The Man Who Silenced My Wolf
1999 Words
The Man Who Silenced My Wolf
“Someone made sure she couldn’t.”
Mara’s words stayed in the room long after she stopped speaking.
I stared at the black liquid in the vial.
My blood.
My proof.
For years, Silvercrest had called me defective.
Wolfless.
Weak.
I had believed them because doctors had told me the same thing.
Now I knew someone had helped create the weakness they blamed me for.
“Who uses that suppressant?” I asked.
“Very few healers,” Mara said. “It was developed for wolves whose shifts became dangerous.”
“Could Dr. Varrin have obtained it?”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
Kael’s expression went cold.
“How long would repeated doses suppress a wolf?”
“Months. Years. In rare cases, permanently.”
Nyra growled inside me.
They tried to erase me.
“No.”
Kael stepped closer.
“Aria.”
“They tried to kill my wolf.”
Mara’s voice softened.
“We don’t know their intention.”
“Control,” Kael said.
I looked at him.
“If someone knew what your wolf could do, suppressing her may have been safer than killing you.”
“For whom?”
He met my eyes.
“That is what we find out.”
“What do we do?”
Kael looked at Mara.
“Can you identify the compound?”
“With time.”
“How much?”
“A day, perhaps two.”
“Do it.”
Then he turned toward the door.
“Rowan.”
The Beta appeared almost immediately.
I frowned.
“Does he live outside every room?”
Rowan shrugged.
“Occupational hazard.”
Kael ignored us.
“I want everything Nightfall has on Dr. Elias Varrin. Education, pack connections, financial records, travel.”
“Quietly?”
“Very.”
“And Silvercrest records?”
“If you can get them without alerting Ravencrest.”
Rowan nodded and left.
I crossed my arms.
“And what makes this your problem?”
“You are under my protection.”
“For thirty days.”
“That is still long enough to take an attempted poisoning seriously.”
“I wasn’t poisoned.”
Mara lifted the black vial.
“You were.”
The word landed hard.
Not treated.
Not unlucky.
Poisoned.
I sat down before my legs decided for me.
Kael crouched in front of me.
“Until we know who did this, you don’t eat or drink anything that hasn’t come through Mara, Rowan, or me.”
“That sounds like a cage.”
His jaw tightened.
“It sounds like keeping you alive.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you?”
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
Kael continued.
“Trust is earned. Until then, verify everything. Watch Mara prepare your medicine. Smell your food. Choose who stays near you.”
Mara raised an eyebrow.
“Thank you for making me sound suspicious.”
“You are suspicious.”
“I delivered you.”
“And I’ve been regretting it ever since.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Kael looked back at me.
“You choose your escort.”
“Anyone?”
“Within reason.”
“I choose no one.”
“No.”
I glared at him.
“There. That was a command.”
“That was me refusing to let you get murdered to prove a philosophical point.”
Mara hid a laugh.
“Fine,” I said. “Mara.”
The healer blinked.
“Me?”
“You have needles. You’re terrifying.”
“I like her,” Mara told Kael.
He stood.
“So do I.”
The words came too easily.
Kael seemed to realize it at the same moment I did.
His face returned to stone.
“I mean she is difficult enough to survive here.”
“Excellent recovery,” Mara said.
I looked away before either of them saw the heat climbing into my face.
Mara made me eat before she allowed me out of the clinic.
She prepared everything herself while I watched.
“Happy?” she asked.
“No poison?”
“Only vegetables.”
“Worse.”
For the first time since leaving Silvercrest, I laughed.
The sound felt strange.
Outside, Nightfall was fully awake.
Children ran between houses. Warriors trained in an open field. Shopkeepers raised shutters. Nobody looked as though they lived under the rule of a monster.
A pair of women stopped talking when I passed.
Their eyes dropped toward my stomach.
I stiffened.
Mara noticed.
“You’ll be interesting for a few days.”
“That is reassuring.”
“Then someone else will cause a scandal.”
“I can only hope.”
We reached the training field.
Kael stood in the center, sparring with Rowan.
Neither wore a shirt.
I immediately looked somewhere else.
Nyra did not.
Interesting.
“Stop that.”
Mara glanced at me.
“Stop what?”
“Nothing.”
Nyra sounded almost amused.
Kael knocked Rowan onto his back.
Rowan groaned.
“That was unnecessary.”
“You were distracted.”
“I was checking on our guest.”
Kael’s gaze found me.
I considered walking away.
Too late.
He approached.
“You ate?”
“Yes, Father.”
Mara coughed.
Rowan laughed from the ground.
Kael stared at me.
“Do that again and I’ll assign Rowan as your escort.”
I looked at Rowan.
He grinned.
“I apologize.”
“Wise.”
Before Kael could say anything else, a young guard ran toward us.
“Alpha.”
The humor disappeared instantly.
“What?”
“A messenger bird came from the eastern station.”
He handed Kael a folded note.
Kael read it once.
Then again.
“What is it?” I asked.
His eyes lifted.
“Rowan found something.”
By noon, Rowan was waiting outside Mara’s clinic with a thin folder.
