Eli
The smell of blood wakes me.
It punches through the fever-haze like a slap, raw iron and fur and heat.
For a second I think I’m back in the breeding pens. The scent of rutting males, the wet stench of failure, of slick and pain and fear. I lurch upright with a gasp, heart rabbiting against my ribs.
But it’s not that.
I’m still in the ruin. The broken-down cabin hidden behind a curtain of moss and shadow. My shirt is stiff with dried blood, the bandages clumsy and dark where the wound still oozes.
My ribs throb in painful rhythm with the bond.
That’s what woke me. Not the pain. Not the cold.
Him.
The scent is unmistakable. He was here. Under his overpowering musk I scent meat.
I drag myself up, every muscle shaking, and limp toward the broken threshold.
There’s a rabbit wa
