“No, you fucking freak!” Higgs tried to twist away, but it was too late.
Brux caught him by the throat and shoulder and bore him down to the concrete. They rolled together in a blur of limbs and claws and snapping jaws, knocking into the hanging carcasses and making them swing in wild grotesque arcs overhead.
Kiera couldn’t look away…couldn’t move.
Her head was pounding. Her body was so cold it no longer seemed to belong to her. The whole freezing warehouse had taken on a gray, dreamlike cast, as though she was watching all of this from underwater.
Still, she saw everything.
Higgs got one hand around Brux’s throat and shoved, his face dark with effort. Brux snapped at him and missed by inches. Higgs tried to scramble for the fallen knife, fingers clawing over the floor. Brux caught his wrist in one huge hand and slammed it down hard enough to make bone crack.
“Ahh–you fuck!” Higgs screamed.
Then Brux’s wolf face dipped, his muzzle finding the other male’s throat.
There was a horrible wet, tearing sound and a spray of bright red blood across green—frozen concrete.
Higgs jerked–his big body fishtailing under Brux’s half—animal form. He made one last choking, bubbling noise…then nothing.
The refrigeration units hummed on. The hanging carcasses swung more and more slowly.
Brux stayed bent over Higgs for a long moment, shoulders heaving, red eyes blazing, blood running from the stab wound in his side and from Higgs’ torn throat. He looked like the “werewolf” Iyanna had accused him of being–he looked like vengeance given shape.
Kiera just stared. She was horrified…and yet some deeper part of her–some primitive frightened female part–felt only savage relief.
Brux did it, she thought dazedly. He killed Higgs–he killed him before Higgs could kill me.
Brux lifted his head from the kill. His muzzle and chest were streaked with blood now, his breath steaming in the freezer air. He turned to look at Kiera and for one long terrible moment she saw no recognition in those red eyes at all.
Only Rage…only the beast.
“Brux?” she whispered.
His name came out weak and slurred. Suddenly she felt very, very tired. Too tired to go on.
The fight…the fear…the cold…the blow to her head–all of it had been building and building and now that the immediate terror was over, it was as though her body had decided it had done enough.
The frozen concrete floor under her felt oddly soft–like a feather bed. The freezer lights seemed dim and too far away.
No, she thought. No, don’t do this. Don’t get sleepy. Not now–just look at him–he needs someone to pull him back from the edge!
But she was so sleepy. So very, very sleepy.
Somewhere deep inside, she seemed to hear a little voice say, you’re going into shock.
The wolf—faced Brux took one step toward her…then another and another.
Somewhere in the distance she heard the slow drip of blood and the clink of a swinging hook settling at last to stillness.
This was bad–Brux wasn’t himself. She was in danger.
Kiera tried to keep her eyes open–tried to stay with him. Tried not to slide down into the soft gray drowsiness wrapping itself around her.
Don’t close your eyes, she told herself desperately. Don’t give in. Don’t?—
But the freezing air was so cold, and she was so very, very tired.
As the last of the fight’s echoes died away in the deep freeze, Kiera felt herself slipping away, despite every frantic effort not to.
