Page 43 of Brody
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.
I swallowed hard against the knot in my throat, tasting copper and fear as our eyes locked across the bloody pavement.In that moment, the mate bond hummed between us, undeniable and terrifying in its power.
“The wolf is already pushing against the surface,” Brody explained, his voice rough.“When I saw her hurt, there was nothing to stop it from taking over completely.Killing instead of just protecting.”
I’d studied the phenomenon extensively in my research.The mate bond acted as a natural stabilizer, allowing shifters to maintain control even in extreme situations.Without it, unmated males with pre-feral symptoms were walking time bombs, one moment of intense emotion away from a pre-feral episode that could destroy everything in their path.
