04⁓ Broken Wolves Still Have Teeth

Ayla's Point Of View

The man who bought me didn’t ask questions.

He didn’t ask for my name, where I came from, or why I looked like I had already died and come back hollow. He didn’t care.

All he saw were curves he could bruise. Weakness he could break. Silence he could suffocate.

He called me "it."

“Get over here, it.”

“Clean the floor, it.”

“Lie still, it.”

And I learned. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. The first time I disobeyed, I learned that the whips were silver-laced and laced again with wolfsbane, to make sure what was left of my wolf never stirred again.

That first week… I didn’t think I’d survive it.

But I did.

I survived the filthy, cage-sized room with no windows, only rusted chains and moldy straw. I survived the brutal nights when I was nothing more than breathing flesh.

I survived on stale bread crumbs if I’m lucky, and rotten water that made my stomach twist, bones with noting left on them, because that’s all I was given. Scraps. Not enough to keep a wolf fed. Barely enough to keep a girl alive. 

The chain on my ankle grew heavier each day. It wasn’t just iron. It was coated with silver and wolfsbane, and it sizzled against my skin every time I tried to shift. I never could. My body was too weak. 

And every time I tried to fight back, I was reminded of my place. “Speak again,” he snarled one night, yanking me by my hair. “And I’ll carve your tongue out.” I never spoke again. Not to him. Not to anyone. There were no days, no nights, only screams muffled in my throat and the ache of bones that refused to mend.

I used to cry.

At first, I cried for Julian.

Then I cried for Elara.

But eventually, I stopped crying altogether. There was no point. My tears had dried with the blood on the stone floor.

“Did you think someone would come for you?” he laughed once, tossing a rotted apple at my feet. “They threw you away, girl. You’re garbage now. Mine.”

I didn’t look up. Not anymore. I stared at the wall, counting the cracks like they held answers. Like they remembered who I was.

I used to be Ayla.

I used to be someone.

Now I was this… this thing, this shell, this girl who forgot how sunlight felt on her skin.

Elara… She was gone. Not dead. But silent. I hadn’t heard her voice in weeks. Months? I wasn’t sure anymore.

There was a time she would scream with me, fight with me, try to claw her way free. But each lash of that silver whip buried her deeper. Each humiliation. Each torment. Each time he spat on me and called me nothing.

She just… faded.

And I missed her like I missed my soul.

“Elara,” I whispered once, dragging my bloodied body into the corner of the room. “Please. Just speak. Just once.”

Nothing.

Only silence. Cold, suffocating silence.

Like I was buried alive in my own mind.

I stopped counting how many nights passed. I stopped trying to fight back when the door creaked open and he stumbled in drunk, half-naked. I stopped hoping anyone would come.

At first, I screamed. I clawed. I begged, and he’d laugh as I tried to crawl away. “Still got some fight left?” he sneered, pressing my face into the dirt-caked floor with the heel of his boot. “That’s alright. I’ll break it.”

And he did.

Piece by piece.

Until even my screams became quiet. Until my heart stopped racing when he entered the room, because even fear felt like a luxury I no longer deserved.

Sometimes, I imagined I had died back in the sea. That this wasn’t real. That this was some twisted limbo, and I was still floating somewhere beneath the waves, held by Elara’s strength.

But it wasn’t true.

I was alive.

If you could even call this living.

The only thing that reminded me I still had blood in my veins were the fresh cuts from the silver, reopened each time he dragged me by the ankle to remind me of what I was… nothing.

“You were born for this,” he’d say, lips curling like the words were sweet. “Pretty little thing like you? You’re lucky someone even wanted you.”

I stopped responding.

What was the point?

I let my eyes stare at the stone wall across from me. When he was gone, and the world was quiet… I’d close my eyes and whisper the name.

“Ayla,” I told myself.

Not it, but Ayla.

I didn’t say it for him. I said it for me. So I wouldn’t forget. So I wouldn’t let them steal everything.

**********

It was another night.

Another damned night.

The kind that slithered in like a serpent, whispering dread into every corner of the cramped, rotting room I was held in. The moon hung heavy outside the barred window, casting pale beams that did nothing to comfort me, only highlighted the filth on the concrete floor, the dry bloodstains I could never quite wash out, and the faded bite marks that traced my skin like a roadmap of torment.

I sat in the corner, legs pulled tightly to my chest, my chin resting on my bruised knees. I’d been given a meal that morning. A dry chunk of overcooked meat and stale bread. I had eaten the bread and hidden the meat bone under the creaky floorboard beneath the torn mattress. I didn’t know why I had done it then... maybe survival, maybe spite. Maybe a part of me already knew what would come.

Now, that bone, about the length of my forearm, jagged and sharp at one end was in my hand, hidden under the folds of the tattered blanket I wrapped around myself. My fingers gripped it so tightly my knuckles ached.

And then I heard it.

That familiar, dread-inducing sound.

The lock.

The rattle of keys. A pause. Then the clank of metal sliding into place. I froze. My breath caught in my throat. The door creaked open slowly, as if the very wood groaned in warning.

His silhouette filled the doorway.

Damon.

