🌙 𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
She was loud, she wanted him to hear her.
Dmitri didn’t respond. Didn’t even turn to acknowledge her.
He just stood there, perfectly still, the chanical wolf’s head tilted slightly as if... listening.
Konstantin lunged.
The impact when he hit was devastating. Not because he connected—though he tried—but because of what happened when he didn’t.
The chanical wolf moved.
Not away. Through. Slipping between Konstantin’s massive jaws by a hair’s breadth, tal joints pivoting in ways flesh and bone never could.
But Konstantin was faster than he looked. His claws raked across the construct’s flank as it passed, and the sound was horrible—tal shrieking, tearing.
A dent. Deep. Ugly.
And from the seam around the chanical wolf’s muzzle—blood.
My stomach dropped.
He’s still in there. He’s still feeling this.
The chanical wolf didn’t falter. It spun, claws, razor-sharp and gleaming. He slashed precisely across Konstantin’s shoulder.
Konstantin roared and lunged again, jaws snapping.
This ti he caught the construct’s back leg. tal crunched under the pressure, joint buckling inward.
More blood. Dripping now. From the muzzle, from the joints, from places where the construct couldn’t fully shield him.
He’s bleeding.
But Dmitri didn’t stop, he didn’t slow down.
The chanical wolf twisted, the motion impossibly, painful and its claws found Konstantin’s face. Deep enough to make him let go.
Konstantin staggered back, shaking his head, blood streaming from new wounds. His growls were venomous, his large head ducked lo
Because he’d figured it out.
The construct could be broken.
He charged again, and this ti he didn’t try for precision not subtlety. Just power. His shoulder slamd into the chanical wolf like a battering ram.
The construct went flying, hitting the stone with a sickening crash. tal scraped. Sothing inside crunched.
I gripped the seat harder, nails digging into stone.
Get up. Please get up.
The chanical wolf rose. Slower this ti. One leg dragging, bent at an unnatural angle. The light from within flickered—once, twice—like a candle struggling against the wind.
Blood pooled beneath it now. Too much blood.
Konstantin circled, confident now. He’d found the weakness. All he had to do was keep hitting, keep breaking, until there was nothing left to move.
He lunged.
But this ti...
The chanical wolf didn’t dodge.
It dropped.
Low. Fast. Impossibly fast for sothing so damaged.
Konstantin sailed over it, massive body suddenly airborne, thrown off-balance by the absence of resistance.
Like soone missing the last step on a staircase.
He hit the ground hard, montum carrying him into a tumbling roll. By the ti he recovered, the chanical wolf was already on him.
Not attacking. Positioning.
Every strike Konstantin threw, the construct wasn’t quite where he expected. Every lunge t empty air. Every snap of jaws closed on nothing.
Konstantin was stronger. Faster. Bigger.
But the chanical wolf was precise.
And precision, I was learning, could beat power.
If you could survive long enough.
Konstantin lunged again—jaws wide, going for the kill.
The chanical wolf twisted. Not away. Into the attack.
Its claws found the soft flesh under Konstantin’s jaw. Not deep. Not fatal.
But there.
And suddenly Konstantin understood what it felt like to have sothing sharp against your throat. Sothing that could end you if it wanted to.
He froze.
"Yield," Vladimir’s voice cut through the arena.
Konstantin didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. His eyes were wild, furious, but there was sothing else there too.
Fear.
Because in that mont, he realized: the chanical wolf had been holding back.
Every strike had been precise. Controlled. Never lethal. Always just enough.
It could have killed him a dozen tis over.
It chose not to.
"Yield," Vladimir repeated. Colder this ti.
Konstantin’s body went slack.
"I yield," he snarled.
The chanical wolf stepped back imdiately. Its movents were jerky now, labored. One leg barely functioning. The light inside dimd further.
Konstantin shifted back to human form, chest heaving, one hand pressed to his bleeding jaw.
He stared at Dmitri or what remained of him inside the battered construct with sothing between simring rage and utter disbelief.
"Winner: Dmitri Kozlov," Vladimir announced.
Konstantin didn’t move for a long mont. Then he spat blood onto the stone and limped away, shoulders rigid with humiliation.
The chanical wolf stood alone in the center of the arena.
Then it began to fold.
Not smoothly like before. The pieces stuck. Gears ground against each other, damaged and protesting. But slowly, painfully, it collapsed back into itself, retracting piece by piece until only the small device remained on Dmitri’s chest.
And when the last piece locked into place...
Oh god.
Dmitri swayed.
His shirt was soaked red. Blood ran from his nose, his mouth. His left arm hung limp at his side, clearly dislocated or broken. Bruises were already blooming across his face, his ribs, everywhere the tal hadn’t been able to fully shield him.
He looked like he’d been hit by a truck.
But he was standing.
"This is cheating, High Alpha," Konstantin suddenly blurted. "This is not right. A tin wolf? It’s absurd." His eyes glead with malice hot enough to singe hair.
Vladimir didn’t even afford him a reply. He was watching Dmitri the way the guard had been.
I bit my lip against a retort. Who was I to speak?
Dmitri had done all the speaking on his own without even moving his mouth. But a man like Konstantin could never accept that truth. He kept rambling, but I tuned him out.
Judging by the injuries Dmitri had sustained, it was obvious the fight had been fair.
He limped forward, one leg so mangled that he had to brace it against the stone and twist it back into the correct position.
I grimaced for him, unable to look away.
He barely flinched. Just spat out a bloody tooth.
Next was his shoulder. He grabbed it gently and pulled up slowly, gritting his teeth.
I heard a pop, but it still looked crooked.
Then he grabbed his own arm and *yanked*—
The pop this ti was deafening.
I had been injured in sports before, but this hurt to watch even though he was a stranger.
"Sorry," I muttered under my breath.
My heart lurched when his gaze cut to mine. Dark blue eyes, almost black, searing into .
I blinked.
He’d already looked away.
I clutched my chest, trying to regulate my breathing.
Vladimir’s cold hand found my wrist, fingers resting over my pulse as if trying to calm without speaking.
But Konstantin’s ranting didn’t stop, even as Dmitri took his seat.
"High Alpha, this is an outrage," he snarled, his piercing glare fixed on Dmitri, who simply sat there, swelling already slowly receding.
To my relief.
He remained quiet through the tirade.
"High Alpha, he is—"
"Resourceful," Vladimir interrupted, his icy stare cold enough to make it snow in a desert. "Innovative. Disciplined. He advances."
Konstantin gulped, losing so of the red in his face. He clenched his jaw so hard I could hear teeth grinding.
Then he walked toward Dmitri.
My heart sank.
The guard was already tensing, fingers flexing, ready to intervene.
Konstantin stopped just short of Dmitri, who didn’t even raise his head.
"If you have any honor..." Konstantin whispered harshly.
I could hear Ajax saying sothing similar. *"If you had any sha, you would kill yourself."*
A shiver raked through my spine.
Konstantin paused for so obnoxious dramatic effect. "You would walk away."
"You lost. Get over it."
Silence descended like an anvil.
Because the words hadn’t co from Vladimir.
I was the one on my feet, the one with my blood still simring, as all eyes snapped to . My mouth ran again before my brain could catch up.
"But your ego is bigger than your dick."
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