~ ELRETH ~
Elreth felt as if the very earth beneath her had been ripped out from under her feet.
Stunned silent, mentally scrambling, she was frozen, unable to do anything but stare at Zev and try to process what he'd just said.
The fact that one Alpha would challenge another for dominance wasn't without precedent—it might even have been a course Elreth might have taken under other circumstances. But she couldn't fight him. Not now.
This male who stood in front of her, his entire body rigid with rage, who'd issued the challenge…. He hated her. She was certain of it. Could smell it on him.
Her father had spoken to her in her early years when she'd struggled in relationships with her peers at times. He'd warned her that leaders tended to become the face of a person's pain. That when an Anima reached their limit, the straw that broke the camel's back would inevitably be the one they saw as having authority over them.