My captor. My tormentor. The monster in human skin. He stumbled in, the scent of whiskey and something sour clinging to him like a second skin. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, his eyes red-rimmed and wild, lips twisted into a grin that made my stomach churn.

“Heeeyyy, little fox,” he slurred, voice thick and sticky, dragging out each syllable as he leaned heavily against the wall for balance.

I didn’t answer. My eyes tracked his every movement. He didn’t notice the difference in my gaze.

“Been thinking about you all day,” he continued, staggering closer, unbuckling his belt with a loud, metallic clink that echoed in the small room. “Missed that tight little whimper of yours.”

My grip on the bone tightened.

He let the belt fall to the floor with a lazy chuckle, fingers fumbling at the button of his pants.

“I swear, Ayla… you’re the only reason I keep coming back to this shitty place.” He was grinning like a madman now, pupils dilated, face flushed from the alcohol. “Time for daddy to have a little fun.”

He reached for me, stumbling forward with a twisted glint in his eye. That was when something inside me shattered.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even hesitate. In one swift, fluid motion, I leapt to my feet and drove the sharpened bone straight into his neck.

There was a sickening squelch, a sound that would haunt me later, perhaps, but in that moment, it was divine. Holy.

He choked.

His eyes widened, disbelief washing over his face.

“Wha… Ayla?” he croaked, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth, seeping down his chest.

I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t.

The fury that had been festering for years erupted like a volcano inside me. I ripped the bone out and drove it into him again. And again. And again.

“THIS…” stab

 “IS FOR EVERY…” stab

 “DAMN NIGHT…” stab

 “YOU TOOK FROM ME!” stab

Blood sprayed against the wall, warm and metallic, splattering across my arms, my face, my chest. But I didn’t care. The monster was gasping, his hands flailing, weakly trying to push me off.

“You thought I’d be your toy forever?” I hissed, slamming the bone into his collarbone. “Thought I’d just keep taking it?”

He gurgled. His legs gave out beneath him. I straddled his chest and stared into his eyes, watching the life fade inch by inch.

“I am not your prey,” I whispered, voice low and trembling with wrath. “I am not your plaything. I am not your whore.”

I growled again, louder this time. Awake. Furious. Alive.

“I am a goddamn wolf,” I growled, slamming the bone into his throat one last time. “And you? You’re just meat.”

His body spasmed beneath me once… twice… then stilled.

Silence.

It settled like dust after a storm. Heavy. Final.

My hands trembled, sticky with blood, the bone still clenched between my fingers. I stared down at what I had done, at the carcass that used to be the devil who haunted my nights. His eyes were wide open, lips parted, as if even in death, he couldn’t believe I had done it.

I sat back on my heels, panting, chest heaving as emotion surged through me in crashing waves.

Shock.

Relief.

Terror.

Satisfaction.

“We are free.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks, silent, unstoppable. I wiped at my face with the back of my hand and stood slowly, stumbling slightly from the adrenaline still pumping through me.

I looked around the room that had been my prison. The bloodied floor. The cold metal collar he used to chain me. The dark stains of suffering.

And I turned to the mirror, the cracked, filthy mirror he made me stand in front of when he broke me again and again.

This time, I didn’t see a broken girl.

I saw a predator.

A survivor.

My lips curled into a bitter, trembling smile. “I warned you,” I whispered to his corpse. “Even broken wolves still have teeth.”

I stared down at his lifeless body, chest still heaving from the rage that had just begun to settle in my veins. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and thick, already beginning to congeal. My hands trembled as I dropped the bone beside him with a soft clink, a sound that felt strangely louder than everything that had just happened.

I crouched, reaching for his trousers with shaking fingers. My pulse pounded in my ears. “Please… please…”

There.

A small, rusted key hidden in the inner pocket.

My breath caught.

I snatched it quickly, not bothering to wipe the blood off my hands. I padded silently to the heavy wooden door, heart thundering as I pressed the key into the lock. It clicked. A low, ancient sound, like the breath of a tomb opening.

I paused, listening. The silence outside was thick… undisturbed. No footsteps. No voices.

Slowly, carefully, I opened the door, just enough to peer into the hallway. Dim light flickered from a single, swinging bulb overhead. Shadows crawled across the damp stone walls. Everything reeked of mold and old blood.

I stepped out.

Barefoot.

Silent.

Every creak of the floorboards beneath my feet sent adrenaline lancing through my spine. I held my breath as I crept down the corridor, hugging the wall, listening for any sound, any breath, any movement.

Nothing.

The house was still. Asleep. Or drunk.

I passed doors I had never been allowed near. Locked ones. Rooms that whispered of other horrors. But I didn’t stop to wonder. I didn’t want to know.

I just wanted out. I found the front door. Bolted. But the same key worked. Another soft click.

Freedom.

I cracked it open and peered outside. The night air hit me like a slap… cold, wild, freeing. There were no guards. No hounds. Just trees. Darkness. Open earth.

Without another thought, I stepped into the open.

I ran barefoot through the blood-soaked dirt, wind cutting through the rags I wore, my body shaking from both cold and freedom.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t care.

I just needed to not be there anymore.