The Signature That Shouldn't Exist
1949 Words
The Signature That Shouldn't Exist
“What if he did?”
The question stayed between Kael and me.
The medical page trembled in my hands.
Darius’s signature sat beneath the authorization code as if it had always belonged there.
I knew that handwriting.
I had once treasured it.
Now it made me sick.
Kael took the page from me before I tore it in half.
“Don’t destroy evidence.”
“You think it’s fake.”
“I think it’s convenient.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
His silver eyes stayed on the signature.
“But someone delivered exactly the page we needed, exactly when we needed it, with a message telling you whom to blame.”
Rowan leaned against the table.
“That usually means either someone is helping us…”
“…or controlling what we see,” Kael finished.
I looked at the page again.
“Darius was there.”
Both men looked at me.
“When?”
I closed my eyes.
A memory I had not thought about in years surfaced slowly.
“I was seventeen.”
White walls.
The smell of antiseptic.
Dr. Varrin preparing an injection.
And Darius sitting beside me.
“He came to the clinic with me.”
Kael’s expression sharpened.
“During one of the treatments?”
“Yes.”
“Did he see what they gave you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
My voice cracked.
Nyra stirred inside me.
Look deeper.
I hated when she did that.
But I obeyed.
The memory returned in pieces.
My hands had been shaking.
Darius had taken one of them.
He had told me not to be afraid.
Dr. Varrin had filled a syringe with pale blue liquid.
Blue.
Exactly like the vial Mara had used.
My eyes opened.
“I remember the color.”
Kael said nothing.
“It was blue.”
Rowan’s expression changed.
“The suppressant?”
“Mara’s test reagent was blue.”
“That doesn’t prove the injection was the same compound,” Kael said.
I stared at him.
“Are you defending Darius?”
“No. I’m defending facts.”
“That is incredibly annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
I looked away.
“Darius held my hand while Varrin injected me.”
Kael’s voice lowered.
“That means he was present. It does not mean he knew.”
A sharp pain moved through my chest.
I wanted him to be wrong.
I also wanted him to be right.
That was the worst part.
Mara arrived ten minutes later carrying two old medical books.
She examined the original record, then the signature.
“It could be genuine.”
My stomach dropped.
“But?”
“But the ink is wrong.”
I looked up.
“What?”
She pointed at the signature.
“This page is at least seven years old. The signature looks older, but not as old as the rest of the writing.”
Rowan leaned closer.
“Added later?”
“Possibly.”
Kael’s mouth hardened.
“So someone may have forged Darius’s authorization after the treatment.”
“Or copied his signature later,” Mara said.
My heartbeat slowed slightly.
Not relief.
Just uncertainty.
“Can you prove it?”
“With proper testing, maybe.”
Kael looked at Rowan.
“Send a sample to our archive lab. Quietly.”
Rowan nodded.
I folded my arms.
“And until then?”
Kael looked at me.
“Until then, you do nothing reckless.”
“That sounds suspiciously specific.”
“Because I’ve met you.”
“We met yesterday.”
“It was a productive day.”
Mara smiled.
I did not.
“What if Darius knew?”
Kael’s expression became serious.
“Then we deal with that when we know.”
“And if he didn’t?”
“Then someone is trying very hard to make you believe he did.”
That frightened me more.
Across the border, Darius stood over Dr. Varrin’s desk.
Celeste sat rigidly near the window.
The old healer looked twenty years older than he had the day before.
“Start again,” Darius said.
Varrin swallowed.
“Your father created the medical committee.”
“I know.”
“He ordered us to study unusual wolf manifestations.”
“Aria’s wolf was unusual?”
“We suspected it might be.”
“Why?”
Varrin looked toward Celeste.
Darius saw it.
“Why do you keep looking at her?”
Celeste stood.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Sit down.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I am not one of your soldiers.”
“No. You’re the woman who was supposed to become my Luna, and somehow my healer keeps looking at you every time I ask about Aria.”
Silence.
Celeste sat.
Darius turned back to Varrin.
“Answer me.”
Varrin’s hands shook.
“Aria’s mother came from a bloodline your father considered dangerous.”
Darius went still.
“What bloodline?”
“I was never told its full history.”
“That is not good enough.”
“There were old reports. Wolves who resisted Alpha commands. Lunas whose presence strengthened entire packs. Your father believed the line had disappeared.”
“And Aria?”
“Her blood tests suggested otherwise.”
Darius felt his wolf surge.
“So you suppressed her.”
Varrin looked down.
“I followed orders.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
Darius stared at him.
“My father died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Aria continued receiving treatment after that.”
Varrin said nothing.
Darius stepped closer.
“Whose orders did you follow then?”
Varrin’s face lost color.
Celeste rose suddenly.
“We should stop this.”
Darius turned.
“Why?”
