Chapter 286

• Leah's POV
• I opened my eyes to a nightmare carved into my own flesh. My skin was ulcerating, sores splitting open like overripe fruit, weeping pus and blood across my arms, my legs, my chest. The stench hit me first - rotting meat, sour and thick, clogging my throat - but there was no pain. No sting, no burn, just a cold, creeping numbness that pinned me down like chains. I tried to move, to claw my way out of this decaying shell, but my limbs wouldn't answer. My body was a traitor, a cage of meat and bone, and I was trapped inside it.
• In front of me, Leo thrashed under the grip of a naked werewolf - a hulking, beastly thing, more monster than man, its matted fur streaked with filth. His bloodshot eyes locked onto mine, wild and desperate, pleading for something I couldn't give. Through our Mindlink, his voice rasped into my skull, faint and final - "I'm dead now. You will be the next, sister."