Cursed by Desire

Chapter 8: Silver and Wolfsbane Treatment

Leila’s POV:

Grabbing me by my hair, I can feel two or three of them yanking me down a corridor. My scalp prickles the more they yank at my hair, but I try not to cry out, knowing that the sound of me screaming would just make them punish me more.

You broke the rules, so now you have to be punished. I can hear them all chanting the same mantra in their minds, the Link acting to mean that I can hear it as well. And that fills me with fear, fear because they’re not hiding. They’re not hiding what they’ll do to me and that means it’s going to be something terrible.

But the dragging continues long after when I was forced to close my eyes against dizzying nausea from being dragged around relentlessly by a group of male wolves much stronger than me. “Please,” I didn’t want to, but I found myself eventually reduced to begging. The pain is too much for me to handle. The response is a tighter yank on my hair which causes me to moan with suppressed pain. “Please, stop.” I hiccup, my eyes blurring over with tears. “I promise I didn’t do it. They found me. PLEASE!” I scream. My voice is hoarse. “PLEASE, STOP!” I keep screaming, but my words fall on deaf ears, the others already having tried me and found me guilty.

Guilty enough for this. This torture.

“We warned you,” I can hear Faline’s voice this time, hers a silvery imitation of her brother's harsher tone but with the same malice undercutting every word. “We gave you the rules, and you broke them slut, now you get to pay the price. The way everyone does when they break the rules.” Her words almost seem kind, but I can hear the snide tone underneath. That and knowing full well that I’m the only one punished or breaking rules. But not the only one who breaks them. Just so you know.

The dragging continues. Up stairs. Down stairs. Along corridors. Past hot and cold areas of the packhouse, which all remain either cloaked in darkness or shadows from either gaslights or candles, since the time for using the electric lights is long passed. Stones drag roughly underneath my legs, the feeling causing scrapes and bruising on the underneath of my legs. Clawing uselessly at an upcoming door, it slows them down since my nails had gained a hold on the wood. But in a few seconds, and more tugging on my hair, I was ripped away from my grip on the wood and dragged violently across the threshold into the next room.

Another, harder, yank on my hair has a single scream slip past my guard and earns a round of laughter from the others. “Please,” Tears are thick in my throat and make my words indistinct. “Please stop, it hurts.” But they just keep laughing. Laughing and dragging me along the floor, so the stone bruises and scratches on my arms, back, shoulders and hands. “PLEASE!” I scream. My pain tolerance went in an instant. “STOP!” I keep screaming, keep trying to be heard, but it’s no good. They won’t listen. Won’t hear.

The dragging continues. Along with more nameless, formless, passages and corridors until I’m lost in my own home. Something that this place, no matter how f****d up the occupants are, will always be for me. Curling up into myself as much as possible, I can hear Luna howling in my head, her panic cutting through my bones like a saw. You have to try and run Lei. She's pleading with me, but it’s no use. I can’t move. If I try they’ll tear my hair out and probably just torture me worse when they eventually find me. Please, they’ll kill you. That stops me cold.

Kill me? I think back to her slowly, hoping she’s wrong. They wouldn’t dare, would they? Surely they wouldn’t do that?! But deep down, a small part of me is saying yes. Yes, they would, and they would have done so years ago if Corbi and Ascelin hadn’t stopped them. Please tell me you’re wrong. I plead with Luna, but she doesn’t respond, having retreated into my head where I can’t reach her. A bad sign if ever I saw one.

Keeping my eyes screwed shut, I have to jam a fist into my mouth when whoever’s gotten hold of my hair yanks harder, tearing out a section that earns more laughs. Blinking back tears, I can feel the prickling in that area that shows that my Moonblood powers are already healing and re-growing the section, but they keep doing it. Ripping out huge chunks of my hair to hear me scream. And, against my own will, I do so. The pain is too much for me to be able to keep it in.

“PLEASE!” I try once more to appeal my case, but I might as well have shouted the words into the abyss of the great beyond, since they just keep laughing and pulling me along, not minding the bumps, scratches, bruises and scrapes that cover me. But I don’t even notice them anymore, knowing all too well that whatever awaits me at the end of this dragging session will be infinitely worse. This is just the calm before the storm.

The worst is yet to come.

