Chapter 10 #2
“Feisty bitch,” he growled, reaching for me again, his fingers beginning to elongate into something that wasn’t quite human. “Dead or alive, the bounty’s the same now.”
The confirmation of my grandmother’s deadly intent should have terrified me. Instead, I was filled with cold fury.
I grabbed his wrist and twisted, using his momentum to throw him over my hip. My size worked against him; he wasn’t expecting a five-foot-four woman to have the leverage to take down a man nearly a foot taller. The shock in his eyes as he went airborne gave me a vicious satisfaction.
“Sorry to disappoint.” I spat blood onto the pavement, the scarlet droplets glistening in the moonlight. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
He hit the asphalt hard enough to crack it but rolled to his feet with predatory grace, his fingers now fully transformed into vulture-like talons. Not just restraint techniques anymore, those were killing strikes aimed at my throat.
“On your six!” Brody’s warning came sharp and clear through the chaos.
Without hesitation or thought, I dropped into a crouch, feeling the rush of air as Brody’s fist connected with the second attacker who’d tried to flank me.
We moved together like we’d rehearsed it a thousand times, my body somehow anticipating his, his rhythm syncing perfectly with mine.
The partial mate bond hummed between us, no longer a theoretical connection but a tangible thread linking our movements.
Even without the final claiming bite, our connection was growing stronger, more physical, a preview of what the completed bond might feel like if we ever took that irreversible step.
That was when everything changed.
The larger attacker charged. I tried to sidestep, boots scraping pavement, but he anticipated me. His mass slammed into me like a freight train. Air whooshed from my lungs. My ribs screamed as my body was lifted off the ground. The world spun as he threw me down with brutal force.
My skull cracked against the asphalt.
Stars exploded.
Pain like lightning.
I tried to rise, but my body betrayed me.
Through blurred vision, I saw Brody freeze mid-stride, his entire body going rigid.
“No,” he growled, the word barely recognizable as human.
His hands clutched at his head, fingers digging into his scalp hard enough to draw blood. His body bent double, as if fighting something inside himself.
“Not now,” he gasped, his voice dropping to a register I’d never heard before, not quite human, not quite wolf. The sound raised the fine hairs on my neck.
When he straightened, his eyes weren’t his anymore. They blazed blood-red. His features contorted in agony as bones cracked and reshaped themselves.
This wasn’t control; this was a shifter with his animal in the driver’s seat and no trace of human rationality or strategy. This was primal and savage.
The realization hit me with a physical force. He wasn’t just helping other unmated males with pre-feral symptoms. He was one of them. The wolf who’d walked away from me was now fighting to keep that same wolf from consuming him entirely.
His body twisted violently as his clothes shredded. Black fur burst through the skin. His face stretched with sickening pops, teeth growing into flesh-tearing fangs.
A massive wolf now stood in Brody’s place, larger than any natural wolf. Muscles coiled with deadly power, hackles raised. Saliva dripped from bone-crushing jaws.
But those eyes shone blood-red and savage. No trace of the man I knew.
The vulture-shifter who’d attacked me stumbled backward. “What the hell.”
Wolf-Brody launched himself, a blur of predatory intent. His jaws clamped around the man’s throat with a wet, final sound. Crimson sprayed beneath the streetlights. The second attacker turned to flee, feathers erupting along his arms, but he wasn’t fast enough.
It was over in seconds. Two bodies lay motionless on the street, the concrete stained dark with spreading pools of blood.
Blood dripped from his muzzle as Wolf-Brody turned slowly toward me.
Just the predatory assessment of a wolf deciding whether I was prey.
Time seemed to freeze. The copper scent of blood filled the night air between us.
My heart slammed against my ribs, fear flooding my system.
This wasn’t Brody, just pure animal instinct.
“Thornbern,” I whispered, voice trembling. “It’s me.”
He stalked toward me, bloodstained saliva dripping from his jaws as my cheetah stirred, uncertain whether to submit or flee.
“I know you’re still in there,” I continued, forcing my voice to remain steady despite the terror coursing through me. “The man is stronger than the beast. You’ve always been stronger.”
I pushed myself to my knees, ignoring the way the world tilted around me. Blood from my split lip dripped onto the pavement between us. His massive head lowered, nostrils flaring as he scented me.
“Come back to me,” I whispered, hand trembling. “Please.”
