“You are out of your absolute fucking mind,” Russel snapped, getting up from the table and slamming both hands on it. “There is no way in hell I’m letting Lola fight Drake in a Blood Challenge."

Finley’s composure finally cracked. He got up too and shouted right back in Russel’s face.

“You think I want this? I’ve spent her whole life trying to shield her. To protect her from Drake. And while I am grateful for what you’ve done thus far in keeping her safe, she is my daughter!” Finley roared.

“No. She’s not,” Russel said. “You may have done what you did for her benefit, but you still gave her up. You have no claim on her.”

“It’s a moot point, Russel!” Finley shouted back, clearly hurt by what he said. “You and I both know that once a Blood Challenge is issued, it cannot be rescinded or denied. She will have to fight.”

“And if I don’t?” Lola asked, speaking up for the first time since reading the letter. She had a whole host of emotions slamming into her. A weird sort of relief knowing that King Finley was her biological father. Grief that he’d had to give her up to keep her safe from Drake. Anger that he let Drake dictate his actions. Fury that he afforded the psycho so many chances when he clearly didn’t deserve them. Love that Russel would still put everything on the line for her even knowing her true origins. And of course fear. Still with that old gem. She was getting better at dealing with those fears but now that a Blood Challenge had been issued against her from a deranged half-brother, they were starting to explode into full force again.

Russel and Finley both looked at her and she didn’t like what she saw in their eyes. It wasn’t good. Hank, for his part, continued to casually lounge in his chair, although his eyes kept careful watch over the proceedings.

“He’s right,” Russel said through clenched teeth. He didn’t want to admit it but he couldn't deny it either. “Once issued, it cannot be taken back. And you can’t deny the challenge either. If you do, you would be stripped of everything it means to be a werewolf.”

“I’m not a werewolf and never have been,” Lola told him. “So that means little to me.”

“It means you will be subjected to a process where your fingers are removed as well as each of your teeth. Then you are blinded and deafened. It is an extremely painful and gruesome process.” Russel didn’t look at her as he explained this. Neither did King Finley. “With our regenerative abilities, it could take days, weeks, or even months to complete.”

“Let me see if I have this correct,” she said, trying to keep that fear out of her voice. “My choices are, apparently, death or maiming?”

“Potential death actually,” Hank chimed in with his irritatingly smug grin.

Lola shot him a scathing look.

“What? All I’m saying, princess, is that you might win. Don’t sell yourself short.” The smile broadened even wider, forcing her to suppress every urge she had to fly across the table and attack him. “I’m on your side here, Lola. I want Drake punished just as much as you do. And look at it this way, you don’t have to go chasing him down anymore. He’s coming to you.”

Lola didn’t like that news any better than finding out a Blood Challenge had been issued against her. Did that mean Drake was already on his way? When was she going to have to face off against him? She didn’t want to. Even with all her new fighting abilities, she knew she couldn’t take him. Nora proved that pretty spectacularly, well before whatever happened, happened and the Harvenk was the one that ended up dead. Lola still had no idea what might have happened during that fight but she doubted she'd be able to do it again.

Had she turned into a werewolf?

Or did something else happen?

She wanted to say shifting into a wolf was the answer but a nagging spike of doubt speared into the back of her mind. There was something still being blocked inside her. Some hidden, sealed away knowledge about herself that she couldn’t quite pin down. Being a werewolf was only part of that. Of course, she could just be imagining things. Her mind had gone through dozens of traumatic experiences in a relatively short period of time. There was a great chance that she just wanted to make something out of nothing just to make herself feel better for whatever reason.

“What happens if I just run away?” Lola asked, hating herself for even asking the question out loud. It made her feel like a coward. But gods damn it all, she was scared out of her mind. Drake had cut down an entire village of people with little effort. What chance did she really have against him?

“Nothing good,” Russel said, sinking back into his chair and putting a reassuring hand on her thigh. “You’ll be hunted. Forever. And whoever is set to hunt you down will not stop until you are dead.”

King Finley also sat back down and looked at her with something like dread in his eyes.

“Not even us kings can stop it. The punishment is dictated and carried out by the Tene Brium,” King Finley said.

“What is that?” Lola asked, her voice small. Whoever they were, they didn’t sound pleasant to deal with.

“An ancient order, heavily rooted in all three werewolf kingdoms. They carry out the old ways, independent of a monarch’s rulings,” Finley explained.

“There is not a whole lot of call to bring them in. Mostly they make sure no one breaks the ancient laws, including the laws surrounding Blood Challenges,” Russel added, his face a stony mask of anger.

“So you’re both telling me there is no way out of this,” Lola asked, staring at the letter in front of her in a daze.

It appeared Drake was going to get his way after all. Despite the running, surviving, fighting, and worse she’s had to do over the last five or six months, this was how it would end. A fight to the death against a werewolf. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit things. She wanted to do more but what was the point? No amount of yelling or screaming or hitting was going to help. Two werewolf monarchs couldn’t get her out of the mess she was currently in. What hope did she have?

Fight. Fight for your life.

The thought came unbidden inside her head. But she was tired. Exhausted really. She’d been doing too much fighting lately. She wanted to find a large hole and crawl into it but ultimately, she knew she couldn’t and not because the Tene Brium order, whoever they were, would find her. She didn’t want to run or hide because Drake still deserved to pay for what he did. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face leering at her, a hunger and yearning to kill her blazing in his eyes. Claws extended. Bestial face glowering at her. Blood dripping from his jaws. The blood of her family. Of her friends.

Her gaze went to the letter again and she grabbed it with a hand. Then she crumpled it and tossed it to the ground.

“It looks like the choice has been made for me,” she said. She looked at Finley, her father, and Russel, her love. Her jaw clenched tightly, her eyes fierce. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Inside her chest, she felt the war drum rhythm of her heart beating away.

“I accept.”