Isabel's Choice

Chapter 53 - Isabel

"And how do you choose to claim your retribution, Luna Isabel?"

I thought it would be hard for me to keep a straight face when hearing his question. There was nothing solemn in the way we rehearsed it.

***

"With my own hand, Alpha."

"Your own hand," Eino snorted and although my ears were burning with embarrassment at his innuendo, I couldn't help but join in his laughter. 

"With my own hand, Alpha," I tried again, biting my cheek forcefully to contain any inclination of my mouth to smile.

"OK. But Luna, I have a question. Are you supposed to shift your paw back into a hand and like...strangle him at the end?" He pondered seriously, shifting his nails into claws, forth and back.

"You are not helping!" I blurted out, my anger unconvincing, marred as it was by my irreverent laughter. "It's the standard statement, let's just go on with it."

"Fine. How do you choose to claim retribution with your hand, Luna?"

"I am supposed to say the hand part, shifter! Why do you have to make a mockery out of everything?"

"I don't know. Maybe I like to be called Alpha. Or maybe I want to distract you so that you don't see me shitting my pants."

***

"With my own hand, Alpha," I say dryly, handing my coat to Lars. "There is no need to have him restrained."

Eino removes his claws from Arnie's skin and the crowd murmurs confused, trying to translate my unusual request.

Jake's son also needs a moment to regain his footing and process that he's being challenged by a female. There is a flash of cruel hope in his eyes. His stupid brain didn't realize yet that, regardless of how well he will fight, he will not see tomorrow.

If he kills me, my Alpha will seek retribution. If he miraculously ends Lars he will have to deal with Sven. In brief, in order for him to live, he needs to clear his way through three Alphas. That is if the witch that is hovering above us will not neutralize him first. 

I hear Lars's soft-spoken encouragement Be here, Luna through Willow's ears and I see Arnie's wolf through Willow's eyes.

He's broad, fur brown like mine, long fangs ready to draw blood. A full-grown Beta male.

***

"I do trust her, but she has never killed a fully-grown Beta," Eino barked at Lars when this latter proposed that I challenge Arnie.

"And you have never killed a fully grown Alpha, yet I give you permission to do so," my mate replied, focused on scraping batter from the floor, oblivious to my presence on the kitchen's doorstep. "I've seen her work, bro. She can take down a Beta. She could even take down an Alpha. That's what you trained her to do, no?"

***

When Arnie's wolf lunges at us, we manage to avoid his bite only barely. Lars's voice of confidence has brought us only this far.

Now we'll have to rely on the lessons Hail and his human have taught us methodically and patiently for months. Some of them were brutal, yet their delivery was never without kindness.

They come to me in waves, not in the order in which I learned them, but in the one which fits the purpose now.

***

"First you need to dance."

"Why?"

"Because your wolf is small. You don't have the advantage of mass and you need to tire your contender a bit."