Supernaturals

12. Battle for dominance

SHAWN

It was a sunny Monday morning and under normal circumstances, it seemed like a good day. The birds chirped sweetly on a peach tree just in front of my room window. I was naked on the bed with my hands around Eve's bare buttocks under the sheaths. As of recently, that was how I began every day.

Only that today was different. Only that I might not see the end of this very day. For no reason beyond the stupidity of Alex Cross, I was going to fight him. It's just so d*mb.

F*ck tradition. But then, without tradition, I wouldn't be the Superior.

“You are thinking about the fight, aren't you?” Eve asked as she kissed me lightly on the cheek.

“Is it that obvious? Jeez, I'm so nervous."

“You are about to get into a fight with a werewolf who wants nothing more than to drop you, who wouldn't be scared?"

“I'm not scared, I'm just a lil' nervous."

Eve gave me a playful punch to my belly. “It's okay to be scared, you don't always have to act super tough.”

“I'm about to get into a fight, the last thing I need is fear.”

“My father used to say fear can either make you strong or weak, but the good part is that you get to choose.”

Eve and I hopped into the shower together. We spent more than forty minutes in the bathroom—in about half of that time, we definitely weren't having a bath.

Barely ten minutes after we got dressed, Mike came to tell me it was time. It was time to battle Alex Cross.

“You got this, Shawn, you're the illest there is." Shawn motivated me, slapping his palm on my back repeatedly.

There were two hundred and fifty-one werewolves watching Alex and me as we stood on a very big field.

This fight was pointless and I would have avoided it if I could.

Before we started, Even ran into the field and then whispered to me, “Remember you have a wife-to-be to get back to, don't even think of losing.”

Also whispering, I said, “Losing? That never crossed my mind.”

Just as Eve left, Alex said, “Woo, look who is getting advice from his little b*tch."

Silly little Alex, he couldn't trick me even if he was given more brain cells. He wanted to get me riled up so I would become careless. Nice try though.

“You know we don't have to do this, you can call this off anytime you like.” I let out, hoping it would knock some sense into this power-hungry twenty-one-year-old.

Alex laughed. “Don't tell me you are getting cold feet. Well, let me make it very clear to you, I am not leaving this field until there's a body on the ground.”

A body on the ground? Fine by me too.

“Remember that you did this," I said, as my grey eyes shone bright red.

I saw the fear in Alex as he saw me in alpha mode. He was a beta himself but was very skilled. When I became the Superior some seventeen months ago, he had wanted to join in the battles of the alphas. He wasn't even twenty then.

And now, he had been training for months with only one goal in his mind—kill Shawn Holland. Mind you, during the months of his training, he had all ten alphas coaching him.

Alpha or not, he was going to be a tough opponent.

He launched a punch at me, I dodge it and he tried to hit me again. This time, he did. He hit me with his elbow straight to my nose. It broke.

He was fast.

The impact of the punch almost had me on the ground but I stood my ground. Alex was really not joking for those months that he trained.

He made a deft backflip and landed himself on me fully. The impact was so strong that I fell with him on me. He tried to press me to the ground—his first mistake. I was an alpha after, no amount of training could give him the physical edge.

I flung him in the air and then landed a good right arm on his face before he hit the ground. I didn't hesitate, he wasn't going to if he had the chance. I gave him a hard kick to the stomach, it hit him real hard. I hit him again, this time he turned so I couldn't get the stomach but I got his b*tt real good.

I tried to launch a kick to his head, but he dodged it. He did some kung-fu sh*t and he was vertical again. And I didn't see he had a rock in his hands. Well, I did, but it had crashed on my forehead already. I staggered. Then he hit me on the face and then slashed his claws on my face. That got me on the ground really fast.

The pain was so bad that I didn't realise when I began to scream.

I was bleeding, the claws did solid damage to my face. I should have known better than to allow a werewolf to s***h me with claws that were at least one and a half inches long.

I saw he was getting more confident, he was beginning to believe he could beat me. I couldn't blame him anyway, I was on the ground clutching to my face and he was still on his feet. His dream was finally before him.

Even as I lay weak on the ground, I wondered why he thought being the Superior was so much fun. In a time like this, what mattered most was survival.

I decided to let him hit me two times so he would get even more confident and careless. This was a great risk because I could d*e before my plan would work. But I couldn't on his ego and arrogance.

He struck me on my back with his foot, I rolled in pain and I deliberately didn't act tough at all. I didn't endure the pain at all, I wanted him to feel he was winning already. I rolled on the ground helplessly, yelling as loud as I could. He hit me again, I acted the same way.

As I anticipated, he tried to hit me again. I grabbed his foot and pulled it with every ounce of strength in me. As he got to the ground, my knee met his face and I saw a tooth fall out of his mouth. Three others were probably dangling. Before he could even move, I came on top of him and landed him ten heavy punches to the face. By the third punch, he was already knocked out cold but I had given him seven more to vent my anger.

But I didn't k*ll him.

I left him in a pretty bad shape but I didn't take his life—which was way more than what he would have done to me if he had won. I had no interest in k*lling a twenty-one year old. He was an annoying f*ck, yes. But I wouldn't be the one to take his life.

What mattered was that I had kept my honour and I remained the leader of the eleven packs.

Eve ran to kiss me as soon as it was clear that I won.

“I was really scared at one point." She said as she sank into my embrace.

“Just one point? I did well then."

Mike gave me a signal and I knew he had something important to tell me. I went with him to the rooftop of the tallest building in our territory.

“What is it, Mike?" I inquired, as soon as I knew we were alone and away from everyone.

“I really don't want to tell you this especially since you just had a fight, but I just got this news from one of our scouts."

“Spit it."

Mike told me the scouts were certain that the demons were about to start searching for other beings. This was bad news.

The demons were the most powerful and dangerous of all the beings. They were capable of mind-blowing stuff, most of which would easily send us six feet under. Many believed that the demons created Hamzak 101. I didn't know if that was true, but it could very well be.

“This is bad, Shawn. How could we possibly survive this?”

“We will," I said, not even convincing myself.

“Are you still thinking of telling Landon to work with us?" Mike asked.

“Yes, we don't have any option."

Mike never bought the idea of working with vampires. He was so sure it would never work out. I didn't either, but we were really out of choices.

“Why do I feel it is better to d*e than work with the vampires?"

“We have to try, if we don't we will d*e."

“How do we know they would want to work with us?"

“We don't."

Mike exhaled noisily. “Bullocks. This is damn f*cking scary.”

He was right, the idea of working with a vampire churned my stomach. It was kind of absurd to even think of working with people who want to drink your blood. But then, we were in an even more absurd situation.

“Okay, how do we communicate with the vampires, it's not like phones work anymore.”

I held his shoulder tightly. “Let me deal with that, you just make certain everyone's calm, especially after the fight."

Now I had to think of how I would write a letter to Landon—head of the vampires—telling him that we had to work together for both our sakes.

For some reason, I felt it would be easier convincing a cat to get baptised than it would to make Landon work with the werewolves. But as I said earlier, I wasn't left with many choices.