RHEA’S POV My eyes were wide in shock, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird as horror washed over me in cold, suffocating waves..
“No, no, no,” I frantically whispered, reaching out with trembling, blood-stained fingers to press both my bare palms directly against Kael’s torn, icy chest once again.
I squeezed my eyes shut, searching deep inside my chest for whatever hidden tank of heat, light, or energy had saved that dying child in the courtyard.
Nothing.
No warmth flared beneath my skin.
No golden light shoe.
from my palms.
Not even a single, weak flicker of magic answered my desperate begging.
Beneath my hands, Kael’s skin remained entirely cold, sweaty, and lifeless, his irregular pulse fluttering so faintly beneath his collarbone that it felt like he would die at any moment.
I half-expected the magic to burst out of me just like it had before, but my palms remained entirely human and entirely useless.
It was only now, staring down at my frozen, bruised hands in pure terror, that I truly realized I knew absolutely nothing about this mysterious power.
How could this be happening?
A wolfless female shouldn’t be able to possess ancient light.
In all my twenty-five years of living as a disgraced outcast, I had never possessed a single drop of magic, nor a single spark of a wolf spirit.
I had been tested, mocked, and thrown away by my own father because my blood carried zero supernatural elements.
So where did that blinding light come from?
Why had it flared up so violently in the courtyard, only to vanish into thin air the moment Kael needed it most?
I took a sharp, unsteady step backward, my vision blurring at the edges as dizziness hit me slowly like a physical blow.
The dark, wooden ceiling of Kael’s room seemed to tilt dangerously around me.
Images overlapped in my mind one by one, the Elder’s mocking, triumph-filled smirk outside just minutes ago, Darius’s cold gray eyes stripping away my dignity, and the dark red blood coating my palms.
The exhausting weight of everything hitting me at once made the entire world shift violently beneath my feet.
I reached out blindly, my fingers locking around the heavy edge of the bedside table to stabilize my trembling body.
I took three slow breaths, trying to force my doctor’s brain back into command.
Looking up at Garrett, who was standing beside the bed with wide, panicked eyes, I offered him a small and utterly exhausted smile.
“I don’t know why it’s not working,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and raw from the freezing wind outside.
“I don’t understand what that light was.
But his body is going into shock, Garrett.
His internal wounds are bleeding out, and he is in serious danger.
If we can’t save him with magic, we have to save him the human way.” Garrett didn’t argue or waste time questioning me.
He turned toward the double doors and barked an order to the corridor, allowing a few of the pack healers back into the room to help clean and stitch Kael’s torn skin.
The moment they hurried into the room with their wooden bowls and herbs, a young female healer stepped directly into my path, shoving me back with a look of pure hatred.
“Step back, human,” she snapped, her lip curling as she opened a jar filled with a thick, foul-smelling gray paste.
“We do not need your dark powers near our Alpha.
Keep your filthy hands off him.
We will treat him with our herbal remedies as we always have.” Unfamiliar with their unorthodox werewolf medicines and too physically exhausted to engage in an argument, I decided to step back.
I needed a moment to catch my breath and let my racing pulse slow down.
My body was still reeling from the brutal, bitter cold of the blizzard, shivering from the inside out.
Thankfully, the massive stone pack house was built to give intense heat, fueled by huge stone fireplaces that were slowly warming my frozen limbs.
I moved toward the far corner of the room and sank onto a plush velvet chair near the roaring fire, wrapping my trembling arms tightly around my knees.
A moment later, the soft sound of fabric echoed beside me.
A quiet, tired-looking woman walked over and sat down on the chair next to mine.
She didn’t glare at me like the others.
Instead, she looked at me with soft, sad eyes.
“You shouldn’t listen to them,” the woman whispered softly, leaning in close so her voice wouldn’t echo across the room.
“They are angry, but they do not know the truth.” I turned my head, surprised.
“What are you talking about?” “The Pack Elder,” she explained, her gaze daring nervously toward the guards at the door.
“The moment the Alpha collapsed outside, the Elder gathered the warriors.
He told everyone you are a rogue dark witch.
He said you used forbidden sorcery to drain Alpha Kael’s strength and tear his wounds open from the inside out.” My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit as I listened.
“He…
he lied to them.
He told them I was trying to murder him?” “Yes,” she nodded grimly.
“He painted you as an assassin sent to destroy our pack from within.
That is why they are looking at you with such hatred.
The whole territory believes you are a monster.” I stared at her, deeply puzzled by her gentle tone despite the crazy accusations she had just told me.
“Why are you telling me all of this?
Your pack is supposed to hate strangers.
You’re supposed to despise humans like me.” The woman bowed her head, a small, silent tear sliding down her pale cheek and catching the orange light of the fire.
“I am telling you because I know the truth,” she whispered, her voice choking with deep emotion as she cleaned her face with the hem of her long sleeve.
“I am the mother of the little baby you saved in the courtyard.” My breath hitched.
“The baby…” “Yes,” she choked back a sob, looking up at me with raw reverence.
“I am eternally grateful to you, Dr.
Clara.
I watched you heal my dying child when no one else could do a thing.
If you hadn’t been there…
my sweet baby girl would have died in my arms today.
I know you are not a killer.” A profound wave of genuine warmth touched my aching heart, washing away a tiny piece of the cold fear that had been consuming me.
Having spent years working long, grueling shifts in emergency wards, I had seen countless terrified parents, desperate mothers, and weeping family members just like her.
That shared human pain, that universal love a mother holds for her child was above wolf packs, human laws, and ancient issues.
I balled my hands into tight fists in my lap, staring into the flames across the fireplace .
A quiet, unyielding decision settled deep within my chest.
I made a silent vow to myself right then and there: as soon as I made sure Maya and my sweet Elias were safely hidden at the countryside house, I would return.
I would do everything in my power to expose the Elder’s disgusting lies, clear my name, and heal the people of this pack who needed help.
“It’s not working.
Oh spirits, it’s not working!” a frantic, muffled voice suddenly cried out from the bedside.
My head snapped toward the bed, my eyes widening in an instant, sharp alarm.
“What is happening?” Garrett demanded, his voice rising in panic.
“The bleeding won’t stop,” the young female healer screamed, dropping her jars onto the floor as black blood continued to gush uncontrollably from Kael’s chest.
“The paste isn’t working.
His heart…
his heart is stopping.” The thick herbal paste was doing absolutely nothing to stop the poison, in fact, it was irritating his open flesh even further.
Kael’s neck veins were bulging blue against his skin, his jaw locked in a silent struggle as his pulse violently raced.
He wasn’t responding to their treatment at all.
He was drowning in his own blood.
“Get out of the way,” I shouted, standing up from the velvet bench and moving quickly through the circle of panicked healers, my eyes locked entirely on the dying Alpha lying on the bed.