64: Power

**Tristan**

The centre of the pack was, as its name suggested, an area within the middle of the pack grounds, meant for important announcements and events. It was characterised by white, green ivy-covered pillars which bordered a total of five paths, each leading to five different areas of the pack grounds. The ivy-covered pillars were placed in a circle-like fashion and in the centre was a large piece of lawn. It was overgrown most of the summer and so now it reached mid-calf and tickled at my skin. Surrounding us, also in a circle, were the pack members. I couldn’t say I knew everyone well, I was hardly a social butterfly, but they all knew me well enough to glance at the sight before them in excitement. This would be the greatest event in this pack’s history, the day the Alpha was challenged by his Beta.

“Right, some ground rules.” Ambrose said as he stood in front of me at the opposite edge of the overgrown grass. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way, both in our wolf forms. The fight will be to the death and if you lose, your mate will join you. If I lose, this entire pack is yours to command. If you surrender, Lucien dies, and you will have to return to the pack as my Beta. I, of course, will not be surrendering, but in the odd chance that hell freezes over and I do, you will be seen as the winner of the challenge.”

I nodded in understanding. There was a lot at stake and admittedly, I was terrified, not for me, but for Lucien. I didn’t want to win so that I could live, I probably deserved a little punishment after all that I had done. Instead, I wanted to win so that Lucien could live. And as I thought this, I took a glance at him. His eyes were clouded in worry and infested with fear. I gave him a reassuring smile and his eyes slowly began to soften before he smiled in return. His smile, however, lasted only a second before it fell and his eyes widened as he glanced at something… or rather, someone behind me. Curious, I turned around and was surprised to see Oliver sprinting towards us.

“What the hell is going on?” He yelled when he was close enough for us to hear him.

Ambrose chuckled before clapping his hands. “Wow Oliver, you made it just in time.” And then he glanced towards me with a dark, mischievous look on his face. “Say, what if I told you that Oliver over here, the man you consider to be your brother, knew about my dirty little secret?”

Oliver froze immediately, now standing at the front of the crowd. I paused for a moment, wondering if this was another trick from Ambrose before glancing at Oliver. His face said it all. Ambrose was telling the truth.

“How could you?” I yelled out, feeling a fresh set of tears prickling at my lower lids. It was the second time today that I felt this anger and disappointment. Betrayal, that was what it was called. I felt betrayed by the people I was most close to, and a feeling like that was just heart-shattering. I could now understand why it was so difficult for people to learn to trust after having been betrayed. The feeling made me scared and uncertain. I wasn’t sure who was on my side anymore.

“Look Tristan it’s not what you think. I did it for your own good.”

“Her own good?” It was Lucien who now spoke. I came to realise that he had a habit of taking on my anger and feeling it on my behalf. “You fucking asshole! You let her fucking get involved with this monster after everything he put our family through! What the fuck is wrong with you-”

“Oh shut the fuck up! Where was she going to go? You know what happened to Jasmine. Did you want Tristan to grow up like that? She may not have grown up with love, but she grew up with what she *needed* at that time and if I had to lie to her again to keep her safe, I would.” Oliver was panting now, and his face had grown a shade of red. It was the angriest and most passionate I’d seen him in a while and although I was hardly close to forgiving him, I was able to understand his point of view. If I had learned the truth about Ambrose earlier on in life, I would have run away, and then where would I have had to go? Ambrose did give me what I needed when I needed it, a home and a family. But the little good that he’d done for me couldn’t overshadow all of the bad. He was black at heart and unfortunately there was no curing it. Thus, I was left with no choice but to slay the monster that was ‘Ambrose’.

He clapped a few times more before rolling his eyes and saying, “Oh, how sweet. Look Tristan, aren’t you lucky to have people who care for you? You know, I cared for you too.”

Annoyed, I rolled my eyes at him and then said, “Are we going to start our tedious battle anytime soon or do you still want to mock me a little more?”