And they keep going. Along with the last warm spots in the packhouse. But that just makes my heart stutter even more. As they try to drag me past a particular metal threshold, I stir from my self-imposed silence and scream like a banshee - hoping to raise someone in the house - but all remain silent. Digging my nails into the stone floor, I feel several chips - a few even tearing off - and screech louder, cradling my bloody hands into my chest until I come close enough to the door to risk grabbing it. Digging my nails into it as far as I dare, they keep yanking me, this time by my feet as well, until I’m forced to let go. Bending back and tearing out more nails in the process. Howling in agony, they kept dragging me, the steps we’re descending causing me to bang my head hard each time, stars dotted around my eyes when it keeps happening.

Eventually, I feel the back of my head crack open from the repeated bashing against the stone and metal steps, my blood dripping down my long, dark, hair and into my ears. My nose. Into my mouth, so I can taste the coppery flavour mixed with winter pine and cedar. My individual scent. They all howl with laughter and I close my eyes, blood-tinged tears dripping down my cheeks and landing on my collarbone. Clamping my lips shut, I keep in the howls of agony, not wanting to prolong my torture any more than necessary.

But I can’t shut out the feeling of fear threading through my veins when I’m finally forced to open my eyes and can see where they’ve dragged me. The torture room. Largely disused since my parents didn’t approve of it as a method, but the others seem to have revived it after they died for the sole purpose of humiliating and harming me. Fun. I’ve been here a handful of times before for small-scale torture, but something about their open Link to me and Luna’s absence makes me realise that what’s coming is worse than anything I’d had before.

Throwing me roughly into a corner, I huddle into it, pulling my knees into my chest and curling my arms weakly around them. The prickly sensation is dotted all over my scalp by now, the chunks of hair they’d ripped out so brutally struggling to regrow. Same with the broken nails. The nail beds feel bloody and raw to the touch but, luckily, they’ve stopped visibly bleeding. Though the pain from my nails trying to regrow almost wishes it wasn’t true. “What are you going to do to me?” I hear my voice whisper before I can rationally talk my mind out of it.

Faline just laughs, her hair looking extra bright in the gloom. Like a ghost. “Nothing you don’t deserve,” She spits, “Stupid, worthless, whore.” I close my eyes, pulling tighter around my knees as words like ‘slut’, ‘w***e’ and other insulting, derogatory terms echo at me from the walls. “But remember, it’s to help you.” Faline’s voice sounds again as she digs her claws into my hair. My scalp so the delicate skin rips and blood drips down my hair. “It’s for your own good.”

HOW! My mind screams internally, but outwardly, I don’t change my expression. Just close my eyes and wait for what’s coming. Faline snarls and digs her fingers deeper still until she retracts them, tearing out another chunk of my hair with them. Luna howls inside my head and I know that they’re still Linked to me so, I can hear my every scream of mental anguish. Something that sickens me though I’ll never say it. Instead, I just relax as much as I can and make the most of the blessed reprieve that their absence offers. Knowing that when they come back.. that’s when it will start. The torture. The pain.

Luna howls again but I steel myself. We can manage it. I think to her, seeing her sky-blue eyes, a mirror of my own, looking at me with disbelief. We’ve managed it before, and we’ll do it again. Again and again, until our mate finds us. I want to believe it, but something holds me back from accepting it completely.

And Luna clearly agrees. And if they don’t? Her question is valid, but I can’t bring myself to think like that, the reality of it is too much to bear. Or what if we find them, and it’s worse than this? What if they do something even worse? What if.. Luna keeps going, but I have to tune her out, knowing that I’ll probably lose the last of my sanity and will to live if I accept her words as a possibility. Leila? Luna speaks to me again, and I find I’ve been ignoring her, unintentionally, but her words stop my blood cold. Like someone's injected ice inside my veins instead. They’re coming. They’re coming back. Luna whines but doesn’t retreat back the way she had before, knowing that I need her protection. I am with you. Always. She reminds me and I find myself smiling tiredly inside. A small, silent gesture of thanks.

But then the sounds outside my head break my link to her enough that I’m rudely jolted back into the real world and punishment. “You broke the rules, slut,” Axal kneels, so I can see his eyes are level with mine. “And you know the punishment for them.” Around him, I can see Christian, Faline, Belevine and the others, all standing with smiles on their faces that look so malicious that I hear Luna howl once. A high, plaintive sound of misery and anguish that leaves a resounding echo.

But then I see it. What he’s holding. What they’re all holding. Panic makes my eyes widen involuntarily as the low gaslights down in the subterranean basement level reflect off the silver knives they’re all holding in gloved hands, so it doesn’t damage them. Others hold bundles of purplish-blue wolfsbane. Some hold both. Luna stirs fully inside my head and I see her howling, shying away from the toxic substances and I try to do the same. Holding my breath, I scuttle away from where they’d dumped me unceremoniously, but before long my back bangs roughly against the stone wall and I see them circle me. Trapping me.

