Ice Bear's Bid by Isabella Hunt

Author:Isabella Hunt [Hunt, Isabella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Kal

Stomach churning, chest aching and filled with rage, I couldn’t gather my thoughts for several moments. Now I understood the frantic nature of my brothers, their slip of self-control.

Finally, we had to admit Orion had done it. There was no other explanation.

Directly after the Rift, the Stasis Bureau had capitalized on the confusion of the public and whipped it into hysteria. One ruthless, cruel way was the rumors of something they called “Bloodlust.” It was said to happen randomly to any shifter—a sudden loss of self and an unchecked appetite, leading to a murderous rampage.

What had really happened was that a few poor souls couldn't make sense of being shifters and had died painful deaths, often after lashing out at their families. But from what we knew, no shifter who was in the throes of that intense, post-Rift pain, a kind of Rift-PTSD, had killed anyone. Families were adamant about that. The shifters in question had been angry and sullen, but that anger had been turned inward.

Orion, we knew, wanted to turn that anger outward.

“Overriding the instincts to protect, unleashing a feral, unchecked, and primal anger,” I murmured and watched as one man tried to twist away from Niles. “A need to survive.”

“If they hadn’t turned on each other a few miles after breaching the border, who knows how far they would’ve gotten in?” Xander said. To me alone, he said, I can’t sense them.

For the first time in almost five years, I saw something leap into my friend’s eyes.

Fear.

Gripping his arm, I hissed in his ear, “Xander, we will figure this out. We always do. We survive. Winfyre is proof of that—proof of resiliency and hope.”

Xander blew out a breath and seemed to come back to himself, a smile flitting over his face. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I lost my head there for a moment.” Raising an eyebrow at me, he leaned in and drawled, “Hey, you’re late. Iris?”

“No,” I grunted and went to turn away when Xander let out a laugh. “What? You’re laughing now?”

“Yeah, ’cause it took me a second to realize…” Xander put a hand to his chest. “At least something is going right.”

“He’s trying to use these feral fools as what, some kind of advance guard?” I asked and sniffed at one. I could tell the poor fool didn’t even know his name. “Doped out of their minds, nothing but adrenaline and insanity at this point.”

Suddenly one of them began to shake, gargling, and we all rushed towards him. He fell over, going rigid, and blood trickled from his nose. Niles attempted to heal him, and the clearing fell quiet.

“He’s gone,” Niles said a few moments later.

“Guess it’s not perfected after all,” I said. “This was to disconcert us. Make us worry.” I stood up and looked at the other men. “Can you cure them, Niles?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t know what they were given…” Niles also stood up and gestured with his head, away from the men and other shifters.

“Watch them,” Xander said, and immediately shifters converged.

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