He smiled, ever ready for us to finally challenge one another, but before either of us could move, Oliver began to protest. “No! You promised that you wouldn’t punish her! We made a deal!”

A deal of protection, that was what I assumed Oliver was talking about. However, even I knew that making a deal with Ambrose was like making a deal with the devil. There was always some fine print.

“I’m not punishing her for anything. She’s wanted to be an Alpha most of her life. I’m just granting her a fair opportunity.”

“But-”

This time, I put a stop to Oliver’s protests. “Oliver it’s okay. I *have* to do this.”

He sighed and shook his head in reluctance but said nothing further on the matter. Ambrose let out an exaggerated sigh before saying, “Finally, all that emotional crap is over. Now, let’s see how strong you are, Tristan.”

He clutched at his shirt before tossing it to the ground revealing his large, heavily muscled body. The next was his trousers. I did the same, leaving my clothes in a pile next to me. Our eyes were locked in a deadly glare and the aggressive tension between the both of us was so thick, a knife would break trying to cut through it.

“On my count, we shift.”

I gave a curt nod and clenched my fists as I prepared to give in to my wolf side.

“One…” he hunched over, and his eyes darkened.

“Two…” I let a deep, low growl rumble in my chest.

“Three!” And with this last word, the both of us lunged forward as we transformed. The sound of bones cracking, growls leaving our mouths and the loud thumping of our bodies filled the air as we fell to the ground. My skin was now covered in a coat of fur a bright, light silverish colour and his was covered in thick, long black fur, the colour of night. When he opened his eyes, they were a deep shade of dark scarlet, and within them I could see the glowing blue of mine. Slowly, the both of us got onto our paws. He was much larger than I was and far more aggressive. He charged towards me, not even giving me a second to think and then pushed me to the floor, pinning me underneath him tightly. He opened his mouth widely and tried to bite into my neck, but luckily, I moved just in time to send his teeth snapping viciously at the air. He growled out lowly, angered that he hadn’t been able to bite me, but by then I had finally gotten my head in the game and so I brought my hind limbs closer towards my body before kicking them into his stomach, sending him flying off of me. He skidded on the floor for a moment before dragging his claws into the floor, stopping him from moving any further. I spared no time in making my next move, not wanting Ambrose to have an opening to attack. I swiped my claws at his face and blood splattered on the floor as they dug into his flesh. He hissed loudly before lurching forward, trying to get me on my back again. But my senses were heightened, and I could now see his moves before he made them. The difference between the way Ambrose and I fought was that I had something to fight for and so every single scratch and bite was done with a purpose, to protect Lucien. Ambrose on the other hand fought me because he saw it as a game of revenge. And so, when he attacked, he did so maliciously, to prove that he was stronger and that I was weaker. But he was wrong.

*“You’re really giving me a go for my money,”* he said through our mind-link before baring his teeth at me.

I snarled at him and dug my paws deeper into the ground in preparation of my next move. I    pushed myself off of the ground, launching myself into the air. But it seemed as though he had the same idea. Our bodies collided in the air, and we ricocheted off of each other with such a force that when we landed on the floor, two of the five pillars cracked right in half.

“Tristan!” Lucien’s voice came out panicked and I could hear him grunt and struggle against his captors. But it was no use, they only held onto him tighter. I let out a whimper to let him know that I was fine, but all it seemed to do was deepen the look of worry on his face.

Ambrose let out a grunt and attempted to get back onto his shaky paws. I realised then that if we kept this up there would be no winners. And so, I dug deep, deeper than I ever had before, losing myself in all of the hurt, the sadness, the bitterness. I took myself right back to the day of the fire, to the screams that my parents must have let rip from their raw throats as they burned alive. And as these emotions took over me, I felt this sense of intense power accompanying it. It pulsed through my blood, rushing violently like adrenaline, and as it rushed through me, I felt my muscles begin to grow larger, my bones stronger and the aggression I had been feeling was now amplified. Despite my blue eyes, all I saw was red and as I rose to my feet, I realised how dangerous this part of me was. It was driven by pure, raging emotion and once power and anger mixed together, you had yourself one hell of a fury bomb.