He growled, the sound vibrating through my bones. I held my breath.
Seconds stretched. My arm shook with effort.
Then something shifted in those blood-red eyes. A flicker of recognition, almost too quick to catch.
Another growl, different now. Confused, not threatening.
“Thornbern,” I whispered. “I know you’re still in there.”
His head tilted, considering.
Electricity shot through me. The mate bond flared to life, undeniable, powerful. My cheetah recognized him on a primal level, responding with possessive certainty that stole my breath.
Mine, she seemed to say. Always mine.
Wolf-Brody shuddered, his huge body trembling. He pressed his bloodstained muzzle into my palm, a whine replacing the growl. Slowly, agonizingly, the blood-red began to fade from his eyes, the natural gray returning like sunrise after the darkest night.
“That’s it,” I murmured, stroking the coarse fur between his ears, ignoring the blood that transferred to my skin. “Come back to me.”
The transformation back was even more violent than the shift to wolf. Bones cracked and reformed, fur receded, the massive wolf body contorted until Brody knelt before me, naked and gasping, sweat glistening on his skin. Blood, not his own, smeared his chest and hands.
His eyes, when they met mine, held horror and shame in equal measure.
“What did I do?” he whispered hoarsely, though the evidence lay sprawled on the pavement behind him. “Rozi, what did I do?”
I couldn’t lie to him. Not about this. “You protected me,” I said simply. “At any cost.” I swallowed hard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want your pity,” he replied.
I recalled all the symptoms that I’d witnessed—at Bessie’s, the slight tremor as he reached for his coffee before quickly disguising it by wrapping both hands around the mug.
That was a classic symptom progression. My clinical mind remembered the other signs that I’d cataloged—the microsecond delay in his blink reflex, the too-careful way he positioned his body to compensate for deteriorating balance.
He had three months, at most. The calculation formed before I could stop it, cold and merciless.
“I have three months, maybe less,” he confirmed.
If that was true, he didn’t have long before the damage became irreversible.
Before the talented mind across from me would be lost forever, trapped behind animal instinct with no way back.
I’d seen brain scans of late-stage pre-feral males.
The neural degradation was devastating; connections between human and animal consciousness collapsed like bridges in an earthquake, leaving only fragmented pathways where complete neural networks had once existed.
Memories erased. Personality disintegrated.
Everything that made him Brody, his dry humor, his fierce protectiveness, his mind, would simply…
disappear. The thought sent an unexpected spike of panic through my chest so sharp it felt like physical pain.
Whatever had happened between us, whatever anger I still harbored, the idea of him succumbing to feral sickness tore at something fundamental within me.
I stared at the two beefy men who arrived, skidding to a halt at the scene before them, two dead bodies, blood-splattered pavement, Brody naked and agitated, me bleeding from a head wound.
“We’re Brody’s pack brothers,” one of the men said to me. “I’m Rhett, the town sheriff, and he’s Mack.” He pointed at the other guy. “He’s my deputy sheriff.”
“Holy shit,” Mack breathed, taking in the scene with wide eyes. “Someone came to the sheriff’s station and alerted us to what was going on.”
Rhett’s gaze swept over the bodies, then fixed on Brody. Understanding dawned in his expression. “Pre-feral episode?”
Brody nodded once, tension evident in every line of his body as he got to his feet, taking me with him. “They were trying to kill her,” he replied.
Mack let out a low whistle as he examined the destruction. “Worst pre-feral rage I’ve seen in years.”
“Ditto,” Rhett said, gesturing at the carnage around us.
My throat closed as the words sank in. Pre-feral rage, that terrifying limbo where man gave way to his inner beast. I’d read about it, documented it, but witnessing it firsthand sent ice water cascading through my veins.
This wasn’t just a wolf breaking free; it was the complete surrender of humanity with no filter, no reason, no recognition. Just raw, lethal instinct that destroyed everything in its path. The bloody pavement told the story my textbooks never could.
Most shifters who crossed that threshold never found their way back. Their consciousness simply vanished, leaving nothing but the predator behind. Each episode carved deeper neural pathways for the beast, eroding the man until, eventually, the shifter was lost to his animal forever.
The fact that Brody had recognized me defied everything I understood about pre-feral progression. My heart pounded against my ribs as I studied his face. The tightness around his eyes, the tremor in his jaw. He knew exactly how close he’d come to the point of no return.