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홈 / Werewolf / The New Moon Mate / Chapter 86: Dale Fights

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Chapter 86: Dale Fights

작가: Kurgusal Izdusumler
last update 게시일: 2026-10-26 00:14:06

He came in low and fast and put his shoulder into my chest and I went down in the snow.

It was not a gentle thing. He was a foot taller than me and forty pounds heavier and he had been fighting in this square since he was a boy, and he did not hold back. I hit the ground hard and rolled and got my knees under me and he was on me again before I was up.

I got an elbow into his throat and he made a sound and came off me and I got to my feet.

The pack was shouting. I could hear the Corrigan boys and Mrs. Pike and June and a roar that was not words.

Dale came at me again and this time I did not go down. I stepped inside his reach and put my fist into his ribs and then into his jaw and he staggered back and the pack roared.

He shook his head and came back and we went around the square.

He was stronger than me. He was not faster. I had been walking a fence line for four years and I had been running the north line at night and I had been carrying grain sacks and I had a wolf in my chest who had been locked up for four years and wanted out.

He swung and I ducked and put my shoulder into his chest and he went back against the table and the table went over and the Alphas got out of the way.

He came off the table with his fist and it caught me on the side of the head and the square went white and I was on the ground again.

"Get up," Dale said. "Get up, Wren."

I got up.

I got up and put my hands on my knees and breathed and then I went at him.

He was tiring. I could see it in his shoulders and in the way he was holding his left arm. I had put a fist into his ribs twice and he was favoring it.

I got inside his reach again and put my fist into the same ribs and he grunted and his guard came down and I hit him in the jaw and then in the throat and he went down on one knee.

The pack was on its feet.

And then Dale put his hand in his pocket.

I did not see it. I was coming in and my hands were up and he was on one knee, and he put his hand in his pocket and came out with something and swung it at my head.

It was not a fist. It was a fist with something on it.

Silver.

It caught me on the shoulder and the pain went through me like a nail and I went down.

Silver. He had silver knuckles in his pocket and he had put them on in the dark.

"Get up," he said. "Wren, get up."

I could not get up. The silver was on my shoulder and the mark was under it and the whole of my arm was burning and my wolf was screaming in my chest.

Dale stood over me with the silver on his hand and his face gray and his eyes wet.

"I am sorry," he said. "I am sorry. Get up."

I put my good hand in the snow and pushed.

My wolf would not get up. She was down on her belly in my chest and she would not get up.

But I was not my wolf.

I got to my feet.

I got to my feet with my left arm hanging and the silver burn on my shoulder and Dale in front of me with the knuckles on his hand, and I put my right fist into his face.

He went back.

I hit him again. And again. And again. I hit him in the jaw and in the cheek and in the eye and I did not stop and the pack was screaming and the silver was burning and my wolf was up on her feet behind my ribs and pushing.

Dale put the knuckles up and I caught his wrist and twisted it and the knuckles came off and I put my knee into his chest and he went down.

He lay on the ground with his face in the snow and did not get up.

I stood over him.

"Yield," I said.

He did not answer.

"Yield," I said again.

He lifted his head. His face was bleeding and his eye was closing and he looked at me for a long moment.

"I yield," he said.

The square went quiet.

And then it did not go quiet. It went the other way. It went up. It was a roar and a stamping and a sound that went out of the square and down the co-op road and up the ridge.

I stood in the middle of it with my arm hanging and my shoulder burning and Dale on the ground at my feet.

Ada came down the steps.

"The challenge is decided," she said. "Wren Halloran is the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack."

The pack roared again.

And then Dale got up.

He got up slowly with his hand on his ribs and his face bleeding and he stood in front of me.

"Beta," he said.

"Beta," I said.

"I told you I would not hold back." He looked at the silver in the snow. "I did not tell you I had these. I have had them since 1973 and I have never used them on a wolf in a challenge until tonight." He put his hand on his chest. "I am sorry."

"You will answer for it," I said. "In front of the Alphas."

"I will answer for it." He looked at me. "And there is a thing I have to say to you and I am going to say it in front of the pack because the pack should hear it. The Council is not finished. The chief clerk is in Boise and the Councilman is sitting in that chair with his white beard and his scar and the Council has men in every territory and a register in a vault and a stone in a truck. They are going to come for you before the new moon. Not with a cull order. With an army."

The square went quiet.

"The new moon is in two days," Dale said. "And the Council has two days to stop you."

I looked at the seven Alphas and at the white-bearded Halloran in his chair and at the pack.

"Then we do not wait for them," I said. "We go to Boise tonight."

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