Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Damon
The nightmare was scratching at the edges of my mind again.
I could feel it like claws dragging across the inside of my skull, looking for purchase, looking for a way in. It had been doing this for hours. Days, maybe. Time had lost all meaning in this fog-shrouded existence I called a life.
I pushed back. Forced it away. Built walls out of willpower and spite and the desperate need to stay myself for just a little longer.
You can’t keep this up forever, little human.
The nightmare’s voice slithered through my thoughts, oily and amused. It was always amused. Like my suffering was the most entertaining thing it had witnessed in centuries.
You’re exhausted. I can feel it. That delicious weariness seeping through every corner of your pathetic mind. How much longer do you think you can resist?
As long as I have to, I told it. As long as it takes.
The nightmare laughed. The sound echoed through my consciousness like breaking glass.
That’s what they all say. Right up until they don’t.
I’d been at the surface for days now. Conscious.
Present. Myself. It should have been a relief.
Should have felt like victory. But instead, I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Waiting for the nightmare to surge forward and shove me back into the darkness where I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch through my own eyes as the monster used my body like a puppet.
The chains around my wrists clinked as I shifted position on the cold floor of the hold. Strange, how I’d come to take comfort in that sound. In the weight of the iron against my skin. It grounded me. Reminded me that I was still here, still alive, still fighting.
Even if I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up.
Then I registered something else. Something that cut through the fog and the fear and the constant pressure of the nightmare against my defenses.
Scents.
My brothers’ scents, familiar and beloved, drifting down from somewhere above me. Dean’s sharp winter pine. Maddox’s warm summer grass. Ryder’s wild autumn wind. And Tank, solid and earthy, like fresh-turned soil after rain.
I could smell them. Actually smell them, the way a wolf might track its pack across miles of wilderness.
That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t human.
Something was changing in me, and I didn’t know if it was the beginning of salvation or the beginning of the end.
Interesting, the nightmare purred. Your body is already starting to accept its place in Nymeria. To become something else. I wonder what that will taste like when I finally consume what’s left of you.
I ignored it. I’d gotten good at ignoring it over the past few days, even when I couldn’t force it to be silent.
The nightmare liked to talk. Liked to taunt and mock and dig its claws into every wound it could find.
But talking was all it could do right now.
As long as I kept fighting, as long as I didn’t let my guard down, it couldn’t take control.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
The hatch above me opened, and light flooded into the hold. I squinted against the sudden brightness, my eyes having adjusted to the dimness below deck. Footsteps on the ladder. Multiple sets, coming down into my prison.
My cell. My refuge. The place I’d put myself because I knew, better than anyone, what I was capable of when the nightmare took the reins.
Alyssa appeared first, her golden hair catching the light from above.
Then my brothers and Tank, one by one, arranging themselves around her like a protective guard.
Dean’s jaw was set in that hard line I knew so well.
Maddox looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
Ryder was trying to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Tank just watched me with that steady, assessing gaze that felt like he could see straight through to my soul.
If I still had one.
“Damon.” Alyssa’s voice was gentle, careful. Like she was approaching a wounded animal. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I admitted. My voice came out rough from disuse. “But still here. Still me.”
“Good.” She moved closer, and I had to fight the urge to tell her to stay back. The nightmare was quiet right now, but it was always watching. Always waiting. “We need to talk to you about something.”
I could guess what. I’d heard fragments of their conversations over the past few days, even when they thought I was sleeping. I knew they’d been debating what to do with me. How to save me. Whether I could be saved at all.
“The bite,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
Maddox stepped forward, and before I could say anything, his form shimmered and shifted. One moment he was my little brother, familiar and human. The next he was something else entirely. A lion. Massive and golden, with a mane like burnished copper and eyes that still held Maddox’s gentle soul.
I’d seen it before. I knew what they could do, what they’d become. But something about seeing it now, in this context, with hope hanging in the air like a tangible thing...
My chest tightened.
