"Darling, are you sure about this?" Loki asked as you were finishing getting ready for the fight. You were in the living room of the tower surrounded by the team. You weren't really actively doing anything to get ready, you were already dressed in comfortable yoga pants, a sports bra, t-shirt, and hoodie, plus your gym shoes. You had to sit quietly while Nat and Clint finished working on your hair. They had done some excellently awesome braiding with your hair so it wouldn't fall in your face or be a handhold for Jareth during the battle. They were also spraying it with so much hairspray that there was a snowball's chance in hell that your hair was ever moving again.

While they worked, you were thoroughly distracted by a very smug god who was purposely distracting you so you didn't worry over the fight. Smug bastard. He was doing it so...innocently too, since he was just finishing getting dressed. He had donned the shirt, pants, and shoes of his favorite all-black suit with magic, but he was enjoying teasing you, as he put on the rest the mortal way. His long, strong fingers fastened the cuff links with the fluidity of a long-practiced movement. He smirked as you watched him expertly tie his tie. Damn smug Trickster knew your love of him in formal wear and could somehow look nearly as sexy putting it on as... the other thing that you couldn't think about right now.

"Lo, you know I have to do this now," you reminded him, forcing your focus on things other than your boyfriend's physique. You could see that he was more worried than he wanted to let on. "Samuel will be there to ref, but if I don't fight Jareth now, he'll challenge me in a less controlled way later,"

"I know, darling. I still worry. I dislike that you will be in danger I cannot help you with and likely injured," Loki told you as he shrugged into his suit jacket. Damn sexy distracting god. At least you weren't stressing about the fight, which had been his intention.

"Brother, why are you dressed as a witch for this event?" Thor asked, concerned.

"Hey!" Loki protested grumpily. "I am not dressed as a witch," he grumbled. Your hair was finally deemed done, so you stood and went to Loki. You couldn't help yourself after his teasing and grabbed his tie, pulling him down so you could kiss him. Somehow he hadn't expected it and you heard his soft moan as your mouth forcefully met his.

You could tease him too.

You kissed him for a long moment before you finally let his tie go and let him straighten. You straightened his tie and smoothed out his already perfectly smooth suit jacket. You felt like a ragamuffin next to him in your sweat pants.

"It's a power move," Nat supplied. Loki inclined his head, looking impressed with her assessment.

"What?" Cap demanded.

"Werewolves are obsessed with dominance games. Loki is showing he isn't afraid for Y/N's safety. He's not wearing his battle armor. He's giving her an edge in the dominance game," Nat explained.

"You can't really expect Jareth to believe your literal god of a protector isn't worried, or going to jump in if things go horribly wrong," Clint protected.

"Of course not," you replied, buttoning Loki's suit jacket for him. He gave you a knowing smirk and you stuck your tongue out at him. "But he doesn't look like he'll step in and fight either. He'll stand on the sidelines and look like a slightly worried mate. It's what's expected. Stop worrying," you added for the benefit of the team. You still had to hug them all before they'd calm. "I feel underdressed," you whined as you took Loki's arm. He chuckled and kissed the top of your head.

"I will take you out somewhere nice after this so you can dress up too, little wolf," he promised kindly.

"You may have to wait a few days," you reminded him, getting worried again. You weren't going to get out of this fight without any injuries. There was no way.

"I'm sure you'll be fine, darling," he reminded you warmly. "Samuel and I will both be there. We best get going, though. Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be,"

You said goodbye to the team and Loki teleported you both to the site for the battle. It was a wide open area in the middle of nowhere, but nothing more than a patch of dirt, completely barren of anything but the werewolves and the Loki who were gathering. It was another power move to arrive under the power of a god. You stood up on your toes to kiss Loki before you made your way over to Samuel, Jareth, and Jareth's witness. You glared when you realized that Jareth's witness was your brother, Dan. That was one power move for Jareth, forcing your brother to act as his witness.

Asshole.

"About time," Jareth snarled at you when you were standing just on the other side of Samuel from him. He was trying to pull a power play for beating you here. He must have been nervous to try so hard. You were outshining him on the dominance games and he knew it.

Loki calmly pulled a pocket watch from his pocket. You didn't know where the watch had come from. He'd never appeared to have one before. "We still have twenty minutes," Loki told Jareth calmly as he snapped the watch shut again and slipped it back in his pocket.

