He trails a finger down the side of my face and over the pulse in my neck. “Shift. Let’s see that pretty face of yours again.” He twists the dagger in my back.
I cry out.
“Shift, little wolf.”
I whimper when he withdrawals the blade, only to stab it into my back again and again in a flurry of jabs.
“Shift.”
Black spots dot my vision. Blood fills my mouth.
He drags the blade down my back in a criss-cross pattern, my shirt hanging in strips off my body.
“Please—”
“That’s it. Beg.”
Anger surges through me and with one final burst of strength I try and shove him off me.
But it doesn’t work.
“Last chance, little wolf?”
I swallow hard and shake my head against the pavement. “Screw you.”
He chuckles, his legs straddling my back and the smell of silver assaults my senses right before he dumps something on my still bleeding back. A cloud of powder fills the air around me and I scream.
I scream, but it’s silent. The pain too much to bear. I don’t hear him any longer. I don’t feel him on my back. All I feel is an all-encompassing agony that singes my every nerve ending.
I can’t move. I can’t think. My back bows and all I can do is ride through the never-ending pain.
“Oh, my god!” a voice says but I’m too far gone to care about who else has arrived. I just want it to stop. Madness creeps into the edges of my consciousness as my blood coats my mouth. My bones snap.
“No.” A harsh exhale, the voice now right beside me. “Do not go wolf. You hear me?”
His words press down on me like a physical weight and despite my best efforts, I can’t take my wolf’s form. I cry out, frustrated beyond belief. I just want it to stop. I don’t care if I lose my humanity. I don’t care about any damn consequences. I need it to stop.
A calloused palm smooths my hair back as my body sags, my limps reshaping themselves to human. “That’s it. You’re safe now. Come on back.”
“Hurts,” I say, the single word a raw, pain-filled sound even to my own ears.
“I know. Just hold on a little longer. Help is coming.”
I don’t bother responding. It’s too late. I know it is. And I can’t even find it in me to care. I just want the pain to end.
Tires crunch over pavement and hurried footsteps grow near.
Voices speak above me, but I can’t make them out. Too lost in my own sea of agony until a hand brushes over my cheek.
“I’m Ricardo. The Southwest Pack Healer. I’m here to help,” he says. I feel his hands on my shoulders and I jerk away like a flopping fish, my movements uncoordinated.
“Easy. It’s okay. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.” His words should reassure me, but they don’t.
My breaths are quick and shallow as I struggle to take in enough air. My skin goes cold and my chest squeezes, an invisible weight crushing me.
“What’s happening?”
“I think she’s having a panic attack.”
I hear the words but I’m unable to process them. Darkness crowds my vision and I welcome it.
26 Isabella
Natalia storms into the sterile room I’m in with a no-nonsense air to her and for some strange reason, my shoulders relax. I was brought to a Pack-owned building. It’s not the Pack Compound but a safe house of sorts with a fully equipped medical room on the edge of the El Paso neutral zone. I was unconscious for seventeen hours. To be honest, I wish I still was. But when I finally came to, the Pack healer was able to get a name and number out of me and well, here we are.
“Oh, my god.” She rushes to my side and reaches out before quickly pulling away, afraid to touch me. I can’t say I blame her. My skin is a mottled mess of black and blue. Some of it from bruising, other parts because of the Lyc-V in my system having been killed from silver poisoning. What visible parts aren’t dark are an ashen gray. I feel like death.
She looks to Ricardo who’s been with me since I woke up and says, “Can we have a moment? Alone.”
He sends a sympathetic look my way and bobs his head before saying to me, “I’ll give you and your… guardian, a few minutes. No shifting,” he reminds me, and I nod. Instinct has me wanting to lean on my wolf, but the pain pushed me too far. One slip and I could go rogue. It’s not safe to attempt a shift. Not until my pain levels are manageable and right now, I’d hardly consider them bearable but there isn’t much I can do about that.
“My Alpha will want to have a few words with you as soon as you’re up for it. Alright, Isa?”
I swallow hard and feign a smile as dread courses through me. I’m in no condition to face the Southwest Pack Alpha right now. What little help I did by shifting to a warrior form and back was ruined in the aftermath of the fight. The Pack has a mage on retainer and he was able to take care of my broken humerus and fractured clavicle. My arm had been popped back into the socket and my shoulder bone is now only fractured rather than being ground to dust. My arm is tucked in a sling to keep it immobile, but that was as far as his abilities could get him.
My left leg is in a cast. I’ll need to wear it for several days, if not a week or more. But the worst of my injuries was the silver poisoning.
Ricardo bled me out until my blood ran red instead of black. Thankfully, I was unconscious for most of it. I feel weak and groggy which
