CHAPTER 5: Silver Poisoning
796 Words
They crossed the boundary line of Sector 7, the forty thousand acres Elena had flagged in her audit. As the G-Wagon tore past the rusted “No Trespassing” signs, the world seemed to shift.
The electric hum of the city vanished. The radio static cut out. Even the air coming through the vents smelled different, sharper, heavier, pine, wet earth, and something ancient.
“They stopped,” Elena noted, looking at the side mirror. The pursuing headlights had slowed, hesitating at the boundary.
“They know,” Elias said, his voice tight.
“Technically, by crossing that line, they are declaring war on the Obsidian Pack. It’s a treaty violation.”
“And shooting up your office wasn’t?”
“That was business,” Elias said, his grip on the steering wheel whitening. “This? This is territory.”
He drove for another twenty minutes, the road turning from asphalt to gravel, and finally to a dirt track that ran deep into the old forest.
The trees here were massive, their branches forming a canopy that blotted out the stormy sky.
Elias was deteriorating. Elena could see it. The sweat on his forehead was profuse now. His breathing was ragged. The wound on his shoulder, which had seemed to heal, was weeping fresh blood.
“Elias, you’re bleeding again.”
“Silver,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “The bullets... silver nitrate coating. It slows the regeneration. Burns.”
Finally, the headlights illuminated a structure. It wasn’t a cabin. It was a fortress of timber and stone, built into the side of a cliff face. It looked like it had grown out of the rock.
Elias stopped the car. He killed the engine. The silence of the woods rushed in, heavy and oppressive.
He opened the door and practically fell out.
“Elias!” Elena ran around the car.
He was on his knees in the mud, clutching his side. The rain plastered his shirt to his skin, revealing the dark stain spreading across his ribs.
“Inside,” he gasped. “Get... inside.”
Elena grabbed his arm, draping it over her shoulders. He was impossibly heavy, a wall of dense muscle and heat. She half-dragged, half-carried him up the stone steps to the heavy oak door.
“Key?” she panted.
“No key,” he wheezed. “Blood.”
He slapped his bloody hand against the wood. A lock tumbled deep inside the door with a heavy thunk.
They spilled into the entryway. It was warm inside. A fire was already roaring in a massive stone hearth, triggered by their arrival. The room was masculine, leather furniture, walls lined with books, and weapons mounted above the mantle. Not guns. Swords. Spears. Tools of a visceral age.
Elena deposited him onto a rug made of thick fur in front of the fire.
“First aid kit,” she demanded. “Where?”
“Kitchen. Under the sink,” Elias murmured, his eyes slipping shut.
Elena scrambled. She found the kit, a military-grade trauma box and rushed back.
She knelt beside him, her hands trembling as she tore open his shirt.
The sight made her gasp.
It wasn’t just a bullet wound. The flesh around the impact site on his ribs was black, necrotic veins spreading outward like a spiderweb. It was sizzling, a faint wisp of smoke rising from the blood.
“Silver poisoning,” Elias rasped. He looked at her, his eyes lucid but filled with pain.
“You have to get it out.”
“I’m an auditor, Elias! I use spreadsheets, not scalpels!”
“You’re the only one here,” he grabbed her wrist. His skin was burning up.
“There’s a bottle of bourbon on the table, and a knife in the kit. Pour the alcohol. Dig it out.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to,” he growled, the Alpha tone slipping out, commanding and irresistible.
“Or I die, and if I die, the barrier falls. Whatever is out there comes in here for you.”
Elena stared at him. She looked at the wound, then at his face. The fear was there, yes. But beneath it, the steel spine that had allowed her to take down Fortune 500 CEOs straightened.
She grabbed the bourbon. She took a swig herself, the burn grounding her. Then she poured it over the knife.
“This is going to hurt,” she said, her voice steady.
Elias threw his head back, exposing the column of his throat.
“Do it.”
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