Chapter 7 Close Proximity, Cold Hands

Alpha Kael didn't speak. His face showed cold fury, but he took the dark talisman I offered. The act was quick and silent, witnessed by his entire, terrified Pack. He was putting their survival before his pride, the very thing he had accused me of lacking.

"It is done, Elyra," Kael finally said, his eyes promising a reckoning once this was over. "My word is bond. You have control. Now, show me your magic."

I regarded him with cool professionalism, as if he were just an annoying detail. "Control means privacy, Alpha. I need the quarantine ward secured and the full medical records of the first afflicted wolves. Your Beta, Roric, will be my runner. I trust no one else."

Kael glanced at Roric and then back at me, realizing I was already assessing his internal structure. Roric was one of the few witnesses to my rejection. Assigning him to me was a calculated risk that put my former Beta at my service.

"As you command, Healer," Kael said, the title tasting like ash on his tongue.

The Examination

The quarantine ward was in the oldest, coldest part of the Pack House, fitting for a sickness linked to ancient fear. The air was thick with the scent of weak wolves, failing shifters, and the bitter smell of Wolfsbane residue.

I ordered Roric to secure the door and send away the existing Pack Healers. They grumbled at the insult, but my authority, backed by Kael's blood oath, was absolute.

My first patient was the warrior whose blood sample the Elder had shown in the scrying pool. He was unconscious, his body stuck in a half-shift, claws extended, fur patchy and thin. He was dying.

"I need your hand, Roric," I said, pulling off my thick, runed gloves.

Roric flinched, not from the order, but at the sight of my hands. They were pale, thin, and unmarked except for the faint, silvery scar that pulsed almost invisibly on the back of my right hand, the lasting mark of Kael's rejection.

I placed my cold, bare hands on the patient's chest. I didn't summon my white, healing light. Instead, I activated the violet Wolfsbane energy Mora had taught me.

The energy acted as a probe. It wasn't meant to cure; it traced the infection. The violet light flowed into the warrior, mapping the damage. The sickness wasn't a plague; it was a corruption. The lingering Wolfsbane from Kael's wound had settled into the Pack's mate-bond energy field. Whenever a strong male wolf shifted near Kael, the poison transferred, damaging their ability to control their change safely.

I pulled back, my face impassive. "The Pack Elder was right. It is a curse."

Roric, watching the violet light fade, looked terrified. "Can you... can you lift it?"

"I can," I replied simply. "But the cure requires time, focus, and complete control over the source of the infection."

The Source of the Infection

The source of the infection was Kael. I ensured he would be my next and most important patient.

I walked out of the quarantine ward and found Kael waiting, pacing the great hall like a caged beast.

"Well? What is your diagnosis?" he demanded, impatience cracking his composed facade.

I didn't answer immediately. I walked slowly around him, my eyes fixed on his body, not his face. I was searching for the moment the Wolfsbane had entered his system.

"Your Pack is dying, Alpha Kael, because their leader is infected," I announced for the guards to hear. "The sickness started with you. You carry the source of the corruption."

Kael's eyes narrowed, his Alpha aura filled with dangerous denial. "You dare accuse your host? I am perfectly well."

"Are you?" I challenged, meeting his gaze. "I am the only one with authority here, Alpha. Now, drop your tunic."

The command was intimate, public, and shocking. Kael hesitated for a long moment. He was used to giving commands, not following them. But the weight of the talisman, the sight of his sick warriors, and the Elder's anxious face forced him to obey. He slowly pulled the tunic over his head, exposing the massive, scarred area of his chest and arms.

I walked directly toward him. He was a magnificent creature, every muscle lined with lethal strength. I stopped inches from him. My eyes fell on the small, barely visible scar on his forearm-the site of the Wolfsbane dagger.

I reached out my bare right hand. The hand that had healed him. The hand that bore the faint, pulsing mark of the rejection. The hand that felt perfectly cold now.

I placed my palm over the scar.

The moment our skin touched, the closeness of the broken mate bond slammed into me. It wasn't the searing pain of the past; it was a cold, sharp electric shock, as if two violently opposed magnets met. Kael flinched, the skin under my palm rippling.

He caught a faint hint of my true scent-Elara. But before he could process it, the glamour snapped back, burying my identity under the scent of herbs and professionalism.

"The Wolfsbane," I whispered, my voice flat. "It is not gone. Your earlier self-healing sealed the poison deep into your very soul. It is slowly undermining your ability to shift. Each time your inner wolf fights the toxin, the resulting energy leaks into the Pack."

I pulled my hand away, leaving his skin tingling with residual cold. Kael stared at me, his breathing ragged. The denial was gone, replaced by deep horror. I had just confirmed his greatest secret and worst fear, a fear he thought he'd put to rest with a dagger and an oath.

"How do you cure it?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

I turned and picked up my satchel. "The cure is simple, Alpha Kael. Proximity. You must be held in check while I work on your warriors. You will be my main patient, my shadow, my assistant. You will eat, work, and sleep near me. You will follow my every order until the contamination is contained."

I looked at him, my expression unreadable. I had him trapped. He would constantly feel the agony of the broken mate bond, all while thinking I was a stranger he needed to survive.

"Your humiliation is just beginning, Alpha. Do not question me again."

I walked toward the Elder, leaving Kael standing shirtless and completely under my command. The stage was set for the intimate, painful revenge I desired.