My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 447

Mina

They circled, heads low, measuring. The silver wolf's tail lashed behind him. The brindled one's chest vibrated like a bellows and the growl of it rattled my bones.

"Silver's got it." The man behind me, close to my ear, easy about it. "Lean, rangy, quick. You can see it in the way he moves. Brindle's lumbering. Been eating too well."

The silver wolf feinted. The brindled one flinched and bared his teeth at him, and the silver wolf came down sharp on the stone, claws scraping sparks, and struck. His foreclaw caught the brindled one's shoulder and opened a red track through brown fur as easily as tearing parchment.

The brindled wolf shrieked and drove his skull into the silver's chest. The silver wolf's paws scrabbled on the floor and his back legs folded under him. The brindled one lunged and got his teeth into his throat.

"He's got him," someone screamed behind me. "Kill him!"

"Wait," the man said. "Not yet."

The silver wolf got the brindled one's jaw in his mouth and forced it open. The brindled wolf reared, roaring, shaking his head to fling him loose, and the silver clung on with his claws scrabbling down the brindled one's back and flanks, tearing tracks of blood through the fur.

They went down together in a crash that shook the boards under my feet.

"There," the man said. "See that? He shouldn't have gone for the throat that early. Wastes everything you've got and it doesn't finish anyone."

They rolled, a tangle of teeth and fur and claws. The brindled one's claws hooked the silver's belly and dragged down his ribs. The silver shrieked. His forepaws ripped at the brindled one's throat, tearing flesh and fur, and blood sprayed across the stone.

The silver wolf's jaw opened wide and his teeth sank into the brindled one's shoulder. I heard the bone crunch between them. The brindled wolf bellowed and threw himself sideways and they slammed into the wall hard enough that I felt it come up through the floor.

The brindled one's claws raked the silver's head and opened a gash from ear to eye.

"Shit," the man said mildly. "Silver just got fucked."

The silver wolf heaved up on his forelegs, trying to get out from under him. The brindled one leaned into it, pinning him, and bit down on his neck. The silver howled. Blood gushed and soaked into the coat and ran down onto the stone.

He drove his claws into the brindled one's belly. The brindled wolf's head jerked up and he howled too, and the silver lurched out from under him, shaking free, swaying on his feet with blood pouring off him.

"He's done," the man said. "I should have put my money on the other one."

The silver wolf's legs buckled and he came down with a crunch of splintered bone. He tried to rise. His spine wobbled under him and he went down again, whining through his teeth.

He did not get up after that.

The hall erupted. Men tearing at each other's sleeves over bets, coins clinking, somebody hauling somebody else up onto a bench to shout about it. Two of the elders were laughing so hard one of them had to hold the table.

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