Silver Skin

50

All bark, all bite
~
Cadence
~

He played as a distraction, the calmness to ease the chaos and Cadence was thankful her fingers snapped in a different direction wasn't the central focus of her disarray.

It wasn't Erisa's fault. Her ways of control were warped and taken from her. She was taken advantage of, as was the rest of them.

Rexton was put together, painfully handsome with nicely tousled brown hair, and features that were an overcurrent of a being untied to this earth, but his boyish grin told Cadence otherwise. It made him all the more human. And his eyes ... they had seen things these recent days, things Cadence couldn't protect him from or stop.

Cadence clutched her wrist and her fingers fiddled with the dagger necklace Rexton made for her.

She attempted breathing easier, talking nicer, "Okay, so you're gonna tell her you came down here. Then what?"

Cadence peered at everyone's saddened and detached faces. Tala observed Rexton with caution, the she-wolf waiting for the countdown. Erisa was downcast, from what she did to Cadence, from Cole being beaten — this was all out of her control and she could nothing about it. Alexene snapped her head up and covered her face as soon as she made contact with Rexton. Accalia was detached but cold-blooded.

Accalia's stronghold tightened around Cadence's shoulders, but her cousin was cold in touch.

A groan voiced from the other cell and ascending from the invoking abyss, Cole's shadowy, lean figure lounged against the archway, slanting his black and blue face against it.

His two eyes were nearly swollen shut, a brief glimmer of smoky grey peeking through his half-lidded gaze. Bite marks slashed around his neck. His battened cheeks weren't that of rosy interest, but violent violet, morphing into a brutal blue.

Erisa moved forward at a slow pace and when she eventually came up to the cellar door, she showed nothing but agony.

"Cole—" Erisa began, but Cole stopped her by raising a fractured hand. A slight smirk tugged at his lips.

"I'm healing," Cole responded in a thick tone.

"You shouldn't have come down here," Erisa scowled at him, her coldness rushing back in.

Cole smirked even wider with split and bleeding lips. "I didn't think I'd cop a beating for it. I think I might kill my previous pack member though — wait, maybe when my ribs heal, I think I broke a few."

He wheezed and winced, clutching his side as he smiled through the pain. "Wanna kiss it better for me, Erisa?"

Cadence made a face at him and his pathetic attempts of flirting with Erisa.

Erisa didn't fall for it, she didn't fall for much and said, "Just try and stay in one piece, Cole."

"Anything for you, Moonbeam."

Cole jutted his chin at Cadence. "Want me to snap them back in place for ya? I've dealt with a few broken bones in my time."

Cadence grimaced and clasped her two fingers. They were bent at an odd angle and twisted in the middle joints. Breathing in, she vowed the snaps would be something of Adriana's body and she clasped her fingers back into place.

An ached snarl tore from her throat and white hot pain blinded her, the ground beneath taking her rigid stance down.

"Or you could do it that way," Cole commented at a distance.

Before Cadence's head could hit the floor, Accalia snaked her arms around her middle and their bones rubbed against each other.

"I'll ask a servant for help," Rexton hashed out anxiously and went to leave.