Why was Sterling even wasting his time on someone like Riley? He was boring, aloof, and a moody bastard. If he was Sterling, Riley would have left his ass from the beginning. Sterling deserved better. He deserved a mate like Bryce or Chauncey, someone fun loving, not grouchy and moody like Riley. Sterling was too young for him, too innocent. Riley should just walk away from the slim human and let him find real happiness.
Wait, that wasn’t right. Riley knew that it wasn’t him who was making all of his insecurities and doubts surface. Someone else was pushing his worst fears to the light. Everyone had worries when it came to the most important person in their life. But there was no way in hell Riley was giving Sterling up.
He pushed the thoughts deep down inside, crushing them under the weight of how he truly felt about Sterling. He wasn’t going to second-guess his feelings. He wasn’t going to allow any negative thoughts to ruin what he was just discovering.
It had to be the hound making him feel this way.
Riley fell to his back and rolled when the man lunged forward. He saw the lethal claws the man had swiped at him scratch the air his head only moments before had occupied. He quickly rose to his feet and took a boxing stance. Hell, he didn’t have any other choice. Even if he shifted, he wasn’t sure he could win.
The man threw his head back and laughed. “Are you fucking serious?”
Riley shrugged and then feigned left, catching the man on the jaw with a right hook. He shuffled his feet around, taunting the man. “Stick and move, asshole, stick and move.”
The guy growled and shifted, turning into the biggest fucking rottweiler Riley had ever seen. Taking a step back, Riley shifted as well. He had no choice. Either shift or get mauled. Besides his father, Riley was the biggest of his brothers in bear form, but he wasn’t too sure even with his added weight that he could take this dog down.
Riley roared when he saw Eagle fall on his ass, and then the wolf kicked his foot into the man’s gut, effectively flipping the guy over Eagle’s head. Damn, the man was good. He would be an excellent trainer for the elves.
“Don’t worry about me,” Eagle snapped. “Watch your hellhound.”
Riley snapped his head back around just in time to see the hound lunge at him. He couldn’t let the thing bite him. He didn’t know why, but if Eagle said biting was bad, then Riley was going to listen.
Riley reared up on his hind legs and slapped the dog in his face with one big bear claw as soon as the hound was close enough. The dog fell back to the ground, shook its head, and then circled back around.
Now that the guy was in dog form, Riley wasn’t sure where the mark that he needed to stab was. He dodged the dog’s snapping mouth and ran around to the other side of the tree where he had more room to fight when he stumbled backward, watching two men come flying down from the sky toward him.
The one with long braids trailing down his back snarled and then grabbed the dog Riley had been fighting, grabbing a sword from his back and fighting the hellhound, luring him away from Riley.
Riley shifted back into human form and took off toward the fighting pair.
“Stay back!” the man with the braids warned.
Riley skidded to a stop, glancing back to where Eagle was. The second man who had flown in was fighting the other hellhound, Eagle growling as he landed a few punches to the hound’s gut.
Riley felt stupid standing there with no one to fight. Everyone was engaged in battle but him. When the hound he had just been fighting stumbled back, Riley leapt on the dog and held on for dear life, locking his arms around the dog’s neck in a choke hold as the man with the sword charged toward them.
He prayed like hell the man didn’t miss.
The sword looked damn sharp as the moonlight gleamed off the polished metal.
“Now!” the man shouted, and Riley released the struggling mutt, rolling to his back and tossing his arm up to cover his face when the blood sprayed out from the dog’s body. That was so fucking gross.
“You dumb-ass fuck!” the man shouted in Riley’s direction as he sheathed his sword. “If that hound had bitten you, you would be fighting for your life right now.”
Like he hadn’t been doing just that.
“Don’t fucking yell at me!” Riley roared as he lowered his arm and stood. He had had enough bullshit for one day. He wasn’t about to let some stranger stand in the middle of the clearing and hand him his ass. He had fought with everything in him and didn’t deserve to be chastised for it.
The man growled as he tossed something on the beheaded dog and then the body burst into flames. Riley stood there numbly as he watched the flames lick higher and higher, wondering what realm of insanity he had just walked into.