Feral Northern Shifters 2

hard plastic and he’d drunk out of bottles, both useless. The only thing Bram could focus on was the window and its glass pane. He backed up.
“Come here, Bram.”
He recoiled. Ethan had uttered the same words, but with such a different meaning. He retreated farther.
“It will be easier if you come to me. You know that.”
Bram slammed a fist backwards against the windowpane. Glass shattered, skin slit open on a ragged edge, but he managed to clasp a shard in his hand. Not as big as he’d like, but he couldn’t afford to be choosy.
“Really, Bram, you are the oddest wolf I have ever met. What do you propose to do with that? Prick me with that? Scratch me?” Doug strode over and Bram clutched the shard harder, making his hand bleed. It was going to slip soon, if he kept this up.
“Jesus, you’re useless. Breaking a window for what? To make your hand bleed.” Doug crowded him and Bram was gripped by the panic of knowing his alpha was in control and he had to listen no matter what he was told to do.
“I don’t know why I even bothered with you these last few years,” Doug said in quiet contempt. “Pity, I guess. Misplaced as it’s proven to be.” He brought both hands to Bram’s neck. Squeezed. “I could kill you now and you’d deserve it.”
He couldn’t breathe.
“Drop the piece of glass, Bram, and I might let you live.” He squeezed more. “If you don’t, I’ll break your neck because you attacked me.”
Bram’s world began to go gray.
“You’ve attacked me a second time. The first time was to release a feral cougar. It won’t look good for you here, Bram. They’re trying to study these feral creatures in order to prevent future human bloodbaths, to prevent feral shifters from becoming murderers. They are very concerned about humans. Ethan is a danger to us all and I will let them know it.”
Ethan . Bram grabbed hold of that name. Tried to speak but couldn’t because of Doug’s grip.
“You’d like to say something?”
Bram managed a nod before Doug squeezed even harder.
“Fuck that, Bram. You’re going to die and Ethan is going to be their experiment. That’s how it is.”
Bram raised his right arm and slashed Doug’s wrist where it counted.
The pressure dropped away, Doug cursing, and Bram moved again, aiming that small shard for Doug’s carotid, jamming it in before Doug could block with his uninjured arm.
Wide-eyed, Doug stared at him then jerked the piece of glass out of his throat. A mistake, because blood gushed a red fountain and Doug paled rapidly. For a few seconds he tried to remain standing before he collapsed.
His alpha had always had a problem with overconfidence, Bram thought rather abstractedly, staring at the growing pool of blood.
“More than a scratch,” he murmured and edged around Doug’s body to walk to the sink and wash his hands. After which he licked his hand wounds repeatedly. He needed the healing agents in his saliva to stop the bleeding. Once he wasn’t dripping blood—it took a good ten minutes—he left Doug trying to shift behind him. His alpha had never had trouble shifting before, but this time he was badly wounded.
Bram couldn’t think about that anymore.
He walked out and saw his first guard, had his question prepared. “Can you take me to Trey, please?”
The guard conferred and hemmed and hawed, implying that Trey and Kingley had important things to discuss. Kingley apparently valued Trey’s presence. Bram was asked if he had eaten enough. Like he ever wanted to go back into that kitchen again. He should have been worried about people finding Doug but, and maybe it was shock, he could only think that he needed to get Ethan out of here. Now . It took far too long before he was led to Trey, who went on alert immediately, probably from the smell of Doug on Bram’s body.
“I’d like Bram to see the cat now,” demanded Trey of Kingley.
They waited forever, or more like five minutes, before Shaun Kingley returned to inform them, “Okay, the cat is waking up, but still groggy. I’m not sure how safe it will be.”
“That’s fine,” said Bram while at the same time Trey declared, “We’re good to go.”
Bram paid attention to the three halls they traipsed down, in case that information came in useful later. The plan was to calmly walk out of here, but Bram wanted to be aware where he was.
They had to step through two doors, rather like the set-up back in the Winter pack compound. Kingley looked pretty solemn, as if he had some