Warmth ✔

Chapter 44

Matt announced, "Let the fight begin!"

And the battle between cousins begins. Joshua is the first one to make a move. He tries to lay a punch on my face but I dodge him. He's playing offense while I'm playing defense. I let him do what he wants to because I want to observe him and find out his strategy. After avoiding his every attack, I realize that this is not just a battle for him. It's his endgame. I can feel the aggression radiating from his body. He wants to win so badly and I have a feeling that he will go to extreme lengths to win.

I finally start attacking him. I punch at his ribs and face. When I go for his face again, he blocks my arm and punches my face with extreme force that makes me fall to the ground. I get up quickly and run towards him and kick at his abdomen. The force makes him step back a little. Before I can attack him again, he swiftly blocks my move and lays a punch to my stomach. His punch makes me bend a little in pain. He takes the opportunity to grab my face and punch me repeatedly. I can feel my face getting numb. I can also feel his anger.

When he's done with his punches, he throws me a few feet away. I quickly recover from the attack and get up on my feet. While he walks towards me with confidence, I run towards him. When we meet, I throw punches at him at random. It irritates him to not be able to block my punches.

I swing my arm back and with full force bring my fist to his face to knock him out and to end this battle. Just before my fist can come in contact with his face, he grabs my arm, pulls me towards him, spins me around and holds me firmly in a headlock.

I try to get out of his grip. The more I try to get his arm away from my neck, the more he tries to tighten his grip on me. I can feel pressure around my neck. I can feel him squeezing my neck. He's blocking my windpipe. I start struggling more as I find difficulty in breathing.

"Joshua, what are you doing?" Matt said in a loud voice. "You're choking her! Let her go! What you're doing is not fair!"

"War is not fair. Will her enemy spare her in her moment of weakness?" Joshua retorts. "I am her enemy at the moment. If she wants me to stop choking her then she has to give up, not just this fight but her Beta position as well."

I can feel myself getting angry. I was holding back because he is my cousin. But I won't hold back anymore. If I won't be able to stop him then he'll definitely kill me.

With all my might, I try to loosen his grip around my neck. I'm successful in getting out of his grip. I quickly turn around, grab a hold of his arms, pull him towards me and flip him over in a 360 degree angle. He hits the ground with a thud.

Before he can recover from my attack, I straddle him and give him a karate chop to the neck which makes him unconscious.

I stand up and step away from him. The people around me are silent. "He's just unconscious," I say it out aloud.

Matt walks to where I am and announces, "The winner of this fight is Chriselda. She has proved to all of us that she's worthy to be the Beta of this pack. I hope that no one will doubt her ever again."

He orders a few people to carry Joshua to his home and disperses the crowd. Matt, Darius and I head back to the pack house.

Once we are inside the pack house, Matt smiles at me and hugs me, "I knew you could defeat him."

After we pull away, Darius hugs me. When we are done with the hugging, we make ourselves comfortable on the couch. Darius looks at my face, "Does it hurt?"

"You mean the bruises? Yes, it does. But it doesn't hurt more than the fact that my cousin tried to kill me," I tell him.

"You were amazing today," Matt says. "Joshua learnt his lesson. He won't be bothering you anymore."