The fight had grown bloody. Elizabeth watched, her throat tight with fear, as the wolf tore into Ronan, and Ronan tore into him in return. Blood coated the wolf's fur and lay black against Ronan's. Ronan's Collar sizzled and sparked, but he wouldn't stop fighting.

Eventually, though, the pain would overcome his adrenaline, and Ronan would collapse. When he did that, the wolf, unhampered by a Collar, would kill him.

Elizabeth had been aware of Spike, Dylan, and Sean retreating from the ring and disappearing into the crowd. But she couldn't worry about where they'd gone. She kept her gaze on Ronan and the fight that might take him away from her.

No, no, no, a voice inside her wailed. Don't lose him. Don't. Lose. Him.

She had to stop this fight. But how could she? The four big Shifters Julio had brought in as refs were surrounding the ring, and the fifth ref watched them warily. Elizabeth wasn't foolish enough to think she could jump in there between two raging Shifters trying to tear each other apart and hold up her hands for them to cease. Sure, they'd stop instantly.

The refs would grab her and throw her out before she could even reach them. The four Shifters weren't letting anyone or anything interfere with this bout.

Ronan had the wolf under him. He drew back his paw, ready to knock him out, but the wolf suddenly wasn't there. Ronan's swing kept going, and Ronan, tired, fell.

The wolf pounced on him, mouth open, claws ripping. Ronan rolled onto his back and grabbed the wolf in a deadly embrace, but the wolf was too strong, too fast. He ripped at Ronan's belly, Ronan bleeding from a dozen wounds at once.

Ronan roared his pain, his Collar white-hot. The wolf latched his jaw around Ronan's throat and bit down. Blood sprayed, and Elizabeth screamed.

She ran for the ring, damn the rules and damn the refs. At the same time, the one referee who hadn't come with Julio jumped in and tried to break up the fight. The other four grabbed him and nearly threw him out of the ring.

"What the hell are you doing?" the first ref yelled at them. "We have to stop it. The bear's done!"

"The bear goes down," one of the other refs growled. "It's done when he's dead."

"That's not what we . . ."

The four refs closed ranks and blocked the fifth from the ring. He swung around, boiling with fury, and took off into the crowd. Going for help, maybe, but would it come soon enough?

Elizabeth jumped up onto the circle of cinder blocks. The things had simply been laid on the ground, unattached, and they wobbled.

"Ronan!" she shouted, waving her arms to keep her balance. "Ronan, hang on!"

Ronan wasn't giving up. He was fighting on, but his struggles were weakening, while the wolf held on, jaw locked around Ronan's throat. If the wolf managed to tear Ronan's jugular, Ronan would die.

Because of her. If he hadn't been shopping in her store that night, Ronan wouldn't be here now, fighting to the death to keep Elizabeth alive.

She had to stop this.

"Ronan!" Elizabeth screamed. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "I accept the mate-claim!"

She wasn't sure what she expected--for him to suddenly burst upward, throw the wolf to the ground, shift, and sweep Elizabeth into his arms? She couldn't be certain he'd even heard her. In any event, Ronan was too busy fighting to respond.

But Elizabeth needed to tell him, in case. Ronan was one of the good ones.

"Ronan!" she shouted. "I love you!"

Love you . . .

Elizabeth put her hands on top of her head as she watched him, the man she realized she loved, die.

*** *** ***

Ronan felt the tingle of it through the agony of his Collar and the crazed biting of the wolf. He heard Elizabeth's voice, though he couldn't make out the words through the fog in his brain.

But he felt the magic. It wrapped around his heart and flowed through his limbs like heady wine.

The mate bond.

That sense of oneness with a true mate, which Ronan had never thought he'd feel--had started thinking himself fated never to feel it--threaded through his body and completed him. The click he'd felt when he'd first made the mate-claim now became music.

"Ronan!" he heard Elizabeth scream. "I love you!"

Like hell would he let himself die when the mate bond was filling him, while Elizabeth declared her love at the top of her voice in a barn full of Shifters.

She'd accepted the mate-claim in front of witnesses and given Ronan the greatest gift of his life. He had never heard the words, "I love you," from another being. Liking, respect, comradeship, even affection. But never love.

Elizabeth was the first. And he loved her back with intensity that shattered all pain.

Fuck this.

Ronan gathered the last of his strength, wrapped the mate bond around it, and roared with sudden power as he rose up to his full Kodiak bear height. He ripped the wolf from his bleeding throat, lifted the crazed beast in both paws, and threw him as hard as he could.

The Lupine flipped end over end, howling, to land in a crowd of frenzied Shifters. Ronan swung around, great paws moving, contacting with the Shifter refs who'd sprung into the ring to stop him. The crowd moved back, some cheering; others, who'd bet on the wolf, booing and shouting.

The fifth ref, backed by Dylan and Ellison, stepped up on the cinderblocks on the far side of the ring. "The fight belongs to the bear!" the ref shouted. "Ronan, of the Austin Shiftertown . . . Winner!"

Screams and cheers from the Austin Shifters. Elizabeth was doing a little victory dance on the cinderblocks, her feet nimble in her high heels.

Ronan shuddered as he landed on all fours, his Collar's sparks slowing but still hurting him. The mate bond, though--the mate bond was erasing the pain.

Before Ronan could reach Elizabeth, before he could shift and snatch her into his arms, a human male closed hands around Elizabeth's waist, lifted her from her feet, and started to drag her away.

Chapter Sixteen

Ronan barreled out of the ring after them. Elizabeth kicked and flailed, the man holding her in a practiced lock. He had a gun obviously in his holster--he must have gotten past the weapons check at the door.

Where the hell was Sean? Nowhere, though Dylan and Ellison had started charging to Elizabeth's rescue. Too late. The man got her out of the barn, Elizabeth still fighting him.

Ronan passed the unconscious feral Lupine surrounded by a circle of Shifters, firelight from one of the barrels flickering eerily over the scene. There Sean was, kneeling beside the wolf, a shiny new Collar dangling from his hand.