Polaris Skies

Chapter 21

TW: abuse

He had been fighting off the pain as best he could. It was about the witching hour when he succumbed to it. Laying still was the best way; curling up, movement, it all tingled, sending saw blades of electricity through his system. God, this power mark is going to kill me. He told himself, gripping the angry swirl on his skin where blistering heat emanated like a fever. Sweat plastered his hair to his head, and the carpet moistened with it where he lay.

Sun Hee had subconsciously moved away from the heat in her sleep, unaware. It was only when she exited her dreams that she woke to Deck's harried breathing. "Lexi! Lexi!" she yelled, terrified.

Benj darted up, scrambled to her side, and checked Deck's heartbeat and temperature. Yeller woke up to glance anxiously at his writhing friend before Benj mutely pointed him down the hall. He skittered up from the love seat cushions and dashed out of the living room to the tiny room that held Hana and Nat. He didn't bother knocking. The door slammed into the drywall, sending plaster cracking. What he saw almost made him wretch.

Hana was worse, way worse. Nat had helped her out of her top, and she lay face down in the shag carpet, her wings spread out from wall to wall. Rot took over the shoulder joints, elbow and carpal joints of her wings, a black puss dripping, staining the carpet. She had passed out from the pain.

Nat had made his way out to the kitchen without waking the group. Piles of dish towels propped and wound around joints. Iodine, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a massive bottle of vodka sat at his fingertips. He worked over the joints of her wings, washing and cleaning. The stench of the iodine and the alcohol mixed with the putrid smell of rotting flesh overwhelmed Yeller.

Cashia took over, throwing the man into the far primal recesses of his brain, disconnecting him from his senses. Yeller had never felt so totally disoriented. "What do you need of me?" Cashia asked, expecting to get an answer from Sven.

"How is Deck holding up?" Nat asked numbly, never stopping his administrations.

Cashia stepped back, amazed the boy, the man, was still there, not having relinquished his mind to the wolf to take responsibility for the situation. "He suffers far less than she, but Benj is worried." He knelt out of the way from the wings.

"As long as he lives, I know nothing will happen to her." Nat tore a piece of dish towel into strips and bound off the joints of the phalanges.

"How can you be so sure?" Cashia asked, a quiet voice in a darkened corner, a living conscience, a malignant ghost.

"This won't kill him," Nat whispered, more to himself than to the great beasts in the room.

"What makes you so sure?" Cashia watched as the man, with as much tenderness could be expected of the act, pulled primary feathers from sloughing flesh.

"Dietrich has already sent him to the back of his mind and taken over. There's a black void when I look for him. I believe in your leader, Cashia, that he is one tough bastard and not readily overcome. Deck, he whispers here." He rubbed at a glowing star on his temple. "He told me of the greatness of this beast. He served some great ancient tribe, the Bai, when he was still young. That you all were the last to see the great Ursus. You are ancient, more so than I thought." His voice monotone, concentration emanated from his core, steady as a rock. The change was crystalline in him, a calculating creature.

"You accept this easily, child," Cashia ventured, wary.

"You ask of me to take on your wife. I have in residence three of your kind within me. This woman here possesses wings. Every time I touch her, I cause my best friend pain immeasurable to that which he surmises as having his arm sawed off with a bone saw. Also, I am fully aware that I speak differently when exhausted. Don't need to be reminded. Got that enough from my father." He yawned as he pulled a particularly long feather and held it to the moonlight flooding the window. He handed it to Cashia, who gingerly cradled it in his hands.