“Kiera!” he shouted at once, though he knew she wouldn’t answer–not if Higgs had taken her far from here.
Still, he couldn’t help himself–the cry ripped out of him raw and desperate and full of Rage. He had to find her!
But he couldn’t do that if he let the Rage blind him…if he let his primal side take over.
He forced himself to stop moving then—forced himself to go still in the middle of the silver—threaded grass and breathe.
The home-dome stood silent behind him, its rounded silver walls catching the afternoon light. The sanctuary beyond looked deceptively peaceful. The enclosure barriers hummed faintly. Somewhere in the distance one of the theebles let out a shrill little cheep. The chiming trees whispered in the breeze as though nothing at all was wrong.
But Kiera was gone.
Brux closed his eyes.
Think–remember what the Goddess told you!
He drew in one long, deep breath through his nose…at once, her scent found him.
Faint, but unmistakable, it drifted through the air to him. Warm brown skin and clean soap and the soft sweetness that was simply Kiera underneath everything else.
But he could smell another strain entwined with it–fear sharpened it and made it more brittle somehow–more urgent. And beneath it was the chemical taint of whatever Higgs had used to render her helpless and take her.
Brux’s hands clenched into fists. If that fucking bastard had hurt her…
He followed the scent a few steps and found where she had struggled in the grass. One of her footprints had scuffed deep into the dirt. The silver—threaded ground cover was crushed there too, the delicate strands bent and broken. He could almost see it—the huge hand, the cloth over her face, her trying to fight, her body going limp.
A low, dangerous sound rose in his chest as another scent hit him–sour, rotten, sweaty–the unmistakable stench of Higgs.
It lay over Kiera’s trail like filth smeared over silk. Body odor and snack chips and something fouler beneath that now—old death, old blood, old cruelty.
Brux’s lip curled back from his teeth. The growl that came out of him this time was deeper–more primal. It rolled out across the grass like distant thunder.
Rage flared hot and fast inside him, and he wanted to let it take him…wanted to stop being Brux for a little while and become only the beast. Wanted claws and fangs and blood and fur and the exquisite tearing satisfaction of ripping that stinking male apart with his teeth.
But he couldn’t give in–not yet. Not while Kiera still needed him alive in his own mind.
If he went fully primal now, the trail might as well be lost. He would chase blood and fury and whatever moved first, but Kiera needed more than an enraged beast. She needed a male who could track her and think and choose and act.
So Brux swallowed the Rage down–forced it into chains and held on tight to his reason.
Then, orienting himself on the scent trail, he began to run.
The trail led over the rolling hills behind the sanctuary and toward the neighboring ranch, just as he had feared it would. The red—stained earth here was harder–baked by sun and trampled by canthors and machinery. Kiera’s scent clung less easily to it, but Brux could still follow where Higgs had dragged or carried her.
The farther he went, the stronger the bad smells became. Animal dung…machine oil…old blood.
And everywhere, Higgs.
Brux’s breath grew harsher and his stride lengthened. The hills blurred around him, chiming trees flashing past on either side as he ran toward the ranch structures clustered in the shallow valley beyond.
“There,” whispered a feminine voice in his head. “There is your woman, warrior and she is in grave danger.”
Brux looked in the direction the voice pointed him and saw several things…a long low slaughter shed, a holding barn and fuel tank.
And beyond them–bigger and uglier than the rest–a vast metal warehouse rimed with white along its seams. There—she was in there, he knew it.
Even before he got close, the thing offended every sense he had–it smelled wrong.
Cold in a way nothing on Plo’nix should smell. Not the clean crisp scent of mountain air or night frost, but an artificial cold—dead and mechanical and steeped in blood. The metallic tang of slaughter rolled out of it in waves. Beneath that was old meat, old fear, and the ghost—smell of things that had died badly.
