"Poison."
Those eyes. I dreamt of those eyes again.
It's become a sort of routine now, almost poetic in its cruelty.
It always begins the same way.
I'm standing in a forest bathed in moonlight, the blood moon only an outline behind a veil of mist.Just like the damned mark on my vein.
And then, through the fog, I see him.
Sometimes his eyes glow that alluring, captivating, raw yellow and other times, they are heartbreakingly human.
That's when I wake, always with a jolt, as if torn from a nightmare I can never fully escape.
And the mark... the mark burns faintly at first, then brighter, as though it remembers him as much as my soul does.
That wretched mark has been the source of all my anguish. I don't even understand why.
It has ripped me from what I could've been. My family, my dreams, my hope. Everything.
Now, every single day, it's them doing what they please.
I have been a prisoner, rotting in this dungeon.
They visit when they want, always recording.
They burn my skin not all at once to put me out of my misery, but bit by bit, in the places they know haven't healed yet.
Even with my rapid healing, I can't keep up.
Every day the tactic changes. They used to enjoy my pleas, my begging, as if they depended on it. It fed their sadistic desires. Using silver was their speciality.
They never spoke.
I never knew what they wanted, who they were.Nothing.
Then I shattered.
I became numb, letting them do what they pleased.
The drug they drugged me with. restrained everything even though I hadn't yet shifted, hadn't even awakened my wolf.
Then came the silence.
Not the kind that soothes, but the kind that hums just beneath the skin too loud to bear, too close to breathe.
I could hear my own heartbeat, slow and stubborn.
It was the only sound that reminded me I was still alive.
The drug was supposed to suppress everything pain, strength, the thing inside me that they feared most they tried to control use it as their puppet.
But they didn't understand.
They couldn't cage what was never fully human.
The mark on my wrist pulsed again, harder this time, like something was beating beneath it.
It seared through my veins not fire, not blood something older.
A growl echoed inside my skull.
"Enough."
It wasn't a voice I recognized, yet it was mine.
It filled the small, stone cell like thunder muffled by water.
I fell to my knees. My breath came ragged, sharp. The world twisted at the edges moonlight bleeding through the cracks of the ceiling, painting the walls silver.
And in that light... I saw him again.
Those yellow eyes distant, waiting.
The mark blazed.
Pain lanced through me, beautiful and unbearable all at once.
Every wound they'd given me began to close, flesh knitting with violent speed.
The drug couldn't hold it back anymore.
Bones cracked.
Blood sang.
And for the first time, I felt the wolf awaken not as a curse, but as a promise.
"They wanted the monster," I whispered, voice breaking into a snarl.
"Now they'll see her."