Kael joined us moments later.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Varrin worked for Silvercrest for twenty-seven years,” Rowan said. “He served as physician to several high-ranking families and sat on a private medical committee created by Alpha Marcus Ravencrest.”
“Darius’s father?”
Rowan nodded.
“What did the committee do?”
“Most records were sealed.”
Kael handed me a copied page.
At the top was Dr. Varrin’s name.
Below it were dates.
My dates.
Every yearly examination.
Every injection.
Every appointment I had forgotten.
Patient: Aria Vale.
Classification: Delayed Manifestation.
Treatment Protocol: L-17.
“L-17?” I asked.
Mara took the page.
“That could be the binding compound.”
At the bottom of each treatment entry was an authorization code.
RV-01.
Again.
And again.
Every year.
“Who is RV-01?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Kael.
“You know.”
“We have a theory.”
“I’m tired of theories.”
“Ravencrest.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
“Darius?”
“Or his family,” Rowan said quickly. “The code predates Darius becoming Alpha.”
Relief came too quickly.
Kael seemed to read it on my face.
“Do not decide his guilt before we have evidence.”
“That is surprisingly fair.”
“I dislike Ravencrest. I don’t need to invent reasons.”
Mara returned the page.
“There may be another way to identify the code. Silvercrest used hereditary authorization access. An original record may contain an embedded signature.”
Kael looked at Rowan.
“Can you get one?”
Rowan sighed.
“You’re asking if I can steal a sealed medical record from Silvercrest.”
“Yes.”
“No,” I said.
Kael frowned.
“We are not starting a war over my medical file.”
“We won’t.”
“You nearly started one last night.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was in a better mood.”
I stared at him.
“No one crosses the border for this.”
His expression turned serious.
“Then we find another way.”
“You agree?”
“Protecting you does not mean ignoring you.”
The words hit somewhere I was not prepared to examine.
Across the border, Darius Ravencrest had destroyed three glasses before noon.
Celeste watched him from the other side of his office.
“You rejected her, Darius.”
“I know what I did.”
“Do you?”
He stood.
“Careful.”
“I have been careful for three years.”
She touched the crescent pendant at her throat.
“You told me that once you became Alpha, you would choose what was best for Silvercrest.”
“I did.”
“Then act like it.”
His wolf snarled inside him.
Since the bond broke, the animal had been restless.
Searching.
For Aria.
Darius walked toward the window.
“She awakened.”
Celeste went still.
“What?”
“Aria’s wolf.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I felt it at the border.”
Celeste’s face lost color.
Darius turned.
“And she is pregnant.”
Silence.
Then Celeste laughed once.
“No.”
“I smelled it.”
“You cannot be sure it’s yours.”
A growl filled the office.
Celeste stepped back.
“The child is mine.”
Her fingers closed around the pendant.
“And what does that make me?”
Darius had no answer.
That frightened him.
A knock sounded.
Dr. Elias Varrin entered.
“I didn’t summon you.”
“No, Alpha.”
The old healer closed the door.
“But we have a problem.”
He placed a folder on the desk.
Aria Vale’s name was written across the front.
“Why do you have her file?”
“Because Nightfall accessed part of it this morning.”
Darius opened the folder.
His eyes landed on an authorization line.
RV-01.
“What is that?”
Varrin did not answer.
“Doctor.”
“It is a Ravencrest authorization code.”
Darius’s blood went cold.
“Whose?”
Varrin hesitated.
Darius grabbed him by the collar.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Darius released him.
“That’s impossible. I never authorized treatment for Aria.”
“No,” Varrin whispered.
“Then why is my code on her file?”
Varrin looked toward the locked door.
“Because someone wanted it to look as though you did.”
Celeste had gone very still.
Darius noticed.
“Do you know something?”
“No.”
She answered too quickly.
Varrin looked at her.
Only for a second.
But Darius saw it.
So did his wolf.
“Both of you stay here,” he said.
Celeste’s face hardened.
“Darius—”
“Stay.”
She obeyed without argument.
Night had fallen when Rowan knocked on my guest-room door.
He held an envelope.
“What is that?”
“Something delivered to the eastern gate. No sender.”
Kael arrived behind him.
Rowan handed him the envelope first.
Inside was a single original medical page.
My heart started pounding.
“How did someone know we needed this?”
“No idea,” Rowan said.
Kael examined the page, then gave it to me.
It was one of my treatment records from when I was seventeen.
L-17.
Dr. Varrin.
And beneath the authorization code was something the copies had not shown.
A signature.
My hands began to shake.
I knew that handwriting.
I had seen it on birthday cards.
Training notes.
Letters hidden under my pillow when we were younger.
Darius Ravencrest.
My vision blurred.
“No.”
Kael took the page.
His expression changed.
The signature looked real.
Too real.
At the bottom, someone had added a message in fresh black ink.
Four words.
ASK YOUR FORMER MATE.
Nyra snarled inside me.
Kael looked toward the dark window.
“Someone wants you to believe Darius did this.”
I could barely speak.
“What if he did?”
Kael’s silver eyes returned to mine.
“Then we find out why.”
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