Finished


    Maeryn Voss, the famed hybridbat instructor at Ashmoor Academy, was equally versed in magic as she was in battle. Riley had met her once before. On that asion, Maeryn had told her–quietly but firmly–to return once she had found her missing kidney, promising to run another examination.


    Now, with Mia at her side, Riley stepped onto Ashmoor’s grounds. She retraced the path toward the professor’s office from memory, her heart heavy with a mixture of hope and dread.


    But when she reached the door, it wasn’t Maeryn who greeted her–it was a young man with clipped brown hair and the crisp posture of an assistant.


    “You’re Riley, right?” he asked without surprise. “Professor Maeryn said you’de today. She told me to tell you she’s not here—she’s giving a medical lecture at Mooncrest Hospital. She asked that you meet her in the treatment wing there. She’ll be expecting you.”


    Riley blinked. “She knew I’de?”


    The assistant only smiled faintly. “She said you’d understand once you spoke to her.”


    The hospital.


    The word lodged in Riley’s chest like a stone. Still, she turned away without another question, her limp carrying her back down the marble corridors and out to the waiting car.


    Mia was quiet beside her during the drive, sensing the tension tightening every line of Riley’s body.


    When they reached Mooncrest Hospital, the air smelled faintly of antiseptic and warm metal. The treatment wing was hushed, lit with the sterile white glow of magemps.


    And there–standing at the far end, sleeves rolled to her elbows, her silver–streaked braid over one shoulder–was Maeryn Voss.


    “Riley,” the hybrid greeted, her voice calm yet expectant, as though this meeting had been inevitable.


    Her hand came to rest lightly on Riley’s head, and a soft white healing glow spread through the air, brushing against the edges of Riley’s spirit. But as Maeryn’s senses swept deeper into the young she–wolf’s body, her expression began to harden.


    The furrow in her brow deepened, deeper still.


    When Riley emerged from the treatment room some timeter, her eyes were hollow, the life in them dimmed to embers. Maeryn’s words still rang in her ears–each sentence another w sinking into her heart.


    “Your body… years of malnutrition, severe blood and qi depletion, and old battle–wounds that never healed. It’s been carrying too much for too long.”


    “You’re missing a kidney, and the imbnce has left your wolf’s energy crippled–multiple organs are showing signs of decline.”


    “I once thought that if we reced your kidney and nourished your body, you might recover. But there’s something else… something far worse.”


    That was when Maeryn told her the truth.


    Eight years ago–on the day Alpha ric of the Ebonw Pack had ‘weed‘ Riley into his household–he had caught a trace of Alpha wolf pheromones on her scent. Fearing her wolf might awaken and one day challenge his authority, he’d acted in secret. Without her knowledge, he had slipped into her food a rare, insidious wolf toxin–an assassin’s poison from the old lupine wars.


    The toxin was a patient killer. Ity dormant for up to eight years, gnawing at flesh and bone in increments too small to notice. It disrupted the body’s healing, fouled the wolf’s spiritual core, corrupted the flow of qi. By the time symptoms showed, the damage was irreversible–death arriving as the organs failed one by one.


    For ric, it had been a perfect safeguard. If his n to harvest her organs failed, she would still meet the same end. And until then, she would remain too weak, too crippled, to ever be a threat.


    3.34


    D


    Finished


    “Your hearing loss,” Maeryn went on, “isn’t simply from a ruptured eardrum. The toxin has devoured the nerve tissue—it cannot be repaired. Even with an artificial cochlea, your brain may no longer process sound properly. And after so long in silence, your speech patterns may also be affected.”


    “The toxin has also invaded your legs. Even if the bones were broken and reset, you could only hope to walk without a limp- not to run.”


    Every wordnded like a blow.


    Riley understood then–meat once cooked could never return to fresh flesh. Her body was beyond restoration. She would never bear children like other females, never share in a mate’s bond the way she had once dreamed.


    “How long do I have?” she had asked, voice steady though her ws bit into her palms.


    Maeryn hesitated. “If you take care of yourself… four, maybe five years. Your kidney transnt cannot wait. And I will search for a cure to the toxin–but I will promise nothing.”


    Four or five years. She might not see her thirtieth winter.


    Before leaving, Riley made Maeryn swear to keep the toxin a secret–especially from Lucien Duskgrave. Maeryn agreed, her heart twisting for the young she–wolf. She had the spirit of a white wolf born for battle, yet fate and her own blood had betrayed her.


    Mia followed her closely as they left, eyes burning with tears she could barely contain. “Miss… don’t lose hope. We will find a way.”


    But Riley limped onward in silence. Mia realized with a jolt–she hadn’t heard her. Her hearing was gone,


    They passed the gates of Mooncrest Hospital when a low male voice


    “Riley!”


    cut


    through the air.


    Mia swiped at her eyes and turned. There, in pale hospital garb, stood Ronan Duskcliff, blocking their path. His face was gaunt, his eyes bloodshot.


    The only reason Ronan was here at all was the night before–after learning the full truth, he’d drunk himself into alcohol poisoning. Lord Duskcliff and Lady Duskcliff had dragged him to the hospital before his liver gave out.


    Now, seeing Riley, he stepped forward and seized her thin shoulders. His voice cracked.


    “You… you came to see me?”