AllFreeNovel
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But the silver was winning. The silver wanted to crowd everything else out, become the only thing. The pressure of the pain ripped my brain apart and I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, because it was the only thing that made any room in my brain for anything else.
Scream. No words. Howl. Howl. Howl. No words. Don’t think words. Howl. Just howl.
Alan grunted softly, and handed the blade to someone. I slumped. Sweat dripped off me despite the cold. I panted like I’d run a half-marathon in thirty minutes. My brain fritzed and greyed. I fought to stay conscious so I didn’t mumble something stupid.
It is a pain like you cannot imagine.
I clung to Sterling’s voice describing how Landyn had stuffed him full of silver. How he’d hunted rats with milk teeth and baby claws. How he’d crawled for hours to get back to his father’s territory. How he’d died, how he’d refused to stay dead, how he’d rebuilt his body.
This was just a single fucking knife turning me into a salmon. I would endure it.
Alan pressed a cloth to my arm. I jerked and couldn’t even scream. He fished around with cruel fingers inside the wound. The fabric seared like fire, and black spots danced again. Silver nitrate? Silver ion fabric? I managed to not puke up whatever was left of my dignity.
He stood up straight while my brain flickered like a fluorescent light. In his hand was a scrap of cloth soaked with my blood. “Time to go drop this in the mail. Your mate needs to know FrostFur has very little patience.”
He thought Sterling had sat around patiently once he got a ransom demand? Idiot. I swooned and laughed. “You won’t teach Sterling any lessons in patience. If he was patient, stupid, or docile you wouldn’t be afraid of him!”
“I’m not afraid of him!” Alan shouted.
“You’re terrified of him. Big bad Alpha, scared of the big silver wolf.” I giggled insanely as my brain flickered like a television with rabbit ears that needed adjustment. “You cut his Luna with silver. You’re scared, scared, scared like a little rabbit, so scared, hoping the big silver wolf doesn’t see your little ears in the snow—”
Alan roared at me and
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
My head sagged forward. I gibbered nonsense about rabbits. Mercedes demanded the warriors haul me back to the cabin. I wasn’t any use to them if Alan beat me to death.
Hamid stood barricaded between three huge FrostFur warriors. He grabbed me as soon as I was within arm’s length and dragged me inside.
My hip screeched and my arm twitched like it had taken a hundred volts. The gibbering passed after a moment and my vision returned to its black spot dance. He picked me up like a doll and put me onto the bed. I blacked out for a minute or two (I think?) as pain overwhelmed my pathetic brain.
At least I hadn’t peed myself. That would have been worse than begging. Only puppies got away with submission wetting.
“Hamid,” I rasped.
“Ma’am.” He was tearing up one of our blankets.
“I didn’t beg, did I?”
He paused incredulously. “Just screams. And some swearing.”
“I’m so sorry about this.”
I made myself look at the injury. Alan had carved a crude version of FrostFur’s sigil into my skin. Hamid reported it’d been carved neatly down to just the fascia overlaying the muscle. The silver had seared away much of the skin, so the wound sagged in the center. The skin on the edges was blackened and charred, and radiating outwards was a burning red halo like a nasty, peeling sunburn. The whole arm had swollen, including my fingers into little sausages. Angry red lines mapped out from the wound as the silver poisoned my bloodstream.
It wasn’t bleeding that badly. Shit—Alan had used a weak silver nitrate solution on the cloth. It had cauterized some of the wound, but also added more silver. Not good.
Hamid lashed strips of blanket around my arm.
I clenched down against a scream just as I saw curious FrostFur faces peering through the windows.
Hamid kept pressing for a solid minute. Then he pulled the cloth away and wiped at the blood staining my arm. I shuddered. Nerve pain shot up and down from my fingertips up into my jaw. My brain spun and fogged, and I tried to claw over the excruciating pain and sudden, crushing exhaustion.
“What caused this?” he asked.
