Chapter 5: The Healer’s Touch
706 Words
The Blackwood Pack infirmary was a scene of chaos. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the sour stench of the "Silver Rot"—a deadly plague that turned a werewolf’s internal organs into useless sludge.
Groups of pack doctors were huddled together, whispering in panicked tones. When I walked in, they stopped and stared.
"Is this a joke?" the Head Physician, an old man named Dr. Grey who had once treated me like a nuisance, scoffed. "We are dealing with a biological catastrophe, and you bring a woman and three children into a sterile zone?"
I didn't even look at him. I snapped on a pair of black surgical gloves. "Jax, set up the bio-scanner. Leo, Maya, keep the perimeter clear. If anyone touches my equipment without permission, break their fingers."
"Yes, Mommy!" my children chirped in unison.
The pack doctors gasped as four-year-old Jax pulled a device from his backpack that looked fifty years ahead of anything the pack owned.
I walked straight to the first bed. It was a young warrior, his skin graying, his breathing ragged. I placed my hand over his chest. I didn't need a stethoscope. I closed my eyes and let my inner wolf, the White Lunar, channel her energy.
A soft, ethereal silver glow began to radiate from my palms.
"Lunar energy..." Dr. Grey whispered, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. "That’s impossible. Only the royal bloodlines... only the legends..."
"Quiet," I snapped.
I felt the rot inside the warrior. It wasn't a natural disease. It felt like... dark magic. A curse disguised as a virus. My light surged, burning away the gray veins on the warrior’s chest. Within seconds, his breathing stabilized, and the color returned to his face.
"He’s... he’s breathing normally!" a nurse cried out.
I moved to the next bed, and the next. I was a whirlwind of precision and power. For two hours, I worked without stopping, saving life after life that the pack had already given up on.
By the time I finished the first ward, the pack doctors were looking at me as if I were a goddess. Caleb was standing at the doorway, watching me with an intensity that felt like fire on my skin. He looked confused, mesmerized, and utterly broken.
"Aria," he stepped toward me as I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead. "How? You were wolfless. You were supposed to be... nothing."
"I was never nothing, Caleb," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "I was just suppressed by a pack that didn't deserve my light. And by an Alpha who was too busy looking at power to notice the treasure in front of him."
Caleb’s jaw tightened. "The children. I saw their eyes, Aria. They have the golden eyes of the Lycan lineage. But I am a Blue-Eye Alpha. If they aren't mine... who is their father?"
The room went cold. The warriors nearby stopped to listen. This was the question everyone was dying to ask.
I felt a smirk touch my lips. "Their father is a man who makes Alphas like you look like lapdogs, Caleb. Their father is someone you would tremble to even name."
"I don't care who he is!" Caleb roared, his Alpha aura exploding in a wave of jealousy. "You were mine first! You were my mate!"
"You rejected that right," I reminded him, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "The moment you said those words, you became a stranger to me. My children have nothing to do with you."
"Mommy!" Jax suddenly shouted from the corner.
I turned instantly. Jax was staring at his scanner, his small face pale. "The virus... it’s not coming from outside, Mommy. I traced the signal. The source of the poison is inside the pack house."
My eyes snapped to the doorway, where Elena was standing, her face turning a ghostly shade of white.
"Inside the pack house?" I repeated, my voice echoing through the silent infirmary.
I looked at Elena, who was backing away into the shadows. The mystery was thickening, and it seemed my "return" was about to uncover more than just a medical crisis. It was about to uncover a murder plot.
- Writer
