Of Blood And Lies

Chapter 10: A Shift In The Air

{Avina}

I turned back to Elijah, my hands moving on autopilot. I checked his breathing—shallow but present. His pupils were dilated, unresponsive. The wounds weren’t healing. Confirmation.

The other healers returned with the supplies, setting them on a tray beside the table. I grabbed the IV kit first, my fingers trembling as I tore open the packaging. I’d done this before—helped my mother when she’d fallen ill, when we couldn’t afford a real healer. My hands remembered the motions even if my mind was screaming.

I found a vein in Elijah’s arm, inserted the needle, and secured it with tape. The saline began to drip, a steady rhythm that felt like a lifeline. One step done. While the IV worked to stabilize his fluids, I turned to the herbs they’d brought.

Monkshood root—the irony wasn’t lost on me that the antidote shared a family with the poison itself. I grabbed a mortar and pestle from the medical cabinet, crushed the dried root with practiced efficiency, then added the yarrow and silver nettle. The mixture released a sharp, bitter scent that cut through the antiseptic air.

I poured the powder into a small glass vial, added a measure of distilled water from one of the bottles, and shook it until the herbs dissolved into a murky green liquid. Not pleasant, but effective.

My mother had taught me this—knowledge passed down through generations of omega lineage, wolves who lived on the margins of society and had to survive without access to professional healers or expensive antidotes. This was wolf heritage medicine, the kind of healing knowledge that had kept our people alive when the world tried to destroy us.

“He’s unconscious,” I said, glancing at the healer who hovered nearby. “He can’t swallow. If I try to force it down his throat, he’ll choke or aspirate. The IV is the only safe way to get the antidote into his bloodstream—and it’ll work faster. The poison is already in his blood. This needs to go directly there.”

I grabbed a sterile syringe from the tray, drew the antidote solution into it, and tapped out the air bubbles with practiced precision. Then I located the secondary port on the IV line—a small rubber injection site just below where the tubing connected to the needle in Elijah’s arm.

I inserted the syringe into the port and pushed the plunger slowly, watching the murky green liquid flow into the line and mix with the saline. The antidote would travel directly into his vein, bypassing his digestive system entirely.

Faster. More efficient. And most importantly, it wouldn’t kill him in the process.

“There,” I murmured, withdrawing the syringe and setting it aside. “The antidote will neutralize the poison in his bloodstream and allow his regenerative abilities to restart.”

Now the wounds.

The door creaked open behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. The air had already shifted. Grew heavier.

Dutton.

He leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his chest, one boot crossed over the other. The uniform stretched across the corded muscle of his shoulders and chest—a build forged in combat, all lethal efficiency.

His red hair was pulled back into a bun from sharp, angular features that seemed carved from stone. And those eyes—those unnatural, burning crimson eyes—fixed on me with an intensity that felt like a physical weight.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just watched, and the weight of his attention made it impossible to breathe.

I forced myself to ignore him.

To focus on Elijah.

On the task.

On anything but the way Dutton’s gaze seemed to strip away every layer of defense I had left. But I could feel him assessing me—measuring my competence, my worthiness to touch the prince. Every tremor in my hands, every hesitation, would be cataloged and judged. If I failed here, if Elijah died on this table, Dutton would witness it. He would know. And beneath that suffocating weight of scrutiny, something flickered—a ghost of recognition that made no sense, mixing with the certainty that he was testing whether I deserved to be here at all.

“Hydrogen peroxide,” I said to the nearest healer, holding out my hand. She placed the bottle in my palm, her fingers brushing mine. I didn’t flinch this time.

Progress.

I uncapped the bottle, and the sharp, acrid scent of peroxide filled the room. Elijah lay motionless, his chest barely rising with each shallow breath. The wounds gaped open, angry and raw, refusing to close. This was going to hurt. Even unconscious, his body would react.

“Hold him down,” I said quietly, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands.

The healers exchanged glances. Hesitation. Doubt. I could see it in their eyes—the question of whether they should take orders from this bloodstained woman who’d crashed into their world uninvited.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I froze for a fraction of a second, then pulled it out. The screen lit up with a cascade of notifications—five missed calls from Mom, and text messages stacked on top of each other, each one more frantic than the last.