“NO,” I find the strength to scream the word, but I may as well have whispered it for the effect it has on the others around me. Leering over my hunched, wounded form, they grin with sadistic pleasure and grab me, pulling me out of the corner I’d sought refuge in. “NO! PLEASE!” I keep screeching, but they don’t seem to hear me. Or if they do, they just ignore it. “HELP!” Now I do break the rule and instantly regret it, clamping a hand over my mouth when I realise what word I’d just dared utter.

The others all just shake their heads. “You know what that means bitch.” They never call me by my name, always some derogatory term that makes me feel worthless and small. No doubt the desired effect of them. “Now we really get to punish you since we all heard you say it. We all know what you did.”

Fear and panic have me trapped. You know like when an animal knows it’s in danger but also knows the inevitability of fighting. That’s how trapped I felt at that moment. Muscles locked in place, it takes them starting to yank me again before I spring to life, clawing and screaming for them to stop.

But it’s no use.

Before I know it, they’ve pinned me down, one sitting on each of my wrists and ankles. Biting down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, I focus on the pain there rather than the cracking sound of my bones where I’m trapped. But that’s deliberate. Seeing the way they’d trapped me means that I can see Axal hold the knife higher, the silver glinting maliciously in the low light and blinding me. But I embrace that blindness, knowing that I don't want to see whatever he’s doing to me.

But I can feel it.

Fire licks through me the second he plunges the knife deep into my abdomen. Holding my breath, I feel the sensation continue to spread through me as he drags the blade in a shape over me. Sickness comes next, feeling like I’ll pass out, but the assault continues. Sharp and immediate, I can’t think around it, the pain blinding. Consuming. So much so that I eventually tune out of whatever else is happening to me, including broken bones. The fire of the silver eating away at me like cancer.

But that’s what it is. My subconscious reminds me. It was Silver Cancer that took your sister. It is a cancer. And a deadly one.

But I’m different. I think grimly, the knife being plunged deeper in before releasing and the cold air drifting over the open, exposed wound. Despite being silent for the torture, as soon as I feel the cold air I scream, my jaws springing open of their own volition. More bone snapping sounds can be heard, and I can feel those of them carrying the wolfsbane dragging it torturously slowly over my exposed skin underneath my ruined tank top and shredded leggings. Scream after scream is dragged out of me until I’ve almost broken my vocal cords. But still, they keep going.

The cruel knife is passed around and others are used, my blood causing a fractured ruby glow to overshadow the somewhat pure glimmer of the silver. I keep screaming, yelling and howling for them to stop but, like before, they ignore my pleas. My cries. They just keep going. I’m twisted this way and that. Over on my stomach, sides, back and the feeling of the wolfsbane and silver knives keep assaulting me until I feel myself from the brink of passing out.

But as if that hadn’t been enough, I could feel more bruises, cuts, broken bones and - in a few cases - burns covering me. Clamping my jaws shut, I hear LUna’s continual howls, her chestnut fur bleeding red from their attack. Focusing on her, I can see their wolves are all tearing into my smaller chestnut brown one, howling with glee when she stumbles and falls. Just like they do to me when their torture manages to elicit a scream of agony.

And by a scream, I don’t just mean a normal one. No, the screams they draw out of my raw, sore, throat are hair-raising, blood-curdling howls of anguish and agony that are so intense I can almost view my pain as a tangible presence in the room. Like a broken and stitched up heart that still bleeds red. Red and raw.

“Please stop,” I try once more to attempt to plead my case, to make them stop, but as soon as I open my mouth I feel a bunch of wolfsbane being shoved down my throat, the poisonous bloom burning my insides, so I cough and choke on my blood. Tears drip down my cheeks and I hold in the rest of my screams as they beat me bloody, more bones snapping - the sound shattering the silence in the room. STOP! I can still scream with my mind and I feel Luna’s howls for mercy echo in tune with my agony, both of us beaten into submission and silence. PLEASE! STOP! I CAN’T TAKE IT! I’M SORRY! Repeating the usual refrain for this part of the punishment, I wait to see if they’ll do it the way we’ve come to ritualize. Hoping that they’ll let me go, so I can heal.

That they’ll stop. But they don’t.

They keep going. I feel the silver knives being used repeatedly to inscribe more words into my flesh. Probably insults or just general cuts that, thanks to the silver, will take longer to heal. But then I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time, if ever. Claws. One of them pulls me up, and I stand weakly, unable to support my own weight, and feel them lean me against something rough under my ruined skin. Then the claws come. None of them shift fully, possibly not daring to, but each has their claws and teeth grown out fully and uses the claws to s***h into me. Making ribbons of my skin in some places.

