Free Blood Challenge by Eileen Wilks Page A

need a longer one to understand what may have happened.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Pack wolves and lone wolves fall into the fury easily—that’s one reason they’re so dangerous.” Pack wolves were clanless wolves who’d gathered in a small pack—something almost unheard of these days, since the clans allowed very few lone wolves. Lacking a mantle, they were susceptible to the fury. “Clan wolves are more protected, but in battle we can succumb, too, if we’re fighting two-footed and aren’t trained to avoid it.”
    Her eyebrows lifted. “Not when you’re wolf?”
    “No. The fury is …” He spread his hands. “The fury is of the wolf, but the wolf doesn’t experience the fury. You might call it an unhappy blending of the two states arising from the way the man experiences the wolf during battle. It’s born of rage, but it isn’t rage. Just as anger may be born of fear, but isn’t fear.”
    Her brow pleated in concentration. “You think it’s a truly separate experience. Not some composite of other emotions, but an emotional state humans don’t have.”
    He shrugged. “The closest analogue in humans seems to be the berserker state, which is why I explained it that way before. The fury is raw and red and dangerous. In its grip, pain has no meaning. We lose all intentions but one: to kill our enemies. And everyone within sight or scent of us is the enemy.”
    She tipped her head. “You’ve experienced it.”
    “As part of my training, yes. I was fourteen.” He smiled ruefully. “The fury is uncommon in adults, but not in adolescents—who are, as the saying goes, all balls and no brain. We have to experience it to learn how to avoid it, so it’s triggered in us intentionally, in a controlled situation.”
    “What happened?”
    “I thought I was in a normal practice bout, but Benedict had arranged for two opponents to attack me from behind quite … unexpectedly.” At fourteen, he hadn’t yet attained certa , the optimal battle state, which rendered the fury impossible. Back then, no one knew if he would. Many lupi didn’t, so they had to learn other ways to avoid the fury. By Changing, for example. You couldn’t fall into fury if you were wolf.
    “Is an unexpected attack a trigger?”
    “Triggers vary, but Benedict knew me well enough to have a good idea of what would work with me. Ah … let’s just say he was right. My opponents were well-trained adults, of course,” he added. “Not other youngsters. They knew what to expect, so the moment they smelled it on me, they got out of the way and Benedict pinned me until it passed. Then he, ah, spoke firmly to me.”
    “Firmly. I’ll bet. Does it pass quickly, then?”
    “It depends on the situation. Benedict pinned me so I couldn’t fight. Fighting feeds it.”
    “You think that’s what happened to Cobb. He fell into the fury.”
    “If the information we have about what happened is correct, I have no other explanation. He didn’t Change, so he wasn’t beast-lost. He seems to have had no reason to kill, much less to do it so publicly.”
    “Lupi don’t just go nuts sometimes?”
    “Define ‘go nuts.’ We aren’t subject to psychoses, hallucinations, or other physically based forms of insanity.”
    “But you are—sometimes, in some situations, for some individuals—subject to the fury. Something triggered it in Cobb. A threat?”
    “I don’t know. Adults don’t react like adolescents, except …” He shifted his legs restlessly. “Some lupi, like some humans, have what you might call anger issues. Those who carry habitual anger, if they also have trouble with control, might slip into furo without being engaged in actual battle. Such clan are usually brought to live at or near Clanhome.”
    “Nokolai does this, too? They bring the angry ones to Clanhome?”
    He smiled. “If you’re worrying that the lupi you meet at Clanhome are dangerous, don’t. When such clan have more contact with—I will say with their