Chapter 20 · Waking the Beast

Chapter 20: Waking the Beast

"Core temp's crashing, Calder. Four minutes, maybe less."

Doc Lira's voice broke apart into static over the collar radio. I didn't answer. Answering meant breathing, and breathing meant tasting copper fog rising off three hundred pounds of frozen wolf.

Kane's ribs barely moved. Frost crusted his muzzle where blood had frozen mid-drip, dark icicles hanging off the jaw that tore a rogue's throat out an hour ago to keep mine intact. His flank steamed once. Then it didn't again.

"Lira, he's not shifting back. He's just dying like this." My hands shook against fur gone stiff and wrong, like touching a body that already knew it was a body.

"Because his wolf doesn't trust anything human enough to let go of control. Not even his own skin." A pause, her breath hissing through her teeth. "The bond's the only thing strong enough to override that. But scent on the wind, he can ignore. You have to put it where he can't."

"Where."

"His mouth. Skin to tongue. Direct contact."

The flood tunnel dripped somewhere behind us, water black with runoff that would blister skin on contact —