The Wrong Brother's Temptation novel Chapter 167

Chapter 167

Signa

He began walking out of the gym almost immediately.

‘Connor, slow down.”

But he ignored me so I hastily added.

“Can you just take a minute to breathe? You don’t have to sprint toward whatever this is.”

Td rather get it done,” he muttered without looking at me, his stride eating up the hallway as he turned towards the stains.

I jogged past him, which required more effort than I wanted to admit and blocked his way.

I raised my hand with my palm against his chest to stop him, and it landed directly over his heart.

His heartbeat was racing.

It wasn’t the steady, powerful rhythm I was used to feeling whenever I accidentally found myself close enough to him. This was frantic, almost violent, each beat pounding beneath my palm as though his heart was trying to break free of his chest.

His eyes dropped to my hand and for a moment, neither of us moved.

I could feel the heat of him through my palm, and feel the subtle movement of his chest beneath it. Suddenly I became far too aware of how close we were standing. His face was only inches from mine, his expression unreadable, but there was something in his eyes that made my stomach twist.

“You’re not calm,” I said, looking up at him. “Don’t go in there like you would murder someone.”

He looked down at my hand and then at me, and something flickered behind his eyes before he smoothed it away. “It should last just for a few minutes. They hate me enough already so I’ll be fine”

“You don’t know that.” I said in a small voice.

In response, he pushed my hand away gently and I was still trying to formulate a solid argument when Maria’s voice came from further down the hall.

“Connor! There’s a change of plans”

We both turned. Maria was hurrying toward us, panting a bit.

The elders have changed the venue,” she informed us between ragged breaths. “They are now waiting for you in the forest’s hollow arena.”

“Hollow arena?” I repeated cluelessly.

She nodded tensely. “That’s where they will be conducting his trial.”

“Trial?” My voice echoed loudly through the hall as my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

“Why does he need a trial?” I turned to Connor. “What is going on?”

Connor only nodded to Maria and steered himself towards the door.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered. “Maybe she heard them wrong…maybe they said something else. Hollow Arena sounds like the name of a place where people go to die, not where you conduct a succession discussion.”

The Wrume Brothers Temptation

Connor looked entirely unruffled by the news even as I panted to keep up with him, trying to make sense of why they would change it at the last minute.

Wigwere walking past the gates now and towards the forest.

I rarely ventured towards the forest because the mansion and its surrounding gated space was large enough to tre me out.

And Connor had taken me to the riverside cozy cottage of his mött’s but this forest did not feel welcoming of cozy to me.

I folded my hands as the air started to grow cold the further we ventured inside.

Connor still was walking in just his shorts but didn’t appear to feel the cold.

“You can go home if you want.” Connor suggested after he saw me pulling my frail gown closer.

I should have gotten a jacket before stepping out

“No, I am fine.” I replied immediately.

He glanced at me and the way I shivered a little but didn’t argue and just kept walking.

The trees were closing in overhead, the light dimming even though it was barely afternoon.

“What is this hollow arena exactly?” I asked, looking around at the thicket getting steadily denser and darker, older the further in we went.

“It’s deep in the oldest part of the forest,” Connor answered me. “There’s a circular ruin built centuries ago by the first few alphas, back when the packs were still at war with each other constantly. You will see why it’s named that way soon enough.”

I opened my mouth to ask something else but as if on cue. I saw what felt like a ruined structure looming ahead through the gaps in the trees.

I pushed the vines aside and stared at the forest that seemed to have half–swallowed the arena over the centuries.

Massive black–stone pillars rose up between the trunks, their surfaces gone green and grey with moss, with roots and vines wrapped around them like the forest was reclaiming its territory back.

It reminded me of the half broken colosseum with the remains of an enormous circular wall curved away into the undergrowth. Like everything else around me, the stone wall too seemed to disappear under ivy and thorny vines that had grown as thick as my arm.

I rubbed my hands together. The temperature had dropped several degrees just from walking into the tree cover, where the light couldn’t get past the thick foliage above us, making it seem like it was night already.

Connor didn’t shudder and I glanced at him with a frown.

“You should have grabbed a shirt at least.”

The path beneath our feet became uneven, covered with fallen leaves and small roots that occasionally caught beneath my feet.

“This is becoming increasingly creepy. Are we sure the elders aren’t planning to murder you?”

“In the old days,” he said looking around the place, “alphas entered the arena naked”

“Naked?”

My brain was quick to produce a rather vivid image of him walking in without his shorts through the entrance. I was glad for the cold that turned my cheeks pink as I mentally set the image on fire and buried the ashes.

12:14 Sat, Aug 22.

Ine Wrong Brother’s Temptation

Traditionally,” he continued, entirely too casual for a man walking toward something called a trial, ‘an heir enters the Hollow Arena without guards, family, or pack. There’s no title, armor or weapon he carries to his trial. He walks in with

thing but what he was born with.”

“Thats just…” I couldn’t find a better word. “…weird”

Connor shrugged. “It is supposed to strip everything else away before he faces judgment.”

“That’s a brutal way to test someone.”

He did not object as if this was a completely reasonable system and not medieval nonsense someone should have scrapped away several centuries ago. “That’s the way its supposed to be. It reminded the alphas they weren’t above the law.”

“You are okay with this?”

“I am choosing to believe that the elders felt the need to test me in here, not back in the office as a sign of my strength. Besides, its an age old tradition”

That was very optimistic of him. Especially because this place looked like it would rip off every positive thought and memory from you.

“Tradition can be wrong.”

“Tell that to Elder Johansson,” he said dryly and kept walking

“Yeah, that old geezer who thinks we should embrace modern technology. Yeah, right” I replied sarcastically and he stopped to look at me.

“Those meds surely gave you a lot of sass if nothing else”

I stuck out my tongue at him. “I believe werewolves need therapy, the grumpy and overconfident ones in particular”

His mouth twitched. “Probably”

I wasn’t sure if I was rambling to keep him calm or myself but seeing him go from angrily punching the bag to look mildly anused was a win for me.

We were now outside the entrance which happened to be a narrow stone passage ahead that swallowed everything beyond it into a dark hole.

“So. I rubbed my hands together. “Are you going to strip?”

12:15 Sat, Aug 22.

The Wrong Brothers Temptation