All Maddie wanted to do was retire for the day. Her soft bed was calling to her, promising to make the stress of the day melt away as she sunk into a restful sleep. It was so tempting to simply slip away from the grand hall and the mass of wolves who had come to celebrate the start of the Alpha Games. However, her disappearance would be quickly noticed, and she’d be dragged back to face a sea of disappointed faces. It was better to face the crowd now that they were smiling at her. Not that it mattered. She couldn’t leave until she followed through with her plan. Only her and Jess knew what was to happen, and despite knowing it would work, her stomach rolled with waves that would rival the sea at their borders. The room was full of the higher up wolves of Silver Moon with a few guests spread among them. Maddie chose to focus on the strangers, trying to guess where they were from. There were only a few she recognised from the days her and her father would visit their allies, but others

The uproar from the crowd was to be expected. Silver Moon wolves and guest alike called out against her announcement after a single moment of hesitation. Many rose to their feet, some shouting their concern, some disregarding her words like that of a naïve pup, and others pleading with the Alpha to tame her tongue. Maddie bared it all, her jaw set in a stubborn line as she faced them with her head raised high. Her lack of a reaction dismissed those calling her immature and her composure unnerved those who thought she could be tamed. 'Got the reaction you wanted?' Jess giggled through a mindlink. Maddie threw her a discrete wink. When the very wolves who called her naïve couldn’t control themselves, their outbursts were void. When enough wolves had quietened down to hear the one voice in the room who mattered, she turned to her father with the same anticipation of his response hovering over her chest. Maddie waited for him to challenge her words, a hundred rehearsed responses at the

“Where's your guard?” Jess scoured the pub as she downed the rest of her drink. “That’s the best part.” Maddie grinned. “Now I’m a contestant, father can’t show any favouritism, even to me. The only thing he’s been allowed is for me to stay in my own bedroom, and that was only because we ran out of guest rooms.” “So, no more guards until the games are over?” “Nope.” The pair shared a mischievous smile, remembering days gone by when their plans had been foiled by the Silver Moon warriors that the Alpha had placed to watch her. With them gone for at least a month, there would be no limit to what they could get up to. “So...” A gleam filled her friend’s eyes, immediately putting Maddie on her guard. “Did you find anyone special at the scent trial?” Her eyebrows wiggled as if Maddie needed any help to understand her meaning. “Nope, you were the best one there.” “I knew it.” Jess grinned, before jumping up to get another round. Maddie took a long sip of her lemonade. She wasn’t sure

Maddie had never showered faster in her life. She didn’t bother with her hair and simply scrubbed her skin of the morning’s jog. She was in and out in moments, before she was throwing on whatever clothes were in the top of her drawers and rushing from her room. She threw a look at the clock, seeing she had ten minutes before her father was due to get to his office. In the mornings, he usually had some area of the pack to visit, whether he supervised the warrior training or inspected the docks, but he was always at his desk by eight o’clock. The warrior training would have wrapped up too, but they would head to breakfast before getting changed for the day. Nothing as small as being a bit sweaty would get in the way of a hungry warrior and their breakfast. That gave Maddie a small window where her father’s office would be empty with no chance of one of the warriors coming in to surprise her. Before she could rethink her hastily scrambled together plan, she flew out of her room and acro

Maddie was wooden, each movement forced as she walked to the chest at the edge of the field and claimed her weapons. The small daggers gleamed with their recent polish, the silver hilt fitting like a glove in her hand. They had been a gift from her father the night she had gained her wolf. She adored them but hadn’t had much chance to use them. Wolves trained with their bodies more than weapons. Why carry a dagger in human form when you can attack with the razor-sharp claws of your wolf form? She palmed the blade, spinning the flat of it around her hand before grabbing the hilt again. Her muscles remembered the small movements required to make her daggers deadly, just as her skin remembered the cool metal of the blades. Maddie sunk two into holsters at her thighs, keeping hold of the other two as she walked onto the field. Murmurs burst out from the crowd, eyes moving from the two other pairs, already in the heat of battle, to her. The pressure of their gazes was familiar and pulled a