Destined for Disaster ✔️

Chapter 14

Ryleigh had been silvered enough times to know exactly what to expect, but though her experience prepared her for the pain, it did nothing to help her bear it.

Every time she thought she was past the worst, her fever would rise or the silver would make her regurgitate everything she managed to eat, and anytime the pain went down, she knew it would flare up at its earliest convenience again. It was the kind of pain that trickled into every fibre of her being, that enveloped her mind like a storm cloud and drowned her faculties. The mere act of breathing was a feat she didn't quite know how to accomplish. She didn't even have enough air to scream.

All she was able to do was writhe in agony, breathing in small pants. The chains didn't help, either. They restricted her movements and kept her pinned in the same painful position. It was all too much to handle, until it wasn't.

The change was so sudden it took her breath away and threw her into a half lucid state, waking her up from feverish dreams. One moment pain tore through her like a rogue through their prey, the next it slammed to a halt. The stinging in her head died down to a manageable pulsing, and the wildfire in her veins suffocated into embers. She wasn't comfortable, not at all, but she could think through the pain. It was that regained ability, too, that helped her realise the cause of her sudden eased state. Austin.

She felt his fingers trailing as feather-light impressions across her cheek as he brushed a lock of hair out of her face. She would have snapped her eyes open and told him to keep his hands to himself, but that meant the pain would come back at full force. She wasn't mentally ready for its return. That's why, when he pulled back, a whimper slipped past her lips. She didn't have to open her eyes to know he was standing right at her bedside, leaning over her. His smell was surrounding her, lying over her like a blanket, and it might very well have been the only thing that kept her sane.

The embers flared up, consuming her veins and setting her lungs on fire. She clenched her eyes shut and jerked at her chains in an attempt to claw at her chest, but they didn't give that far and jerked her hands back to her sides.

"Easy," he said, grabbing her wrists and stilling them. "You'll hurt yourself."

She would have barked a laugh if she'd had the breath to do so. Nothing that she could do to herself would hurt more than what had already been done to her. When he took hold of her hands – unwelcome as his touch was to her – the pain diminished again and a breath of relief slipped past her lips. Until he pulled away once more. Was he so daft as not to realise that his touch helped her? Or was he so cruel that he did not only allow her to get silvered but insisted she lived through every bit of the torture as well?

A chair scraped over the floor and the air shifted when he sat down, his scent wafting closer around her. Next, his hand slipped into hers, and she realised he was just a slow learner. Within minutes, she had drifted into a fretful sleep again.

She wasn't sure how long she slept, but when she woke the second time, she was lucid. The fever brought on by the silver had gone down again, though with how her skin radiated heat, she could tell it wasn't gone yet. Austin's hand was still in hers and she could manage the pain. In fact, she could manage well enough that her desperation had room to turn to rage. What business did he have to be holding her hand?

She opened her eyes into slits, afraid she'd be met with bright light, but it was dark around her. Craning her neck, she caught sight of a window behind her and saw it was deep in the night. She turned back and her eyes landed on her mate.

He was asleep, leaning forward in his chair, his head resting on the edge of the mattress, his fingers bent around hers lightly. He looked peaceful, his features soft and relaxed. Up until that point she hadn't taken the time to really look at him beyond what she could see with a glance. From the start she had disregarded him as the man who had cruelly left her to rot in prison and only brought her to his pack because his lover told him he had to, but right then she saw another side of him. A softer side, one that told her he wasn't heartless. It dismayed her, because she'd tried really hard to make a monster out of him. She'd known, realistically, he was just as much a victim of their mate bond as her, but she hadn't acknowledged that fact yet. Still, victim or not, she wasn't willing to strengthen their bond even further by touching him, no matter how much it helped her.