Chapter 72 Teeth Behind the Smile
Sable’s POV
The wolfsbane was ebbing.
I tested the chain again, tiny, mean tugs to learn what I could withstand. The cuffs bit hotter into my flesh. The smell of scorched skin mixed with metal made my stomach turn.
I could feel my wolf stir but the wolfsbane pressed her back down.
Footsteps scuffed concrete and Sam came into view. His hair was mussed like he’d been dragging his hands through it; his glasses sat crooked on his nose. He’d changed his shirt—a clean one, pale blue—and the normalcy of it made bile climb my throat.
“You’re awake,” he said, relief softening his voice. “How do you feel?”
I swallowed air that tasted like dust and oil. “Like hell.” My voice was rough sand on glass.
He winced. “It’ll pass. Wolfsbane does that—it spikes, then settles.” He looked proud he knew that.
“Lucky me.”
He moved closer, not too close, crouched where he could see my face without coming too close. “You’re angry,” he said. “That’s okay. I expected it.”
“What did you expect?” I asked, and made my mouth soften on the last word.
His gaze clung to that softness like a thirsty man to a drop of rain. “Understanding,” he corrected, gentle. “I know it looks bad. But I know you. You'll understand soon.”
“Understand?” I scoffed. “I understand you're crazy.”
“I'm not crazy Sable,” Sam said. “I'm doing this for you.” He shook his head, as if in pity. “That is love.”
“No,” I said quietly, and let something tired come into my eyes. “It isn’t.”
His shoulders lowered, just a fraction. “You will see?”
“Maybe.” I let my gaze drop to the cuffs, winced like I couldn’t hide it. “These hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. He reached to adjust the chain, then stopped himself and pulled his hand back. “I had to be sure… the first hours are the worst. You could’ve shifted and hurt yourself.”
I hummed like that made sense. “You don’t have to be sure now.”
His eyes searched mine. “I can’t lose you Sable.”
“Maybe you won't,” I said. The words tasted like ash. “Maybe I lost myself. Maybe you’re right.”
My wolf thrashed once at that—weak, furious—but I caught her with a thought that felt like a hand around her throat. Trust me.
Sam blinked, stunned by the gift of my agreement. “I didn’t think you’d say it.”
“I didn’t think I would either.” I made my mouth shape a small, tired smile. “But I’ve been thinking.”
“About us,” he breathed, and I wanted to break my own teeth.
“About how much of me is me." I said. “You want to prove I have a choice, right?”
“Yes,” he said, fervent. “Yes.”
“Then let me choose you.” I lifted my wrists a little; the silver hissed. A pained sound escaped me. Let him hear it. Let him want to fix it. “Take them off. Let me decide to be by your side…” I held his eyes. “Free me Sam.”
He stared at the cuffs, at the angry red bands around my skin, and his mouth trembled. “Sable…”
“Please.” I put all the ache I had into the word, rounded it, softened it. “I’m tired.”
He closed his eyes like a prayer, then stood and crossed to the metal shelf where tools were, pliers, wipes, a bottle of water, a plastic case with a white cap.
He came back with a small key and a damp cloth. “If you try to hurt me,” he said, voice shaking, “I’ll have to—”
“I know,” I said. “You’ll do what you have to. So will I.”
He swallowed, knelt, and slid the key into the left cuff. The click was soft, obscene with promise. He opened it, the pressure leaving my wrist in a hot, wet rush; I bit my lip to keep from gasping like the hurt meant more than it did. He pressed the cloth gently to the skin—careful, tender—and moved to the right.
“Don’t move,” he murmured. “Let me—”
I moved.
Up and forward, fast as the my body allowed, shoulder into his chest, head into his jaw, my hands were free, blessedly free. Sam went back hard, surprise cracking across his face. I charged towards Sam, determined to break him.
“Stop!” he barked, scrambling, stupidly trying not to hurt me while I tried to break him. “Sable, stop—”
I got one good strike before he lunged—not brutal, but sure—and caught my shoulders, pinning me to the wall with a strength I’d underestimated in a human. His breath was ragged, his eyes glassy. “I knew you’d try,” he panted. “I knew. I’m not stupid.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I hissed, and drove my knee toward his thigh. It landed, a dull thud; he grunted and shifted his weight, avoiding the worst of it.
Without my wolf and the wolf bane in my system. I struggled against Sam. He slammed my wrist against the concrete; the shock flashed white. With his other hand he scrabbled at his pocket fingers closing around the white-capped case.
No. No.
I wrenched, caught his cheek with my nails, left four thin lines that beaded red. His grip tightened. Tears sprang to his eyes. “Why are you making me do this?” he whispered, and it almost sounded like a plea.
“Because I’ll never be yours,” I spat. “Because you can't do this to me.”
Something in him cracked then. He let go of my shoulder just long enough to pull the cap off with his teeth and spit it aside. The needle gleamed in the bad light.
“Don’t,” I said, and it came out low and deadly. “Sam—”
“I love you,” he said, and drove the needle—fast, sloppy, desperate—not into my arm, not into my neck, but into my chest.
Fire exploded behind my ribs.
Air left me like a kicked door. My vision stuttered. I slapped at the syringe and it bent, snapped; a few bright drops flecked my chest like stars. The rest was already in me, a bloom of cold burning its way outward, to shoulder, to throat, to tongue.
He was crying now, actually crying, the kind that makes a person look eight years old and unforgivable. “I told you—” His voice shook. “I told you I’d keep you safe. You just wouldn’t let me.”
“Sam whyyyy,” I cried out, but my tongue felt too big, my lips too numb. The edges of the room fuzzed..
My knees buckled. Sam caught me, guided me back to the pallet with a tenderness that made me want to vomit. “Shh,” he soothed, as if he hadn’t just stuck a needle in my chest. “It’ll pass. It’s just to stop you from hurting yourself.”
Hurting myself.
He wiped the broken glassy edge of the syringe against his shirt, threw it into a bin, and returned with tape and gauze. His hands were gentle. The gentle was worse than the pain.
“Sleep,” he whispered. “When you wake up, you’ll see.”
I blinked up at him. The lights above me fused into one bright coin.
The last coherent thing I thought was Kier’s name.
Then the dark rushed in.