"Pain doesn't tell you when you ought to stop.
Pain is the little voice in your head that tries to hold you back
because it knows if you continue, you will change.
Don't let it stop you from being who you can be.
Exhaustion tells you when you ought to stop.
You only reach your limit when you can go no further."
~ Kobe Bryant ~
***
"Weak."
Is it possible to hurt so much that your heart just... gives up?
"Weak."
Like lightning shattering the night.
Like a gunshot through her brain.
There's an absolute still moment where nothing in the universe moves.
His word hangs there, like a particle in the air. Like the skeleton of a fallen leaf dropping down thickly, silently, until finally...it reaches its course.
And suddenly, the atmosphere seeps with some kind of potent accelerant, and everything around Salem starts pulsing, following the wild rhythm of her heart. The buzz in her brain loses its volume control and changes from white noise to cacophonous stadium-cheers.
It's an explosion of thunder and winds, swirling, whistling, and blowing all of her thoughts away.
Listening to the roar kicking up in her head, Salem is deaf to any other sound as the echoes of his voice emerge in her mind, and his word is mysteriously multiplied.
"Weak."
Two kinds of pain collide in her soul, tearing her apart.
There is the first. A foreign one that takes her a few seconds to identify.
It's the bond between them crying in agony.
Icy fingers twisting around her intestines, turning and tangling and yanking. Nothing but blood, pain, fire, and ice. Her hand rises, clutching at her left breast, trying to alleviate the ache, as her throat closes up, suffocating her.
The closed cage of her ribs holds on tightly to the pain wracking her heart.
It is a strangely poetic representation of the last few days - in the most heartbreaking way possible - to press the pain of a broken bone against an invisible open wound in her chest.
It changes nothing.
The pain swallows her whole.
It rushes through her veins and makes her blood boil and chill at the same time, her shoulders tensing to protect herself against the word that feels like a physical blow. Until finally, the throbbing ache settles into the marrow of her bones.
It is a small death, violent and agonizing.
And then, there is the after effect.
The pain of someone stabbing her with a knife on her back without killing her. It is not supposed to end her, it is just a knife that stays.
YOU ARE READING
HIS SALVATION
Werewolf- #1 Book in the KINGS series - * * * Two warm hands slip over her shoulders, calloused fingertips ghost over the bone at the nape of her neck, making a shiver run down her spine. Tender hands gather her hair and push the damp lock over her right sh...
