Chapter 81

Chapter 81: Chapter 81

"Lily has gone unconscious?"

Kael’s voice cut through the meeting hall, the parchment in his hand forgotten as he stared at the messenger who’d just burst through the doors, chest heaving from the ride.

"Yes, Alpha." The messenger struggled to catch his breath. "She collapsed an hour ago. The healers—they don’t know what’s wrong with her. Beta Callum sent me immediately."

Kael dragged his hand over his face. He had to be in Silver Creek within the next few minutes.

"Gentlemen, I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone the meeting. I have to tend to urgent matters." He said in a hurry. Thankfully, the three investors who he had come to the capital to see didn’t mind. They shook hands and walked out of the office.

"What happened exactly?" Kael asked as soon as they were gone.

The messenger shook his head. "I wasn’t there when she collapsed, Alpha. I was only told to bring you the message."

Kael cursed under his breath. He immediately reached for Sophia through their mind link.

"Sophia?" he called through the link, but there was no response.

His unease deepened. He turned sharply and rushed out of the office, the messenger and one of his guards following behind him.

The moment they reached the edge of the capital, Kael shifted into his wolf and darted into the woods.

The forest blurred past him, his paws tearing through underbrush faster than they ever had, his wolf’s heart hammering in rhythm with the single thought circling his mind.

Lily. Lily. Lily.

He didn’t stop to think about the distance, didn’t register the burn building in his muscles as he pushed harder, his wolf’s instincts overriding every rational thought.

By the time Silver Creek’s gates came into view, his legs were shaking, his breath coming in ragged pulls, but he didn’t slow. He shifted mid-stride, stumbling the last several yards on human legs, half-dressed and bleeding from a cut along his forearm he hadn’t noticed until now.

He barely waited for his guards before pushing through the gates. "What happened to Lily?" he demanded.

A servant hurried toward him. "Alpha, she’s in the healing ward."

Kael didn’t answer. He ran, and when he reached the ward, he heard crying before he even opened the door.

Sophia’s sobs carried down the corridor from Lily’s chambers, raw and broken, loud enough that the servants pressed themselves against the walls to let him pass.

He shoved the door open without slowing and found her collapsed beside the bed, her hands clutching Lily’s small, still fingers, her whole body shaking with the force of her crying.

"Sophia." His voice cracked on her name.

She looked up at him, her face swollen and wrecked. "Kael—" The word came out strangled. "She won’t wake up. She won’t wake up, Kael. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know—"

Kael crossed the room in two strides. He looked down at Lily. She lay completely still under the blankets, her face pale, her small hands cold against Sophia’s trembling fingers.

"Lily?" He called again. Still nothing.

Kael reached down and touched her forehead. "Why is she this cold?"

Sophia shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "I don’t know. She was fine. She was playing this morning, and then she suddenly collapsed."

"What have the healers said?" he demanded, turning toward Callum, who stood near the far wall beside the two healers, his expression taut with barely controlled worry.

"They don’t know, Alpha." Callum’s voice was low, careful. "I sent for them the moment Sophia found her. They’ve examined her twice already."

The older healer stepped forward, wringing her hands. "There’s no fever, no wound, no sign of illness we recognize, Alpha. Her heartbeat is slow—far slower than it should be—but we cannot determine the cause."

"Then find the cause." Kael’s voice came out louder than he intended, rougher. "You’re healers. This is what you’re meant to do."

"We’ve tried everything within our knowledge, Alpha. I’m sorry."

His jaw clenched so hard it ached. He turned back to Lily, smoothing the hair away from her face with a gentleness that felt entirely foreign to his shaking hands. She looked so small, swallowed by the blankets, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths.

"Lily, dear pup. Open your eyes. Daddy’s here." He whispered, but got nothing in return.

Kael dragged his hand over his face, blinking rapidly. Lily was his child, his heir.

"Do something, for gods’ sake! Go into that goddamn storage room and bring out something!" He growled so deeply the servants outside trembled with fear.

The healer fell to her knees at his Alpha aura. "S-spare me, Alpha, but there’s no vial to treat the young Miss. L-Lady Evelyn’s blood vial that we managed to keep has finished."

Kael went very still. "What did you say?"

The healer flinched, pressing herself lower. "The blood vial, Alpha. Lady Evelyn’s blood—it’s what stabilized Young Miss Lily during her fevers as a pup. We managed to scrape a small reserve, but it ran out months ago, and we’ve had no way to replenish it since—"

"Since I drove her out," Kael finished, the words coming out flat, hollow, like he was hearing them for the first time even as he said them himself.

The healer said nothing, too afraid to agree or disagree.

Kael stared down at his daughter, at the shallow rise and fall of her chest, and felt something cold settle into his stomach that had nothing to do with the fever she didn’t have.

"Is there nothing else?" His voice had dropped, quieter now. "No other remedy, no other healer in this realm who—"

"We’ve sent inquiries to three neighboring packs, Alpha. None of their healers have encountered anything like this before." The healer’s voice shook. "Whatever is affecting Young Miss Lily, it isn’t something ordinary medicine recognizes."

"This isn’t natural." Sophia’s voice cut through the room again. "You know this isn’t natural, Kael."

He looked up at her. "What are you saying?"

"I’m saying someone did this to her." Her eyes, red-rimmed and wild, fixed on him with sudden, desperate certainty. "Think about it. Our daughter, perfectly healthy this morning, and now this? None of our healers can explain it, and the one medicine that’s ever helped her is gone because Evelyn is gone. She has done so much to hurt us in the past month, but this is the height of it." Her voice cracked.

"This has her fingerprints all over it, Kael. The evil eye. She’s cursed our daughter."

"Sophia, that’s—"

"Is it?" she demanded, rising to her feet, swaying slightly before catching herself on the bedframe. "Her title was taken from her. She felt humiliated. First she comes after you, the pack, your finances—then me at the summit—and now our daughter is lying here, dying, with no explanation. Tell me that’s a coincidence."

Behind them, Callum’s expression flickered, something unreadable passing over his face before he smoothed it carefully away.

Kael’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. He wanted to argue, wanted to point out that Evelyn might be a raging mad woman, but the same Evelyn had spent years keeping Lily alive, not threatening her life.

But the words lodged somewhere in his throat, because some small, desperate part of him needed somewhere to put this terror—wanted an enemy he could name and hunt rather than this helpless kneeling beside a bed that refused to respond to anything he did.

"That’s enough," he said instead, though it came out weaker than he intended.

"I know someone." Sophia straightened fully now, wiping her face with the back of her hand, something steadying rapidly in her voice. "A healer and witch. Someone powerful. Someone who can fix this when your healers clearly cannot."

"A witch?" Callum asked. "Forgive me for saying, but bringing a witch seems extreme. We just need to find more healers who can—"

"Evelyn herself isn’t an ordinary healer, and we all know it. Now that she’s cast a spell on Lily, it’s clear no ordinary healer can heal Lily. So yes—a witch."

"Evelyn isn’t—"

"Enough." Kael ordered, and the room went silent. His gaze shifted to Lily, and his heart sank.

"Whoever it is, bring them." Kael didn’t hesitate. "Bring whoever you need. I don’t care what it costs."

"It will cost five million silvers." Sophia said it quickly, watching him carefully. "She won’t come for less. She’s not like the healers here, Kael. She deals in things our healers wouldn’t dare touch."

Kael barely heard the number past the roaring in his ears. His gaze stayed stuck on Lily. "Whatever the cost is. Bring her."