Page 73 of Bad Blood Panther

Chapter 29

Trying to keep her hands concealed, Jenny worked frantically at the lock to her cuffs. The angle made her have to twist her wrists awkwardly, and the tine she’d broken off the fork kept slipping out of the lock.

She had to do this. Xander was the toughest shifter she knew, and he was holding his own, but he couldn’t fight three giant warriors and then the alpha.

No one could.

Flynn, where are you?

She was so afraid the crew wouldn’t come in time. And if they didn’t, she knew what she had to do.

She had to go out there and fight by her mate’s side. She couldn’t let him die alone. They’d take down Alton together.

And then, she told herself, they’d take their son and go home. Even though, deep down inside, she knew the clan would never let it happen.

She kept working the lock, trying over and over again to free herself, as her mate fought for his life.

Xander assessed his injuries. Wrenched shoulder, right foreleg. Hurt like a sonovabitch. Deep gouges in his neck—he could feel them bleeding. Bad enough that his shifter healing was going to have a hell of a time keeping up, especially with his heartrate the way it was.

The others paced him. It would be harder, now. Three got in each other’s way. Two could double-team him in a bad way.

He paced them, trying not to show his limp. They were barely scratched.

The two of them rushed him at once. One knocked him to the side, probably breaking a rib or two. That was gonna hurt. Like, every time he took a breath. The adrenalin helped, but damn. He scrambled to his feet, just barely out of the way of the claws that were heading for his underbelly.

Fuck you. Not the vital organs. He leaped for the nearest one and chomped into its shoulder, looking for some serious blood vessels. He needed to get them bleeding, or he was going to fucking die.

The other panther clawed at him, rear paws raking, trying again for the underbelly. Blood flooded Xander’s mouth, and his opponent gave a hideous yowl.

His buddy dove in, snapping at Xander’s neck, and he let go of the first one. His cat wanted to hang on, wanted to kill this panther, kill the other one, die die die, blood and death and destruction because it was all so hard and scary and—fuck.

They both hit him at once, and he panicked. Clawed his way out from in between them by sheer instinct, sheer survival, and one of them rolled away. Xander had hit a big vein, and shit, he might not make it.

But Xander couldn’t worry about that now. They’d started this, and he fucking had to finish it.

His ribs were definitely broken, and the wrenched shoulder was worse. He could barely put the foot to the ground. The last panther standing, the yellow-eyed one, was bleeding too, one ear torn and limping a little on the back leg.

But Xander was fucked.

Yellow eyes lunged at Xander, and he wrapped his front paws around its neck and went with the momentum. He landed underneath, jarring his cracked ribs, and saw stars. With a huge heave of his back legs, he managed to roll them over again, pulling some painful raking wounds from the other panther’s back claws.

He bore down with his weight and his grip, trying to cut off the other panther’s air. He had the thickest fucking neck on the goddamn planet—in human form he must look like a linebacker.

His opponent started to heave and thrash when he realized what Xander was doing. He snapped at Xander’s jugular, and Xander barely managed to pull back in time.

The sounds of the crowd faded with the pounding in his ears. He kept the pressure on, cutting off the other panther’s air, until finally he went limp.

Xander released him, unable to summon up the energy to even wiggle his left front leg out from under the bastard. Finally, he managed to Change back.

As he pulled himself free, he saw Yellow Eyes’ side move. Still breathing. That was good, he guessed.

Xander staggered to his feet, hissing at the pain. Torn rotator cuff. Lost half his blood. Broken ribs—at least those only hurt when he breathed. Or moved.

The other panthers were still down. Not for long, but it didn’t matter. They were unconscious or incapacitated, and in any challenge, that was what counted.

Medics and healers rushed onto the field to remove his fallen opponents. They were carried to one of the tents for treatment.

Must be nice.