The crowd held its breath. Every person in that field went completely still as they waited for the King's response. The position he was in had no comfortable way out. If he refused the challenge he would be seen as weak, which an Alpha's ego would not survive gracefully. If he accepted he faced the very real possibility of dying. His pride and his survival instinct were pulling in opposite directions and the crowd knew it and so did he.
I had been pulled out of my blood-fuelled haze the moment Phoenix spoke those words. I snapped my teeth at his fingertips in a sharp warning. He had stood there and watched me fight and bleed and now he was going to go and do the same and I was not comfortable with it. Not even slightly.
Are you out of your mind? I pushed at him.
He ignored me entirely, his eyes fixed on the King with the particular focus he got when something had been decided and there was no turning it back.
