The Femoral Triangle

I drove the eight-inch blade upward, sinking the tip four inches deep into his left groin, right beneath the pelvic fold.

Then I twisted the blade ninety degrees and ripped outward.

The heavy carbon steel tore through fascia, muscle, and the thick wall of the common femoral artery.

Kolar's grin vanished. His eyes went wide as saucers.

A high-pressure jet of bright, oxygenated crimson arterial blood erupted from the wound, spraying across my chest and soaking the tin wall behind us. The sudden loss of intravascular pressure was catastrophic.

His grip on my throat instantly went slack.

I dropped back onto the catwalk, coughing and gasping for air, but I didn't stop moving. I drove the heel of my heavy combat boot directly into his shattered knee.

The joint snapped backward. Kolar collapsed onto the zinc grating with a wet, ragged scream.

He clutched his groin with both hands, trying frantically to compress the severed vessel, but blood was pumping between his fingers in thick, rhythmic surges with every beat of his racing heart. A puddle of dark red spread rapidly across the catwalk, dripping down through the metal mesh like rain.

"Pressure won't save that," I rasped, my throat raw and burning. "You've got about forty seconds before your brain runs out of oxygen."

Heavy boots pounded up the spiral stairs.

Radek appeared at the edge of the catwalk, his chest heaving, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and grease. His hands and forearms were drenched in crimson, but his slate-gray eyes were clear, sharp, and intensely focused.

He looked at Kolar writhing in his own arterial pool, then shifted his gaze to me.

I was standing balanced on the balls of my feet, my knuckles white on the blood-slicked hilt of the skinning knife, covered in crimson from collarbone to waist. My breathing was ragged, but my hands were steady.

Radek stepped onto the catwalk. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

The look in his eyes wasn't pity, and it wasn't the wary caution he had treated me with in the rail yard. It was something deeper. A fierce, predatory respect that sent a sudden, electric shiver through the core of my chest.

Ours, my wolf whispered in the dark corners of my mind, curling tight and possessive. Strong.

I swallowed the strange heat rising in my throat and forced my focus back to the dying man at my feet.

Kolar was already turning pale. The rapid hypovolemic shock was setting in, stripping the color from his lips and dulling the yellow glow in his irises. His frantic attempts to stem the bleeding were weakening. His fingers trembled against his shredded thigh.

"Who... who sent the tracking frequency?" Radek demanded, stepping over to plant his heavy boot on Kolar's uninjured shoulder, pinning him flat.

Kolar coughed, a thin froth of pink bubbles appearing at the corner of his mouth. He looked up at Radek, then rolled his glazing eyes toward me.

"You think... you think you're clever, Krizsek?" Kolar wheezed, a grotesque, wet laugh rattling in his chest. "You think you found... the lost pup?"

"Answer the question," Radek growled, pressing his weight down until Kolar's collarbone creaked.

"Tibor knows," Kolar choked out, blood bubbling over his teeth. "He knows she's breathing. He's had the river precinct... on a leash for twenty years."

"Where is the transponder master unit?" Radek asked.

Kolar spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the metal grating. "Doesn't matter. You can't run. You can't challenge him."

Kolar turned his head, staring directly into my eyes. His gaze dropped to the pocket of my red jump bag, where the heavy brass Blazsek token rested against my hip.

"You have your daddy's eyes, little girl," Kolar whispered, his voice fading into a wet rasp. "Amber and stubborn. Just like Anton."

My stomach tightened. "What do you know about Anton Blazsek?"

"I was there," Kolar murmured, his lips curling in a dying sneer. "On the Old Iron Bridge. When Tibor tore his throat out. Anton begged for his pack. He thought his bloodline meant something."

"Where is the proof?" I demanded, leaning down, the blood-dripping knife held inches from his face. "Where is the claim?"

Kolar chuckled, a sickening, bubbling sound. "Tibor took it from his cold neck. The signet ring. Pure river iron and gold. The seal of the first Blazsek alpha."

My pulse skipped. "Where is it?"

"In the brewery," Kolar gasped, his eyelids fluttering as consciousness began to slip away. "In Tibor's private vault... beneath the copper mash tuns. He wears it like a trophy... whenever he sits the high table. You want your birthright, stray? You have to walk into the lion's mouth... and take it off his finger."

A violent shudder racked Kolar's massive frame. His pupils dilated, swallowing the last amber flecks of his eyes. His chest heaved once, twice, and then went completely still.

Silence fell over Pier Four.

The only sound left was the rhythmic patter of blood dripping through the catwalk grating onto the concrete floor below, and the low, steady rumble of the river tide lapping against the rotting pilings outside.

I stood there for a long beat, staring at Kolar's lifeless face.

My hands finally began to tremble, the adrenaline crash hitting my muscles in a cold, hollow wave. I wiped the back of my hand across my forehead, smearing cold sweat and soot across my brow.

Radek stepped back from the body. He looked down at the severed femoral artery, studying the clean, surgical angle of the incision.

"You cut the main line," he said quietly.

"Three centimeters below the inguinal ligament," I replied, my voice raspy and hoarse. "Takes twelve seconds to induce loss of consciousness if systolic pressure is over one-twenty. A werewolf heart pumps at nearly two hundred beats a minute during a shift. He bled himself dry."

Radek let out a low, rough breath. A faint, humorless curve touched the corner of his mouth. "Remind me never to let you check my pulse."

"You should be so lucky," I muttered, but the tightness in my chest eased just a fraction.

He walked past Kolar's body toward the edge of the catwalk, looking down at the lower floor. The smoke from the thermite flare was beginning to thin, drifting out through the shattered clerestory windows into the gray morning sky. Three bodies lay motionless below. The assault team had been wiped out.

"They'll know within an hour that Kolar failed," Radek said, his tone turning grim and tactical once more. "Tibor's hounds will be sweeping every dock from Pier One to the rail yards by noon."

"Let them sweep," I said.

I reached into my red jump bag, pulled out a sterile package of gauze, and wiped the heavy blackened steel of my skinning knife until the metal shone clean and dark. I snapped the blade back into its leather sheath at my hip.

Then I reached deep into my pocket and closed my fingers around the cold brass Blazsek token.

Tibor had murder on his hands. He had stolen my father's life, my family's legacy, and the symbol that held the river syndicates together. He thought he could keep the Blazsek signet ring locked in his brewery vault like a stolen prize while hunting me down in the mud.

He was wrong.

I looked up at Radek, meeting his fierce, steady gaze across the blood-slicked catwalk.

"We're not running to the next hiding spot," I said.

Radek tilted his head, watching me with quiet intensity. "What are you thinking, Lenka?"

I looked toward the north windows, where the massive brick chimneys of the Zemanek Brewery rose against the pale morning fog.

"We're going into that brewery," I said, every trace of doubt burned clean from my voice. "And I'm taking my father's ring."