“Because Silvercrest is already unstable. Digging through decisions made years ago will not bring Aria back.”
Darius’s wolf snarled.
“Bring her back?”
Celeste froze.
“That is what this is about, isn’t it?” he said. “You think if I stop asking questions, she disappears.”
“I think you rejected her.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then live with it.”
Darius stared at her.
For the first time, something in Celeste’s face looked unfamiliar.
Not jealousy.
Fear.
He turned back to Varrin.
“Who authorized Aria’s treatments after my father died?”
Varrin’s lips parted.
A crash shattered the office window.
Darius moved instantly.
A black dart struck Varrin in the neck.
The healer gasped.
Collapsed.
“Guards!”
Darius caught him before he hit the floor.
Foam appeared at Varrin’s lips.
Celeste screamed.
Darius ripped the dart out.
“Get anyone!”
The door burst open.
Two guards rushed inside.
Varrin seized Darius’s sleeve.
His eyes were already losing focus.
“Not… her wolf…”
Darius leaned closer.
“What?”
“The child…”
His grip weakened.
“What about the child?”
Varrin whispered one final word.
“Key.”
Then his hand fell.
I woke from a nightmare with Nyra growling inside me.
Someone is near.
I sat up.
The guest room was dark.
Moonlight crossed the floor.
A faint sound came from the balcony.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
I reached for the knife on the bedside table.
Kael had insisted I keep one.
I had mocked him.
I was no longer mocking him.
I moved toward the balcony door.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing.
Nyra pressed closer to the surface.
Do not open it.
For once, I listened.
I crossed to the hallway instead.
Kael’s room was two doors away.
I raised my hand to knock.
The door opened before I touched it.
He stood there in black sleep pants, a knife already in his hand.
I looked at the knife.
“You sleep with that?”
“You don’t?”
“Apparently I do now.”
His eyes sharpened.
“What happened?”
“Someone’s on my balcony.”
He was past me before I finished the sentence.
We entered my room together.
The balcony door was still closed.
Kael opened it.
Cold air rushed inside.
No one was there.
Only a black envelope rested on the stone floor.
“Don’t touch it,” he said.
“I know.”
He crouched.
No scent.
No seal.
No name.
Rowan arrived seconds later with two guards.
Kael pointed at the envelope.
“Search the grounds.”
Rowan left immediately.
Kael picked up the envelope with a cloth.
Inside was a photograph.
My breath stopped.
It showed me at seventeen.
Sitting in Silvercrest’s clinic.
Dr. Varrin stood behind me.
Darius sat beside me holding my hand.
And on the table…
a syringe filled with pale blue liquid.
My knees weakened.
Kael caught my elbow.
“Aria.”
“I remembered it.”
He looked at the image.
“So someone else did too.”
There was writing on the back.
I turned the photograph over.
HE WAS THERE.
My chest tightened.
Below those words was another line.
ASK HIM WHY HE LET THEM DO IT.
I stared until the letters blurred.
Kael took the photograph.
“This is manipulation.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“He was there.”
“Yes.”
“He watched.”
“We don’t know what he understood.”
“Why do you keep protecting him?”
Kael’s expression hardened.
“I’m protecting you from making a decision based on evidence someone is feeding you one piece at a time.”
I pulled away.
“What decision?”
“To hate the person they want you to hate.”
His words stopped me.
Nyra went quiet.
Kael looked toward the balcony.
“Whoever is doing this knows where you are.”
Fear crawled across my skin.
Inside Nightfall.
Inside Kael’s residence.
Someone had reached my room.
“Then I’m putting everyone here in danger.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
His eyes met mine.
“Because the danger followed you here.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
He turned the photograph over again.
At the bottom edge, almost hidden beneath the frame, was something neither of us had noticed.
A symbol.
A crescent moon split by a vertical line.
Kael went completely still.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“Kael.”
“I’ve seen this before.”
“Where?”
His jaw tightened.
“On bodies.”
Cold moved through me.
“What bodies?”
“Wolves killed along the eastern border three years ago.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who killed them?”
“We never found out.”
Kael looked at the symbol again.
“But every victim had the same mark carved into their skin.”
Nyra growled.
They are coming.
Then something struck the bedroom window.
Glass cracked.
Kael pushed me behind him.
A small metal cylinder rolled across the floor.
Smoke hissed from one end.
Kael kicked it toward the balcony and shouted for the guards.
I covered my mouth.
The cylinder stopped against the broken glass.
Attached to it was a strip of paper.
Kael grabbed it before the smoke swallowed the room.
Only one sentence was written there.
He read it.
Then looked at me.
For the first time since I had met him, Alpha Kael Blackthorn looked afraid.
“What does it say?”
He hesitated.
“Kael.”
He handed me the paper.
My hands shook as I read the words.
Your wolf was never the real target. Your child is.
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