Chapter 52: A Wolf’s Dues
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Wryn’s stare burned through me, rage fuming behind every little movement. Her hand rose without hesitation. Her finger found the side of my neck, trailing over the spot once, light enough to almost feel tender.
Then her nail sank in.
Inch by inch, the pressure mounting, until the skin gave way, then flesh, until all that was left was just the pain. The sensation shot through me, as if every nerve of mine was being frayed.
A hiss tore out of me before I could stop it, the pain blooming sharp under her nail. “W-Wryn, it- it hur-”
The rest never left my mouth. I froze as my eyes processed her visage, the words dying on my tongue.
She looked… frightening.
Her face no longer twisted in anger, but rather something much more alarming, something numb, yet writhing with an unsettling rage.
The light above us flickered, shadows sliding over her features like a shroud. Veins rose beneath her skin, dark and tight, her eyes fixed on me with a hollow stare, like she’d already decided how I would meet my end.
The pressure on my skin vanished, but there was no relief, only rolls of dread that spread through my skin like septic poison. My body lay strewn, discarded, as limbs began to entangle. Closing in, like a living cage weaving itself shut.
And suddenly she was over me, looming close. Her figure felt all the more overwhelming, powerful, and before that force, I felt all the more naked.
I couldn’t even summon the will to move. With every laboured breath that washed over my skin, my resolve dwindled, the notion of struggling gradually disappearing, crushed beneath the weight of her stare.
Her body pressed me into the mattress, a deathly stare stuck to my face, the dread choking me of air. A shiver crawled down my spine, my body betraying me, useless in her shadow. Then, her muscled arm slipped beneath my back, pulling me in closer.
“Kael won’t come.” She whispered. Her grip tightened with the words, nails embedding into my back. “I made sure no one was following.”
Her breath brushed hot against my neck, and then her jaw opened wide, those canines gleaming faintly in the dark. My body hadn't even registered the threat before a brutal snap closed around my shoulder.
The searing pain followed again, just as it surged through me, her nails raked across my back with a slow, tearing drag.
A cry tore from my throat. My limbs flailed against her, legs tussling against the blanket, but it was meaningless. Hopeless. No strength in me could ever shake her off.
The struggling soon bled out of me. I laid there, chest rising in shallow movements.
“Is this what you wanted?” I asked, I was merely a man now, a man who had nothing left to bargain.
Her grip loosened.
“Do you want to be a monster so badly?” The words spilt out, bitter, despairing. “This…” I rasped, a faint grimace twisting across my lips. “This hurts more than my useless wrist ever could.”
Wryn fell silent, and for a moment I thought I saw something soften in her eyes. A hope flickered inside me, that maybe… maybe there was still some humanity buried beneath those beastly eyes of hers.
But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Her hand shot up, wrapping around my throat, her grip tight enough to squeeze the air out in shallow bursts. My body jerked under her, I began to panic, as her voice tore through my skull with unadulterated hatred.
“You don’t get to play the victim,” her voice deathly low, nails digging deeper as her glare sharpened. “You think I’m a fool? You think I don’t know what you’ve done to me?”
Her jaw snapped open again, and before I could choke out anything, her teeth sank into me again, sharp pain tearing through my shoulder.
“You made me like this,” she snarled against my skin. “Every bite of food, every hour I try to sleep, every fight I drag myself through. I think of you. Every thought of you sends me into heat, the idea that I want to fuck your brains out. The idea that I get to devour you, sink my teeth in, and taste you-”
Her hand finally slackened, slipping from my throat. I collapsed into a fit of coughing, chest heaving as air scraped painfully back into my lungs.
“Do you know what that does to me? Do you know how many nights I’ve burned alive with it? How many times I’ve woken up with my claws dug into my own skin because you weren’t there?”
Her hand slipped under my chin, the rough touch of her fingers forcing my head upward until I couldn’t look anywhere but into her shadowed face, her red eye glowing amidst the darkness. The silence stretched, heavy, before she finally asked:
“Do you know why I left?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
She let the pause bleed out, then finished for me. “To protect you. From me.”
Her fingers trailed slowly up my neck, brushing over the back of it until they came to rest on the mark Kael had left there. The pressure lingered, her nails grazing the spot.
“But it was pointless,” she muttered, her tone chilling like ice. “I worried myself sick over you, while you…” Her lips twisted, her voice lowering into venom. “While you were fucking that filthy sewer rat.”
Without giving me a chance to even part my lips, her arms flexed, tossing me off the bed. My body hit the floor with a dull thud, the shock stealing whatever air I had left. I barely had time to catch my breath before her shadow swallowed me again.
She rose over me, towering, merciless. The floorboards creaked as she planted her foot hard against my chest, pinning me down as if I were nothing more than prey beneath a predator’s heel.
Her gaze bore into me, her words laced with a finality, enacting the judgment she truly believed in.
“You turned me into this,” she said, her voice steady, heavy with conviction. “And now…” Her heel pressed harder into my ribs.
“Now it’s time for me to pay you back, tenfold.”