Alexei nudged the wolf with the ruined knee, the toe of his boot catching ribs that made the man hiss and fold tighter into himself. Frost steamed off his breath in ragged clouds; sweat had already iced in his beard.
"What do we do with him?" Alexei asked, looking at Zubair with something between boredom and irritation.
Zubair didn't answer right away. His gaze slid, almost unconsciously, toward Sera.
She stood a little apart from them, snow crusting under her boots, her attention already drawn past the burned-out auto shop to the dark beyond. The wind carried cold and the singed tang of liquor-fueled smoke.
Beneath both, there was something else scratching at her subconscious.
Hunger moved like a tide in the darkness. No one else could see it, but she could: the faint suggestion of bodies just past the reach of the light, the slow sway back and forth, the tilt of heads alerting to the taste in the air.
