Silence.
Elsa felt the change in Krix’s body—the sudden rigidity, the way his muscles locked. She loosened her grip on the chain just enough to breathe.
“You’re lying,” Krix said.
“His body is in the holding cells.” Sylas’s voice was flat, almost bored. “I crushed his throat myself. He died badly, if that matters to you.”
The enforcer’s claws flexed against Elsa’s thigh. His lips peeled back from teeth stained dark with old violence. “Vask was worth a hundred of you. He was doing Lux’s work—”
“He was torturing humans in a basement.” Sylas took a step forward, and the tunnel seemed to shrink around him. “Drawing their blood. Burning their hands. Playing god with creatures who couldn’t fight back.” Another step. “Your priest was a fanatic and a coward, and I killed him like the rabidanimalhe was.”
Krix roared.
The sound bounced off stone, deafening in the confined space. He threw Elsa off—actually threw her, sent her flying into the wall with force that drove the air from her lungs—and lunged at Sylas. No strategy, no calculation, just grief-blind rage hurling itself at the male who had taken everything.
Sylas met him halfway.
The collision shook loose dust from the ceiling. Elsa struggled to breathe, her ribs screaming, but she forced herself to watch as the two Yzefrxyl tore into each other. This fight was different from the one in the holding cells—faster, more vicious. Krix wasn’t fighting to win. He was fighting to avenge.
Through the bond, she felt every hit Sylas took—and every one he gave. His exhaustion bled through, the minor wounds from his hunt still fresh, his muscles screaming with every movement. But he pushed through it anyway, fueled by something darker than adrenaline. Something that looked at Krix and saw every mark on Rowan’s arms, every burn on Milo’s hands, the blood now running down Elsa’s thigh where the enforcer’s claws had torn her open.
He hurt what was mine too.
Krix was strong—stronger than Vask had been. Built for this kind of combat, experienced in ways the priest had never needed to be. A clawed hand raked across Sylas’s shoulder, deep enough to make Elsa gasp through the bond. But it left him open, just for a moment.
Sylas didn’t hesitate.
His jaws closed around Krix’s throat.
Not claws this time. Teeth. The primal kill, the one that said:you are prey and I am predator and this is how it ends.
Krix’s roar became a gurgle. His claws scraped uselessly at Sylas’s shoulders, his chest. Then they slowed. Stopped.
Sylas held on for three more heartbeats—long enough to be certain—before opening his jaws and letting the body fall.
The enforcer hit the stone with a wet thud. His amber eyes stared at nothing, and the blood pooling beneath him was black in the crystal-light.
Silence.
Then Rowan’s voice, hoarse and cracked. “Good.”
Elsa looked at him. The engineer hadn’t run—none of them had. They’d stayed, pressed against the tunnel wall, watching. Rowan’s face was pale, his punctured arms trembling, but his eyes burned with something that looked like satisfaction.
“That one held Milo down,” Rowan said quietly. “Made him touch the corrupted tears while he screamed. Laughed when the burns started showing.” He spat on Krix’s corpse. “Good riddance.”
Sylas wiped his muzzle with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his fur. His eyes found Elsa’s across the corpse-strewn tunnel, and she felt his shock through the bond—not at the kill, but at her. At the chain still tangled around her wrists. At the blood running down her leg where Krix had clawed her.
You fought him.
Someone had to.
He crossed to her in three strides, pulled her against his chest with hands that trembled—actually trembled—and pressed his muzzle into her hair. Through the bond, she felt his fury at her injury warring with something that might have been pride.
“You’re bleeding,” he growled against her temple.
“So are you.”
“That’s different.”