Ambrose was barely on his feet when I raised my paws in the air and then tore my claws through the side of his body. He screeched out in pain and spun around, landing a good bite on my left foreleg in the process. But I kicked him off immediately, sending him to the ground again. The wound on my leg healed in less than a second and once it had, I made my way to his body. He struggled on the floor, clawing at the grass as he tried to get up and back onto his feet. He wasn’t fast enough though, and in the next instant, I had my heavy paw on his neck. He tried to claw at my leg, to get me off of him, but I was stronger than he was. Generations of blue-eyed Alpha blood flowed through my veins and the generations of Alpha blood flowing through his could only cower at the power I now held. And cower, he did. It was strange to see fear in his eyes, glistening like a shadow of death.

*“Tristan! Stop!”* He pleaded through our mind-link.

*“I surrender! Tristan stop! You win!”*

But I couldn’t. I hadn’t expected Ambrose to surrender, nor did I truly expect him to fear me but now that he did, the feeling was invigorating. I wanted to taste more of his fear on my tongue. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to take his last breath and watch as he did, as his body went limp and lifeless. I wasn’t beneath revenge, in fact, at this point in time, I lived for it and fed on it. It made me stronger than him, deadlier than him, more monstrous than him. The darkness that lived in me now consumed me, forcing me to add just a little more pressure onto his neck, to wait until the sound of it snapping echoed through the air. But that moment never came. Instead, Lucien’s voice broke through the spell of vengeance I was under. 

“Don’t Tristan!” He yelled out. My grip on Ambrose never loosened, but I did spare a glance towards Lucien. I growled as a response and bared my teeth warningly. But he didn’t cower like the rest of the people around him. Instead, he shook his head and let his eyes soften. “Doing this won’t bring back your parents, nor will it undo the years of lies. The only thing it will do is turn you into something you’re not- a monster.”

That was when I hesitated, but that constant supply of rage which fuelled my power only stopped when these next few words left his mouth. “Look at you, you’re unlike any wolf I’ve ever seen… you’re so beautiful Tristan. So don’t let him ruin you. Don’t let him turn you into something ugly like him. You’re better than that.”

Although I hated to admit it, he was right. If I killed Ambrose right now, I’d be crossing another line, giving in to the darkness. And so I reluctantly removed my paw from his neck. As soon as I did, he gasped wildly for air. He was weak and tired now, too weak to keep this form and so he slowly began to turn back human. The grass did a good job of covering up his nakedness, but it did an awful job at hiding his anger and embarrassment.

I decided to shift too, afraid that in this form I’d still be tempted to kill him. The moment I became human, Oliver was at my side, shielding my naked body. He handed me my clothing which I shrugged on as quickly as I possibly could.

“You’re at an advantage,” he whispered under his breath. I stared up at him, confused and asked what he meant.

“He begged you for surrender in that mind-link and you granted it to him. Technically, you win. The pack is yours which means you can strike a deal with him. You can finally walk away Tristan… *we* can finally walk away.”

His words left a mark behind, a painless one, but a mark nonetheless. The only reason Oliver had stayed here in this pack was because of me, to protect me. And now, after all of these years, he could finally claim his freedom, and so could I. So, I nodded at him before getting to my feet. I walked slowly towards Ambrose’s shaking, panting body. He hissed at me, wanting to attack but too weak to do so.

“I’m done with your games Ambrose. Instead, I’d like to make a deal.”

It was then that he finally calmed himself down. “Deal you say? What kind of deal?”

“You get to keep your life and your pack. In exchange, I want you to leave my family alone. That includes Damon, Lucien and Oliver. You and your pack will *not* harm us. You will let us live in peace. Do we have a deal?” I asked.

Ambrose chuckled before nodding. “We have a deal, Tristan.”

And although the look in his eyes was sincere, I knew that like all of his deals, this one would come with its own fine print too and maybe even an escape clause.