The Cursed Vampire King

Chapter 4 The Poisoned Truth

(Fenrir's POV)

Old blood and damp stone fouled the dungeon air. I shoved the pack's chief apothecary against the wall, my claws buried in his shoulder through his robe.

"Why is the cure failing? The Elder is dying. The guards are sick. Tell me why."

Black fluid spotted the old wolf's gray muzzle when he coughed. The infection had reached him too, and he had hidden the lesions beneath his sleeves.

"The formula was incomplete, my lord. Lady Selene supplied its structure. Lady Elara's Holy Blood was the binding agent that purified the toxins."

I let go. He slid down the wall and pressed his robe over the holes my claws had left.

"Impossible."

Elara's research notes still lay in a corner where I had ordered the laboratory cleared. Boots had trampled the pages, and leaking compounds had stained the lower sheets.

I kicked aside broken glass until I found a torn page beneath a vial.

The cure's molecular structure filled the page. Elara's precise handwriting covered the margin with the final calculations.

Selene had copied their shape into her presentation notes. She had never recorded what each ratio controlled.

*Without the Holy Blood as a catalyst, the base elements will become corrosive.*

The warning had been under my feet since the day I emptied her laboratory. I read it twice, then looked at the black fluid on the apothecary's mouth.

I had put the crown on Selene and sent the only working cure out of my territory with Elara.

(Elara’s POV)

Reports reached the Night Court in order. First came relapses among the Wolfguard. Then Fenrir closed the infirmary, declared quarantine, and hid the first deaths.

One month after the banquet, Kaelen handed me a proclamation sealed by the wolf pack. Fresh copies had already been posted at every allied court.

"Your sister has found another way to reassure them."

Selene claimed she carried a pure-blooded Alpha heir, a gift from the Moon Goddess and proof that the pack's future remained secure.

The proclamation invited every allied clan to a public "Blessing of the Womb" at the next full moon.

I rolled up the parchment. An heir might quiet the pack and buy Fenrir time, but Selene had been drinking her own unstable cure.

I had seen what those compounds did to reproductive tissue. Her body could not carry a child.

On the night of the ceremony, Kaelen had a scrying bowl brought to my chambers.

"We should watch."

The water showed Selene on the great dais with both hands over a stomach swollen far beyond one month of pregnancy.

Fenrir stood beside her in ceremonial black. Deep lines had appeared around his mouth since the banquet.

The High Witch began the ritual with both hands raised. Her chant drew silver light down from the ceiling and wrapped it around Selene.

The pack watched without moving. Even the sick guards had been brought into the hall to witness the blessing.

The light flickered and turned a sickly green.

The Witch jumped back as the green light reached her hands.

"This is a defilement! Her womb holds no cradle. It is an infected nest of goblin blood-leeches!"

The hall gasped. Selene went white, and both hands pressed harder against the false curve beneath her gown.

Fenrir seized her wrist. "What did you take?"

"Nothing! I swear. I only wanted to give you an heir."

A scream from the honor guard stopped her.

One of Selene's young personal guards convulsed on the floor. Everyone knew he drank the strengthening tonics she supplied before patrol.

His spine arched until the joints cracked. A barbed black limb tore through the back of his silver armor.

The limb struck the dais and pulled him forward. More black growths moved beneath his skin as his body twisted away from the shape of a wolf.

Everyone looked at Selene. She closed her mouth.

In the scrying bowl, the anger left Fenrir's face. He released Selene's wrist and stared at the guard, then at the green light around her body.

Kaelen rested a hand on my shoulder. The water rippled beneath his touch.

Fenrir lifted his head toward the far wall of the ritual chamber. For one second, his eyes seemed fixed on mine through the bowl and the miles of cursed forest between us.

He had read the torn page by then. Soon he would come for the blood named in its margin.