words. When she drove her claws into my stomach, opening furrows that burned like fire, the words, "I yield," sat on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get them out.

Each blow landed with sickening force, snapping more bones. My left leg twisted at a wrong angle after one particularly vicious kick. Agony blinded me.

I couldn’t get way. I couldn’t breathe. Every attempt to fight back earned me another punishing strike that drove me deeper into the dirt.

Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.

The pain was insurmountable and I was drowning in it. I was going to die here—

I don’t want to die.

The world blacked out. Or maybe I did.

When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer in the ring.

I was staring into a pair of intense, glowing blue eyes that mirrored my own, except these were brighter, sharper, and filled with something darker and ancient.

She was me, but she wasn’t.

Luscious brown hair floated around a face that looked like mine, only perfected. A pert nose scrunched in irritation. Full lips, stained the color of fresh blood, were pulled into a cruel scowl. She was everything I had never been. Ethereal, wild, and terrifyingly beautiful. Mischief and cruelty and raw power rolled off her in waves.

She was my Lycan, that much I knew.

"Let me in," she growled, her voice echoing inside my skull like thunder wrapped in silk. "Just say the word. It’ll be over in a blink."

She tilted her head, studying me with predatory hunger. "Let me kill her for you."

I hesitated. I wasn’t a murderer.

"Kill or be killed, stupid girl," she hissed, her voice dripping with malice. "That is why you remain prey. You refuse to accept what you truly are."

Her smile widened, revealing fangs. "Hurt them first. Tear them apart before they can touch you. Make them bleed. Make them scream. Make them fear you. That is survival."

She laughed softly, a chilling, hungry sound.

"Let me out, Maisie. I want to play."

But I knew what letting her out meant. It meant death. Not for Tessa. For me.

The transition wouldn’t kill me if my body was ready for it, but it was a different type of death if I lost myself, forced to live as a passenger in my own body while she controlled me. Us.

I had to force her into submission.

Her laughter echoed in my mind. "Whoever said two captains cannot steer the same ship, Maisie Adams?" she purred, her voice dripping with dark amusement. "They don’t understand us. Lycans were never made for submission. We do not operate like the wolves do. It cages our true potential. It weakens us."

She raised her hand, pressing her palm toward me. Her fingers were long and elegant, tipped with claws that gleamed like obsidian.

Almost against my will, I lifted my own hand and pressed it against hers. The moment we touched, a jolt of dark power surged between us.

"Partnership, however..." she whispered, her lips curving into a wicked smile, "makes us unstoppable. Two heads. Always better than one."

Her eyes bled completely black.

Then she leaned in close, until I could feel her breath against my lips.

"Let me in."

I did.