Read Online Her Warriors by Bianca D'Arc - Free Book Online Page B

strain in every fiber
of his being. It wouldn’t be long now before one of them struck a
lucky blow that would kill.
    Geir had never wanted it to go that far. In
ancient times, and in less civilized areas of the world, mate
challenges still ended in death, but it didn’t have to be that way.
One could win without killing the other. Geir had wanted a clean
fight. One that didn’t end in utter destruction, but there seemed
no way around it now. They were too evenly matched. One would have
to fall—and fall hard. Bad as he felt about it, no way was Geir
going to let himself be the one to fail. This was too important.
Jacki was too important. She was…everything.
    “Stop!” A feminine voice filled with power
sliced through the dojo only a split second before what felt like a
lightning bolt crackled between Geir and Beau, knocking them both
backward into the air, landing on their asses on either side of the
dojo.
    They both reverted to human form, bloody,
but neither one of them beaten. They both looked at the women who
had come in while they were fighting. Bettina was moving briskly
forward while Jacki held back, watching with tears streaking down
her face. Geir’s heart clenched. He hadn’t wanted to make her cry.
He had never wanted that.
    “I’m sorry, Jacki,” he whispered, but she
heard him. She looked at him and the tears kept falling silently
down her beautiful face.
    “Have you both satisfied yourselves that you
are evenly matched?” Bettina asked in a stern voice. “I know you
needed to do this, but really, couldn’t you have figured it out a
little sooner? You’re both a bloody mess.” She griped as she looked
down at them. “Your challenge has ended in a draw. All fighting
between you will cease. You will clean yourselves up and meet us
back at the house in a half hour. Any shenanigans and I will
personally kick your ass. Understood?”
    She shook her finger at them both like some
kind of school teacher, but Geir nodded and he saw Beau do the
same. Nobody—not even two badass Alpha warriors—messed with the
High Priestess.
     

 
    Chapter
Five
     
    Bettina took Jacki’s arm and pulled her
along as she left the dojo. Geir wanted to talk to Jacki. To touch
her and apologize for making her cry. He wanted to vow his undying
love to her, but the priestess was taking her away.
    Geir pushed to his feet, one goal in mind.
He had to get cleaned up and go see Jacki. She needed him and he
was messing about with Beau. His tiger was done with the fight. It
had lost interest in pummeling Beau, which was odd in the extreme,
if he stopped to think about it.
    Geir wondered if Beau’s famously bad temper
had cooled. He looked cautiously at the other tiger shifter. Beau
was pushing himself up off the mats, looking to be in as much pain
as Geir was. Good. Geir didn’t want to be the only one suffering.
They had both beaten the shit out of each other. There was enough
pain to go around.
    “Still feel like killing me?” Geir asked
tentatively as he stood facing his former opponent.
    “Nah. I never wanted you dead, G. Just out
of the way,” Beau answered in a surprisingly calm voice. “Even my
tiger doesn’t want to see any more of your blood. That’s a
first.”
    “I know what you mean.” Geir led Beau toward
the front of the dojo where the locker rooms were located. “That
has got to mean something, but I can’t figure out what.”
    “Me neither.” Beau scratched his head with a
bloody hand. “But I bet the High Priestess knows. She’s been
messing with us since she got here.”
    “Agreed.”
    They hit the locker room, showering the
blood off before each of them did a quick shift to full tiger form
and then back again. Sometimes it helped heal minor wounds and
speed healing of more…interesting ones as well. Nothing either of
them had dished out to the other was too bad. It was as if they’d
been going through the motions, testing each other’s strengths and
weaknesses, neither really wanting to