Maddox shifted back, pulling on clothes that Ryder handed him without comment. When he met my eyes, there was desperate hope in his expression.
“It could work,” he said. “Dean or I, we could give you the bite. Turn you into a shifter. Give you a beast strong enough to fight the nightmare from the inside.”
“Or it could kill me,” I said flatly.
“Yes.” That was Tank, his voice low and serious. “We won’t lie to you about that. The bite doesn’t always take. And we don’t know what happens when you try to turn someone who already has something else living inside them.”
“It has to work,” Ryder suddenly said, inching forward. “Think about it. A bite that rarely works and yet the three of us survived. We all found each other. We were supposed to find Alyssa. She’s our mate. You’re a part of this. You have to be.”
I’d been thinking about this for days. About the reason why we’d all ended up in this place. How everything had come to be.
“Or I could just be the bait,” I said. The words tasted bitter on my tongue. “The reason you all ended up here in the first place. The trap that brought you to Alyssa. That started the wheels in motion.”
“There’s no way to know,” Alyssa cut in. “We believe you’re meant to be one of us. That something bigger than any of us brought you all together for a reason. But we can’t guarantee this is part of that plan. We can’t guarantee anything.”
For a moment, just a moment, hope had flickered to life inside me. The possibility of freedom. Of having something powerful enough to tear the nightmare out of my head and reclaim what was left of my mind.
But now reality was crashing back in, cold and merciless.
“So I could survive and be free,” I said slowly. “Or I could die. Or the bite could make the nightmare stronger, and you’d have to put me down like a rabid dog.”
It was the logical conclusion to this impossible scenario they were proposing. Because even though I hated it, the nightmare wasn’t this weak thing that could just be forgotten about.
No one denied it. That was answer enough.
The anger hit me then. Hot and sudden, flooding through my veins like poison. I’d had hope. For one stupid, reckless moment, I’d let myself believe there might be a way out of this hell. And now they were telling me it was just another gamble. Another roll of the dice with my life as the stakes.
“Damon.” Maddox’s voice was pleading. “I know you can do this. If anyone is strong enough to survive the bite, it’s you.
You’ve been fighting that thing in your head for months now.
You’re still here. You’re still you. That means something.
There’s no way that it wouldn’t have full control after all this time unless there was a part of you that was able to resist it. ”
I looked at him. At the brother I’d raised, protected, loved more than my own life. At the desperate hope in his eyes that I couldn’t bear to extinguish.
“You’re talking about the man I used to be,” I said quietly.
“I’ve changed now, Maddox. I’m broken. Bleeding.
Waiting for the end.” I held up my chained hands, let him see the way they trembled.
“It’s taking everything I have just to cling to consciousness.
Fighting the bite could give the nightmare exactly the opening it needs to take over for good. ”
“You’re right. It could also kill you,” Dean confirmed.
I met his eyes. The alpha. The leader. The one who’d stepped up to fill the void after I was lost. It made sense that it would be Dean. I was just holding the position until he was ready for it .
“Yeah,” I said. “It could.” I realised what he was saying then. The answer he was showing me.
And gods help me, I found comfort in that.
Death would be an ending. A release. No more fighting. No more watching through my own eyes as the nightmare used my hands to hurt the people I cared about. No more feeling it paw through my memories, weaponizing everything I’d ever loved against me.
Death would be peace.
I could see that my brothers understood.
Could see the horror dawning in their expressions as they realised that part of me, a larger part than I wanted to admit, was hoping the bite would kill me.
But there was still a spark inside me. A dying ember that wasn’t ready to give it all up. That wanted to fight.
“I’m tired,” I said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. “I need to think about this. Give me some time.”
Maddox looked like he wanted to argue, but Dean put a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. Ryder’s face had gone carefully blank.
“We’re not giving up on you,” Maddox said fiercely. “You hear me? Whatever you decide, we’re not giving up.”
“I know.” I managed something that might have been a smile if it hadn’t felt so hollow. “I’ll think about it, Maddox. I promise.”