97

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s been like this ever since he saw you,” Harriet tells me sadly. “He refuses to shift back.”

“Finn.” I touch his nose, his forehead, forcing him to look at me. “Finn, I want to see your face.”

He whimpers again, and Cedric says, “Give him some time. He hasn’t left your side in days.”

“What happened to me?”

Everything is very hazy right now. My memories are in chunks and bits, all over the place. I need somebody to help me piece them together.

“You don’t remember?” Cedric asks cautiously. “Vivian attacked you.”

Vivian.

Her very name sends a shock to my system. And then the memories start flooding back. The attack. Jerry.

“Where’s Jerry?”

“He’s fine,” Harriet assures me. “He woke up two days after the attack. You took two weeks, my dear. The royal healers have been working on you around the clock. You nearly died.” She wipes her eyes. “We didn’t know if you would ever wake up. Your injuries were life-threatening, and whatever Vivian gave you, it temporarily disconnected you from your wolf.”

“Is Vivian—”

“She’s dead,” Cedric says bluntly. “She died far too easily. But not before she answered a few questions.”

“I see.” I don’t know what else to say. I feel so tired. “Can I go to sleep for a while?”

Cedric and Harriet exchange a look, and the latter nods. “I’ll bring up some food first. You can sleep after you eat.”

Cedric sits by me after she leaves the room. “I thought I was going to lose you. I never want to go through that again.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my head still too foggy for me to actually feel anything.

When the food arrives, Cedric feeds me every bite with his own hands. He tries to give some to Finn, but my son is only willing to eat if I feed him myself. He still doesn’t shift back, however.

When I’m done eating, my mate lies down with me and brings Finn to sleep between us. Harriet enters the room, removes the dishes, and turns down the lights. “Sleep. You all need some rest now.”

I don’t know what that means, but surrounded by my family, I feel safe, and I let myself slip away.

 

  

It takes me another whole week to recover. Information is fed to me in bits. But by the time I’m walking around, nobody has told me what happened in the lab. And every time I ask questions, my attention is diverted elsewhere. I do get some answers, though, especially about why the palace guards were nowhere to be seen. They had been drawn away by the enemy.

I finally manage to track Jerry down, and I sit with him. The royal healer looks like he has aged twenty years. With Finn in my arms, I study the healer. “What happened, Jerry? I need you to tell me. No more hiding the truth. Where is Maya? Why hasn’t she come to see me yet? Why is everybody avoiding talking about her?” I haven’t been allowed to leave the palace building, so I haven’t been able to go to her cottage.

Jerry buries his face in his hands. “Maya is gone.”

“Gone?” I stare at him, confused. “Where did she go?”

Jerry is silent. “Cassian.”

“What about Cassian?”

Then, Jerry finally tells me what happened that fateful night.

“Maya called me to the lab. She had gotten the test results. We managed to find out how the victims were being kidnapped. They were being given a specific formula that was able to disconnect them from their animal, something that should be impossible.” He looks at me intently. “The same formula was given to both of us. That’s why you weren’t able to heal properly. I reached out to the intelligence unit, and it turns out the person who was in charge of Harold’s medical examiner report was Cassian. He deleted those two pages. The two shifters who died while looking into this case had apparently come far too close to the truth. They were able to figure out that Harold’s file was accessed by Cassian, who was studying Harold’s lineage. All of the shifters who were kidnapped had lineages that went back to a very specific time period.”

“I don’t understand.”

A voice from my left says, “Cassian was a member of the Silver Ring Organization, the same group that killed Cedric’s parents. He was also the one who sidetracked the guards and helped Vivian escape.” I look over, still reeling from all this information, and see Erik standing in the doorway. He enters the room. “It’s good to see you up and about. I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit. I’ve had my hands full, what with the Eastern royal family being murdered and all.”

“Murdered?” I gape at him in alarm. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?”

“You’re still too delicate right now,” Erik says gently. “And ‘murdered’ is the wrong word. They were executed. The Eastern royal family was in cahoots with the Silver Ring Organization. From what we understand, the Eastern royals had been working with this group for decades. They were kidnapping shifters. Vivian told us the gist of it. Her father and uncle were fully involved, as were most of the noble families of the East. We spared the only child from the royal family, an innocent boy. He will be the new king, and in the meantime, a delegate will be appointed to help him run the kingdom.”

Erik sits down beside us, looking exhausted.

“What a mess.” I look between him and Jerry. “And Cassian was working with them?”

Erik nods.

“I remember seeing him and Maya walking toward—”

“He attacked me and dragged Maya away,” Jerry says. “If you saw her with him, they weren’t out for a stroll together. He was taking her.”

“Oh no,” I groan. Bile rises in my throat. I could’ve stopped him. What have I done? “Have you found her?”

Erik shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Leanna.”

“We have to look for her!”

“It’s useless. Cedric sent his best trackers after them, and they came back empty-handed. The Silver Ring Organization has a base that we can’t find.”

“But we can keep trying—”

“We will. I will,” Erik assures me. “There is too much chaos in the three kingdoms, and you are far too weak right now. So, I will be continuing to search from here. You need to go back to the North with Cedric and work on your health and on your kingdom.”

“I can’t abandon my friend.” I get to my feet.

Erik and Jerry exchange a look, and then Jerry says heavily, “We believe she’s dead.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “You’re wrong.”