Chapter 8 The Price of a Touch

Kael followed me; he had no choice. My first order as interim Pack leader was clear: the Alpha would be confined to a chamber off the quarantine ward under my personal supervision. His isolation aimed to prevent the contamination from spreading, but in reality, it was to ensure constant, unbearable closeness.

The air in the small stone room crackled with silent tension. Kael sat on a narrow cot, watching me as I measured herbs and arranged my tools. His anger simmered in the background, periodically challenging the authority I had taken.

"You have spent hours preparing tinctures for the Betas," he said, his voice deep and sharp.

"Yet you have not given your main patient, the source of the infection, a single dose of anything."

I kept my focus on my work, crushing a handful of bitter root with precision. "My cure is not a potion, Alpha. It's control. The sickness comes from your unrestrained fear of my magic, locked in your wolf's core. To heal the Pack, I must stabilize that core. And that requires being close to a stronger, opposing force."

I knew the truth: my violet energy, tainted by Wolfsbane, served as an antidote to the remaining poison in his system. The only way to keep it in check was proximity, but sharing that would reveal Elara.

"And what force would that be?" he challenged, standing tall.

I met his gaze, a hint of icy mockery in my eyes. "The force of the woman you summoned, Kael. The force of the healer whose judgment you cannot question."

He stepped closer, his Alpha scent-a mix of pine and raw power-overwhelming the clean smell of the herbs. His anger clashed with the binding oath.

"I feel no stability, Elyra. I feel a growing ache. Every minute you are near me, the scar on my arm pulses. It's a distraction that could cost us the Pack."

He spoke of the pain of the broken mate bond, distorted by his sickness. The pull of the connection tugged at him, but glamour and sealed poison led him to believe it was the disease causing the turmoil, not the bond calling out.

I needed him to understand the cost of his refusal, but I also needed him to see it as a necessary sacrifice for his Pack.

"That ache is the poison fighting for control," I said softly, almost in a whisper. "It is your body telling you that the cure is working. But you are not helping. Sit down, Alpha. I need a blood sample.", Alpha. I need a blood sample."

​The Price of a Touch

I produced a small silver lancet. Kael offered his forearm, right over the scarred spot. I took his arm, with cold fingers intentionally touching the sensitive skin inside his wrist.

And the moment he and I made contact, the skin-to-skin contact that had previously just led to the sharp sensation of our connection snapping apart instead became agonizingly slow and heavy. The sensation wasn't one of disconnection, but of twisted connection.

And then, in one terror-stricken moment, the glamour faltered under the powerful psychological pressure. Kael took a sharp breath, his tempest-ice gaze widening in shock at the flood of naked awareness. He detected the slightest whisper of his natural mate, the smell of cedar and high-altitude air, laced with something else.

"Elara?" His question was an urgent, desperate glimmer in the lingering mental zone between us.

My heart was pounding in my chest. I had to close him out right away.

I plunged the lancet into his flesh. The pain, along with the surge of blood, startled him out of his confusion. He narrowed his eyes in rage, and in an instant, the opportunity to know me was lost. The smell was also lost. He was left with nothing but the angry, confusing aftermath of his illness, fueled by contact with the gorgeous stranger.

"Don't lower your guard, Alpha," I commanded, my own voice trembling with reaction to our near miss.

"Your concentration is weak. That's what makes the illness worse."

I had taken the blood, making sure to wipe away any hint of the metallic smell that had almost given me away. There was an oppressive silence in the room, heavy with confusion.

Kael did not accuse me. He did not doubt the sense of familiarity. He only gazed at the splatters of fresh blood on his own arm, his mind jarred by the way in which my touch had disrupted his focus. He was beginning to see me, not just as the means to his ends, but also as a dangerous opposition.

Sleeping with the Enemy

The most torments command of the day was the last.

"I'll be busy tonight stabilizing the contamination," I called out. "I need the source with me. You'll be staying here, Alpha. On the cot."

"I have my own chambers," he protested immediately.

"You have an infection that is killing your Pack."

"Until you stabilize, you'll be right where I can see changes in your energy," I said, pulling out a heavy, fur-lined blanket from my satchel and spreading it on a small rug near the fireplace. "I, too, need rest. But I'll be right here. Your wolf won't try to shift or come near me," I added.

I did not ask his permission. I lay down, with my back to him, and he had to play by the silent rules of the deadly game.

Poor Kael was subjected to the greatest torture, and that was to be locked in the small room with the woman his soul knew, but his mind believed was a stranger he needed in order to survive.

"As the hearth fire dwindled, I sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Kael, at last, lay down in his cot, but his wolf was anything but calm. He was struggling with the call of the bond, substituting the spiritual hunger with discomfort and suspicion."

-Excerpts from "The Black Lion" by Rey.

My eyes were closed, but sleep eluded me. I redirected my violet flow, tempering the searing sting of our non-bond, the analgesic to the chill, untouchable healer facade. The cost of what I sought was that I also had to suffer the merciless pain of his nearness, pretending indifference when every cell in me cried out his name.

'I am Elyra,' I chanted in my mind, weaving the glamour more closely in my heart. 'I am the cure. I am the punishment.'

AND then, just before the late, darkest part of the night, there was a shadow over me. Kael was up. He hadn't come to attack, but rather to loom over me in my sleep. He just couldn't help himself.

Let out a small, frustrated sigh. He wasn't touching me, but his body's heat fell down on me. I could smell his need, his struggling lupine. He was struggling with his own desires. After what seemed an eternity, he came back to the cot, but he did not lie down. Instead, he sat, with his back against the cold stone wall, watching me in the darkness. ​

I knew he wouldn't sleep. And neither would I. My heart was broken, but my vengeance was a magnificent, agonizing triumph.