"The witness is correct. However, since everyone is here, let's begin," you all nodded, ready to get this over with. "I invoke the silence for this dominance challenge," Samuel announced. Pack magic flew over the battleground. You didn't dare look at Loki, didn't dare expose that he might be weak to pack magic. You had to trust that the charm of your hair was enough to protect him. It worked before. There was no reason it wouldn't work now. "Jareth, Y/N, get ready for the fight," Samuel ordered. You nodded and turned your back to Jareth, trusting Samuel to watch your back.

Loki gave you a small, reassuring smile. You returned the smile as you toed off your shoes. Your socks followed, stuffed into your shoes. You unzipped your hoodie and slipped it off, handing it to Loki when he held out his hands for it. You slipped off your shirt and it went on top of the hoodie. Werewolf rules for combat were weird and insisted that combatants not wear shirts. You carefully removed your necklace, bracelet, and ring and handed them to Loki. "Keep these safe for me?" you asked as he took them.

"Of course, darling," he replied warmly and bent to kiss you. "Kick his ass," he told you softly.

"I fully intend to," you told him with a smirk. You called the wolf to the front and let the partial shift take over. Your eyes, teeth, and claws all shifted, plus the wolf ears on top of your head.

Loki smiled warmly, lovingly at you, even at your hybrid form. "Kick his ass, Lady Wolf." He repeated for the wolf's benefit. You felt her pleasure at being spoken to and accepted by her chosen mate. She took control to grab Loki's tie again and kiss him. She quite enjoyed doing that. He had the best moans of pleasure when she, or you, did.

"Stay safe, mate," she told him firmly when she let him go.

"As my lady wishes," he replied with a grin.

You turned back to face Jareth, who was similarly shirtless and in hybrid form. You had to admit that your mom was right and he was attractive. He held no candle to Loki, though, especially when his personality was shit. Samuel gestured to the witnesses to step back and they both backed a safe distance from the battle. They weren't supposed to be part of this except to stand witness. "This is a fight for dominance. It shall continue until one of you yields, cannot continue, or perishes," Samuel announced formally. He went over the boring details as protocol dictated. Samuel finally took a step back. "The niceties must be observed," he announced.

It took every ounce of your willpower to give Jareth the bow that protocol demanded. He did the same and you saw the malicious smirk on his face. It was nowhere near as intimidating as Loki's. You'd had Loki's turned on you before. Your own expression was delighted anticipation. You were looking forward to kicking Jareth's ass thoroughly.

Samuel took another step back. "Ready?" he asked you both. You nodded, neither taking the eyes off the other. You stepped backwards into a fighting stance, Jareth did the same. He rushed you the moment Samuel said "Begin"

You knew the second Jareth moved that you had this fight. Jareth was big and muscled, but he was slow, depending solely on his strength. He could fight and fight well, but he was used to fighting big muscled thugs like himself. He didn't know how to fight you. He wasn't expecting you to have any clue what you were doing, though he had watched you train for years. He still underestimated you. He also had not been training with the Aesir for months.

You had, and Loki had taught you well.

You moved as a blur, ducking and dodging out of the way of his blows, watching as he got more and more frustrated that he wasn't connecting with you. You darted in, jabbed a few hard blows to soft spots and darted back out again before he could move to stop you or hit you. You were fast and good at what you were doing. He was bleeding from your claws, bruised from your blows, cracked ribs, but you hadn't gotten a good enough blow in to take him down yet.

That didn't mean you didn't get hit too. You had a couple bruises already, claw marks across your stomach, a cracked rib from a kick you took poorly, a nasty gash down your arm. Jareth caught a lucky punch to your eye, you spun, reeling from the blow and let yourself fall and roll to get some distance while you cleared the black spots from your vision. They weren't clearing. Shit. You were also bleeding and the blood threatened to get into your eye.

You needed to end this quickly before Jareth got lucky again.

He charged you again, thinking you were down. This was your chance. You swept his legs out from under him, used a nasty, nasty trick from Nat to severely damage a very precious piece of his anatomy. (You could hear the hisses of sympathy pain from every male watching) Jareth was whimpering in pain as you straddled his chest, your claws at his throat ready to rip his throat out. "Surrender!" you ordered him in a snarl. You were too good for your own well being and had to give him the option to surrender. Honor demanded it.

Fucking honor.

"Never, bitch!" he snarled.

"She has won!" Samuel announced, stepping forward to forcibly end the conflict if Jareth wouldn't.

Jareth roared as he picked you up and threw you hard toward Dan. You spun in midair, using yet another trick from Nat to land on your feet.

You were too slow.

