Shattered

Chapter 59: Poisoned

Kaden's POV:

"We found each other by accident, by which I mean every power in the universe made it so."- Nicholas A. Browne

When silver is in werewolf blood long enough, it starts to do something. Like a poison with no antidote, it spreads. It gets to your heart and pumps to the rest of your body until every part of you is burning and it's no longer just a matter of making you weak and causing discomfort, it starts to break your cells down. Your blood cells, your skin cells, your organs, all of it. And while Chase was here for almost every silver injection, he wasn't there all the time. I got the impression he intended to be, but his sister came in often. She tried to get to me with pain, wanted information, wanted me to tell her details of who was in my pack, how many. She wanted to use them, my pack, my family. She wanted to use us as leverage, to make money, to sell like objects.

If I was stronger, I would've ripped her head off without feeling any remorse.

Chase asked why I hadn't escaped yet, I told him his sister was coming in between times he was. He tried to interfere, to tell her he wanted to do it, but there were just moments she decided she wanted to be the one doing it and he couldn't talk her out of it. It was clear part of her didn't trust him because she never left us completely alone and maybe that was why she insisted on coming herself. There was always a guard outside the doors and I was nowhere strong enough to take anyone on.

The silver was poisoning my body and if she didn't stop giving it to me, it would eventually break everything down until nothing was left. Sores were already appearing on my skin, a pain in my chest had me concerned my heart was shutting down, and I found it a lot more difficult to breathe.

Slipping in and out of consciousness was out of my control, but something strange was happening every time I passed out. I kept waking up in a place that hardly seemed real. I was in a forest but two steps later, I was on a beach, then I was in wasteland, then a different kind of forest where wild roses grew out of control. So out of control, their thorns were piercing almost everything and I didn't bother trying to move forward. Those thorns only tore into my skin at any attempt I made to move. Even breathing brought the thorns too close and left faint pink scratches on my skin.

That was odd enough, but was even weirder was the strange object I kept seeing. A ball of thorny, viny, roses tangled up and covering something up. I couldn't figure out what it was, but it smelled like rain, a storm. Sometimes I'd see flashes of light in the few gaps between thorns and leaves and petals, followed by a rumbling sound like thunder. It was almost like those thorny roses were somehow keeping a storm captive. Sometimes the storm would rage stronger and a bolt of lightning would break through the barrier, but more roses would extend and grow, patching up the hole with even more layers.

Another flash of lightning came and burned up some of the vines, that sparked fire spreading and almost managing to break through the barrier entirely. It was in that brief moment the lightning almost won that I saw more clearly. In the eye of the storm, being contained by thorns, was a light. A violet light surrounded by rain, lightning, strong winds and hail. That light was beautiful. It smelled like...

"Violet," I whispered, my brows furrowing. The light was Violet, it had to be. For a moment I could see things I couldn't see before.

"It's a miracle he doesn't have nightmares," my Luna said to my Alpha. It had been two months since my parents left and I hadn't heard from them once.

Nightmares. The pack psychologist was concerned I'd develop nightmares, because apparently the experience was traumatic. I didn't think of it that way. I didn't feel traumatized. I just felt unwanted, unworthy, not good enough. Unlovable.