Mom: Where are you???

Mom: Avina it’s getting dark

Dad: We’re worried sick. Please call us.

Mom: AVINA ELIZABETH SINCLAIR! Answer your phone. NOW.

Mom: If you don’t respond in the next 10 minutes I swear to the Goddess!

The last message was timestamped from twenty minutes ago. My stomach dropped. I’d been gone since late afternoon. My parents had been panicking for hours. I shoved the phone back into my pocket, my jaw clenching. I’d have to explain everything to them. Everything. But not now. Not until Elijah was stable and I could figure out how to even begin to tell them where I was and why. The thought of their fear, their worry, their helplessness—it crystallized something in me.

I had to get out of here. As soon as the King released me, I had to get home.

“Now,” I snapped, my patience fraying and my urgency sharpening. “Unless you want to explain to Dutton over there why you let the prince thrash himself off this table.”

That got them moving. They positioned themselves around Elijah—one at his shoulders, one at his hips, one at his legs. Their hands pressed down, firm and unyielding. I took a breath. Steadied myself. Then I tipped the bottle.

The peroxide hit the first wound and hissed on contact, bubbling and foaming as it reacted with the infection embedded in his flesh. Elijah’s body convulsed. His back arched off the table, a guttural scream tearing from his throat even though his eyes remained closed. The healers struggled to hold him, their knuckles white with effort.

“It’s alright,” I murmured, my voice low and soothing even as I poured more peroxide into the next gash. “It’s alright. I know it hurts. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Another scream.

His legs kicked out, nearly breaking free, but the healer at his ankles held firm. I moved to the wound on his chest—the deepest one, the one that had bled the most. My hands didn’t shake as I poured. The peroxide flooded the gash, hissing and bubbling, and Elijah thrashed so violently that the table itself shook.

“Hold him!” I barked, my focus absolute. I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t hesitate. The infection had to come out, all of it, or his regenerative abilities would never kick in.

I worked methodically, moving from wound to wound, pouring and cleaning, ignoring the screams, ignoring the way my own hands were shaking now, ignoring the tears that blurred my vision. This was survival. This was what it took to save a life. Finally—finally, the last wound was clean. I set the bottle down and grabbed a cloth, dipping it in the bucket of water a healer had brought.

I wiped away the excess peroxide, the blood, the remnants of infection. Elijah’s thrashing slowed. His screams faded to whimpers, then to nothing. His body went limp, surrendering once more to unconsciousness.

I stepped back, my chest heaving, and watched.

For a moment, nothing happened. The room was silent except for the beeping of the heart monitor and the ragged sound of my own breathing. Then—there. A flicker of color in Elijah’s cheeks. The faintest flush of pink replacing the deathly pale. His breathing deepened, steadied, became less labored. The wounds began to close. Slowly at first, then faster, the edges knitting together as his regenerative abilities roared back to life.

Within minutes, the gashes that had been gaping and raw were reduced to angry red lines. Within an hour, they’d be scars. Within a day, they’d be gone entirely. Relief hit me like a tidal wave. My knees buckled, and I caught myself on the edge of the table, my hands gripping the metal so hard it hurt. He was going to live. He was going to be okay.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and allowed myself a small, shaky smile.

“How is he?” Dutton’s voice cut through the silence, cold and sharp. “Will he live?”

I turned to face him, meeting those red eyes with as much composure as I could muster. “Yes,” I said simply. “He’ll live.”

Dutton’s expression didn’t change. He studied me for a long moment, his gaze clinical, assessing—like I was a specimen under glass rather than the woman who’d just saved his Prince’s life.

“Impressive work,” he said finally, his tone measured, almost conversational. “The precision of your treatment. The confidence. You didn’t hesitate once.” He tilted his head slightly, eyes tracking every micro-expression on my face. “Most civilians would have panicked. But you… you knew exactly what to do.”

Something in his voice made my skin prickle. This wasn’t gratitude. This was evaluation.

“I did what needed to be done,” I said carefully. “He was dying.”

“Yes he was,” Dutton took a step closer, his boots silent on the polished floor. “Which brings me to my first question. Where exactly did you learn about wolfsbane poisoning?”

The shift was so subtle I almost missed it—the way his posture changed, became predatory. Watchful.