Too, too slow.

Everyone was too slow.

You roared in anger, pain, uncontrolled rage as you ran for Jareth.

You were too slow.

Everything was in slow motion.

Jareth was charging, but not at you.

He charged Loki.

Samuel roared for him to stop and started forward to stop Jareth.

Loki stepped back, dropping your clothes as he fell automatically into a fighting stance preparing for impact.

You threw every ounce of speed you could into your charge for Jareth.

You

Were

Too

Slow

Jareth changed forms between one step and the next.

Loki tried to change tactics. Fighting a human was different than fighting a wolf.

Even he was too slow.

He managed to get an arm up to protect his face as the wolf leapt for him.

"NO!" you shrieked and grabbed Jareth around the middle, digging in your heels to try to stop his forward momentum.

You were too late.

Jareth's teeth were already deep in Loki's arm.

Loki's blood was pouring. He howled in rage and pain and your heart fell. Loki was doomed, one way or the other by that wound. Either to death or life as a monster.

Jareth was human a moment later and threw you from him. You stumbled and landed hard on your ass. "Your boyfriend is dead, bitch," Jareth snarled at you.

You roared in anger and jumped back to your feet. You grabbed Jareth again and threw him, hard, away from your Loki, who had daggers in both of his hands. You took a dagger from Loki, who wisely didn't resist you, and charged Jareth. You slashed viciously, fueled by rage, fueled by pain, by grief. You saw Jareth's shocked expression at the rage in your eyes, at the power of your wolf that he had never felt before.

He didn't understand Omegas.

Omegas had power, the same power as an Alpha. You weren't a submissive. The only difference was that you didn't fight for the pack as a whole. You fought for its members.

Jareth

Hurt

Your

Pack

He was going to die.

Everyone else was frozen, staring in awe at the power of an enraged Omega.

No one ever saw an Omega enraged. They were the peace of the pack. The pack did its absolute best to keep the Omega happy and peaceful so they would share their peace with the pack.

No one dared anger an Omega.

This was why.

Jareth couldn't keep up with your rage as you sliced at him, moving with the speed of long months of training with the Aesir. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds when he fell again. He couldn't even fight back you were moving too fast, too full of anger, rage, power, and grief.

The wolf took charge and did exactly what you've been saying for months that you would do to Jareth if he ever touched you again. It was she who grabbed his balls in her claws. She who ripped them from their proper place and shoved them down his throat while he howled.

You took control again, straddling his waist, your dagger to his throat. "You have broken pack law, Jareth, Alpha of the Hudson river pack. You have attempted to turn an individual against his will. For your crimes, I sentence you to die, as is my right and my duty," you snarled the ritual words.

"A moment, Lady," Loki said pleasantly, before you could slash the blade across Jareth's throat. You paused, raising an eyebrow as he stepped over to you. "I did make you a promise of a gift," he reminded you too politely, too kindly. You sat up a little, keeping your dagger at Jareth's throat. He was whimpering in pain and fear, which only increased as Loki knelt next to him with a proper malicious grin on his face. Loki calmly reached into Jareth's chest, his hand simply passing through flesh and bone, and removed Jareth's still beating heart. "I will keep this safe for you, darling," Loki told you pleasantly as he stood again. "Carry on," Jareth was fighting for breath, staring at his heart in Loki's hand. He was going to die anyway without that, but you were taking no chances.

You let the wolf take control and used her strength to drive the blade straight down through Jareth's throat. It took effort and you were drenched in his blood, but with a sickening noise, his head was removed from his shoulders, thanks to Loki's magic blade.

You stared at your handiwork, taking a moment to verify that Jareth was well and truly dead. He wasn't getting up without his head and heart. You knew that, and still you had to stare at what you'd done, to burn the image in your mind, to tell yourself it was finally over.

Except that it wasn't.

There was still Loki. You jumped back to your feet, ignoring your own wounds and ran the few steps to Loki, dropping your blade as you ran. "Loki!" you called, concerned at the blood that was still dripping from his arm. Werewolf bites did not heal quickly. They did not heal easily. They did not heal well.

He offered you a smile and held out Jareth's somehow still-beating heart. It was wrapped in a ribbon tied into a bow. It was absurd and you smiled at your silly Trickster. Was he actually ok? He was a god after all, maybe the bite wouldn't affect him.

You held out hope for a single instant.

Until he dropped with no warning into a dead faint.

"LOKI!" you shouted as you reached forward to catch him before he could hit the ground.