“Arnoux,” he snarled.
Kieran’s enemy faced him with grotesque eagerness. His coat and cap, shirt and trousers and boots, lay scattered around him like the remnants of some terrible, bloodless battle. His body was lean and scarred and powerful for its age. His short gray hair stood on end like a wolfs bristling pelt. His eyes burned.
Even in Arnoux’s madness he understood. He bared his teeth in a death’s-head grin. “I’ll send you to hell.”
* * *
Alex tried to rise. She tried to move, to speak, but Arnoux’s blow had robbed her of voice and strength. She could only watch as destiny played itself out in this silent, snowbound forest.
Arnoux had always been the killer. Alex knew it was true, though she understood almost nothing of what had passed between Arnoux and Kieran after she was struck. All she’d heard were Kieran’s accusations, Arnoux’s denial—and the raging madness in his voice that could only come of facing a truth too terrible to bear.
“You’re like me,” Kieran had said. The pieces had fallen into place. Arnoux had always been what Kieran was. Kieran’s search for his own kind had led him back to the one man who had made him hate his own inhuman nature.
There was no humanity in the deadly, silent dance that began now before Alex’s eyes.
Kieran moved like fire, like lightning burning the snow, his hair whipping about his face. And Arnoux—Arnoux had the strength of madness. In hatred they were equally matched.
They went at each other without quarter or mercy, hands curled into claws, teeth bared. Alex knew why they fought as they did, naked to the freezing air, and yet still they fought as men. Kieran could have shifted, had prepared to shift, and yet he controlled himself as he had never done before, now when the stakes were life and death.
And he was winning. It became clear after the first few minutes that something crippled Arnoux, far more than his greater age. His punches began to fall without strength, his movements to falter. Kieran beat Arnoux back ruthlessly, step by step. When the older man stumbled and fell the battle was already finished.
Kieran stood over Arnoux, feet braced wide. Every line of his body spat hatred. Arnoux didn’t move. Great clouds of mist rose from his open mouth as he waited. Waited to die.
Alexandra’s vision blurred. She found no pity in her heart for Arnoux. She wanted him punished, but not by Kieran’s hand. Not in a way that would haunt Kieran for the rest of his life, as Arnoux had haunted his past.
As if he sensed her thoughts, Kieran turned his head. Amber eyes fixed unerringly on hers across the distance between them.
Don’t do it, Kieran, she begged silently. There must be another way.
Arnoux roared and moved with terrifying speed, kicking Kieran’s legs out from under him. He fell on Kieran and struck Kieran’s face with his bunched fist, again and again, until Alex could see blood spattering the snow.
Her throat unlocked in a scream. Her body obeyed her will at last, and she pushed to her knees with desperate concentration.
But Kieran had already responded to her cry. He began to blur, the familiar mist forming around his body. Becoming a wolf at last. Arnoux’s next blow never landed. Massive jaws closed on Arnoux’s hand and bit down. The crunch of bone was audible. Arnoux staggered back as the great black Kieran-wolf scrambled to his feet and leaped.
This time there was no hesitation. Kieran straddled Arnoux, his forepaws pinning the older man’s bare shoulders to the ground. He flung back his head and howled, a chilling cry of victory.
Alexandra crawled through the snow, sobbing for breath and strength. Kieran’s muzzle drew back from his fangs. His head plunged down toward Arnoux’s naked throat.
“No!” Alexandra hurled herself forward the last few feet, arms stretched, fingers reaching. Her hand brushed the wolfs shoulder as she landed on her belly. “Kieran!”
She threw her soul into the word, her being, the memory of all they had shared. She clutched a handful of his pelt, dug her fingers down to the skin as if she could reach his very heart.