Marrying a Warhound (Cassian) novel Chapter 104

Chapter 104

ATASHA’S POV

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I had been hiding my ability ever since I first discovered it by accident years ago. I always believed that if anyone ever found out, I would be persecuted, feared, or worse, decapitated. I never expected that one day, someone would actually be relieved, happy even, to know that I could heal. It made me wonder if they had ever questioned how I came to have such an ability in the first place.

It didn’t take long to understand the source of their reaction. “My husband…” Katya said, her voice strained. “On the first night of the tide, a bat–like creature bit him. After that, his body began rotting from the inside.”

Ramona quickly added, “But that wasn’t the only problem. Somehow, whatever he had spread to others. Within a short time, more men showed the same signs of infection.”

Ramona continued. “We tried to isolate him,” she said, her hands twisting in front of her. “But it was too late. Within hours, three more soldiers showed the same symptoms. It started with a single wound, no larger than a coin. By the next night, the infection had spread over their entire bodies.”

They pulled back the blanket covering one of the men. The smell hit first. It was rancid, like spoiled meat left in the sun. The wound itself was worse. The skin around the bite had blackened, split open in jagged lines, and thick pus oozed from the cracks.

Patches of flesh sloughed off with the slightest movement, wet and stringy, sticking to the fabric beneath him. His veins stood out, dark and swollen, webbing up his arms and neck like they were filled with tar. Where the rot had reached his chest, the skin bubbled and sagged, as if it was melting from the inside.

I fought the urge to recoil and looked at Mendez.

“I’ve tried everything,” he admitted, his voice tight. “Salves, fire to sear the wound, herbs for infection. Nothing slowed it. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not a normal rot, it spreads as if it’s feeding off them. And this tide…” His jaw tightened. “This tide isn’t like the last. Everything is worse. The bites are larger, tearing out chunks of flesh instead of piercing. The beasts move faster, hit harder. It’s like they’ve been strengthened somehow.”

He shook his head, frustration etched into his features. “We were prepared for what the tide usually brings, but this, this is something new. Something we don’t have the tools to fight.”

I nodded then I approached Katya’s husband. Katya’s husband lay propped against a bundle of furs, but calling him a man felt wrong. The infection had changed him so much he hardly looked human anymore. His skin was gray and sagging, eaten away in patches where the rot had consumed the muscle beneath.

One eye was swollen shut, the other clouded with a yellow film that made it look lifeless. His lips were cracked, the flesh around them peeling. The stench of decay clung to him, heavy enough to sting the back of my throat. But he wasn’t dead,

I knelt beside him and pressed my palm against his chest. His ribs shifted under my touch, brittle and uneven, as if his bones themselves were starting to give way. Closing my eyes, I let my focus sink beneath the

surface.

Almost immediately, I felt it. The bite hadn’t just injured him, it had delivered something alive. The poison

Chapter 104

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was active, threading through his blood, spreading like roots, forcing the body to rot and carry the infection further. Its goal wasn’t to kill quickly. It wanted to multiply. To use him to create more like it.

I drew in a steady breath and pushed my healing into him. At first, it resisted, thrashing against me like something trying to hold its ground. But the harder it fought, the deeper I pressed, burning through the corruption piece by piece until it broke apart.

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