Another scream tries to explode out of me, but I just release it in a low moan that has my eyelashes fluttering. I’m no fool. It doesn’t know if I pass out, that won’t make them stop. It never does. Their claws continue to lay waste to me, but even when I slump down they continue. Tearing me apart. You deserve this. They all think in unison, the malice behind the words bringing tears to my eyes. You’re the reason they’re all dead. You should have died with them. You deserve this.

I deserve this. I think back, feeling no change in attitude from my attackers. No placation from my admission of guilt. It’s then that I realize that Luna’s prediction of them killing me may be right, and I swallow carefully, not ready to die but unable to stop it if that’s what they do.

No, you don’t. And I won’t let you die. A male voice that I faintly recognise drifts through my head and I cling to it desperately, using it as a way to jump into my own head and view what was happening to me from afar. Please try to hold on. A rush of strength fills me, spreading through my bones and limbs enough to know that I’m badly beaten. Please don’t give up.

Who...who are you? I ask, not willing to return, mentally, to the land of the living. The pain is too much of a reason to stay away. The voice gives a sad, strained, chuckle and I get the image of the same face I’d seen reflected at me from the river. It’s you! I exclaim in surprise, and he chuckles again, the sound a little brighter than before. Who are you?

The voice chuckles. Can’t tell you that yet, I whine softly, more in response to the pain assaulting my body that’s still being beaten, and the voice sighs once. Soon. I promise you’ll know who I am soon.

I want to ask another question before the pain from my attacks overshadows my tenuous connection to this mystery voice, and I’m snapped back to full body awareness. f**k it hurts. Seriously. It feels like I’ve been run over, torn apart and then dunked in acid at the same time. The others are still beating me, clawing at me, jamming the silver knives into me and leaving huge, unhealable, gashes that seem to have severed various nerves and tendons, since I can’t feel certain parts of my body before the routine sting of my healing rebooting. But then the pain begins. A sharp, ripping, pain that has me screaming out against my better judgment.

But then I feel someone shove me. Flopping almost bonelessly from the pain, I feel a pair of fangs puncture me and a warmth spills out. MATE! Luna shouts, but it’s not a happy shout. It's one of fear. The fangs dig deeper and twist, releasing venom into my system. But when they retract I can feel the crescent moon-shape of a mate mark on my neck and hear someone curse creatively.

“f*****g hell, we need to get rid of that.” I don’t know who says it, my hearing is too f****d up from the torture. But they seem nervous, panicked. “Help me get rid of it. It needs to go, no way am I mating that f****d up piece of s**t. She’s not even worth f*****g out of desperation.” More cruel words are swapped, but I can’t hear them, too numb. Like I can’t hear the words. Like I don’t want to.

It’s not a formal rejection. Luna attempts to console me, but I know she’s as convinced as I am as to what the outcome will be when I find out my mate’s identity. Perhaps Lunae will be merciful and give you a Second Chance or True Mate. Again, Luna attempts to console me, but I can’t even hear her. The words have numbed me to all sensation. To all feelings both inside and out.

The bright side is that I can’t feel the pain of each of their fangs puncturing my skin and twisting, releasing inordinate amounts of their individual venoms into my system to wreak havoc on my already wounded, beaten body. But that’s not the end of my torture. No, that comes when I feel a branding iron come closer, smelling the unmistakable scent of smoldering iron. Blinking awake halfway, I weakly struggle away from it before a strong hand grips another huge chunk of my hair and pulls - hard enough to yank some of it out. Moaning weakly, I feel the Mate Mark heat up moments before the hot branding iron is pressed over it.

Pain, as I’ve never felt, explodes in that second and I scream loud and shrill enough to hear glass over ten stories up in the packhouse shatter at the pitch. Clawing uselessly at the air, I feel it press harder, hard enough to graze over bone, and then I’m dropped. Discarded to the floor and kicked again until I‘ve curled up in a corner on the far side of the room, back turned and knees are drawn into my chest.

“Please.” I whisper, both physically and mentally. The pain is too much for me to handle anymore. “Please.. Just let me d-die.” I whisper in a broken, hoarse tone before my voice gives out and I curl up tighter, feeling my strained vocal cords finally give up and break. Coughing, I can feel the metallic, slippy, texture of my blood swirling around in the back of my throat and pass out, my last thoughts being my wish to die and be gone from this pained, hellish, existence as I fade to black.