Chapter 4

I don't know how much time passed. Something cold touched my lips. I forced my eyes open. A shape above me, very close.

"Finally. Don't talk — your voice is going to be gone for a few days. They weren't gentle. Another hour and you'd have made it out alive but permanently mute."

"Mmmph." I reached up and grabbed at him, but he caught my wrist.

"Stop. I've been watching your mate for a while. Something never added up. You told me his leg injury damaged the nerve pathways — but every remedy he was taking was for basic muscle bruising. If the healer was incompetent, why did he say the medicine worked? There was only one explanation: he was faking."

"Lucky for you, all that searching for healers you did on his behalf is what got my letter. If I hadn't come, you'd have burned."

He dipped his fingers in a salve and spread it carefully along the burns on my throat, methodical and gentle, even while his mouth was anything but.

I remembered then: I'd written to every Pack healer I could find about Cain's condition, sent letters with gold to cover consultation fees, asked for anyone willing to travel to Stillwater Territory. One had written back saying he'd come.

This was that healer.

I tried to say thank you. Nothing came out. I managed a grimace that probably looked worse than crying.

"You're more bearable when you're unconscious." He set a bowl of medicine beside me — the smell hit like a fist. My eyes watered. I coughed until they ran.

"I'm Caius Holloway. Pack Healer. Drink the medicine. Don't let my work go to waste."

Caius wasn't just a healer. He was obsessed with medicine the way some wolves are obsessed with hunting.

He checked my injuries every day, hovering over them with an expression that was almost eager. Eventually he said, "Your body responds to treatment in an unusual way. You'd make an exceptional test subject."

"..."

"I don't mean that the way it sounded. I'm not some rogue running experiments on pack members. It's just that your resistance pattern is rare. I've never—"

I pulled my blanket tighter.

"If I get you fully healed — would you be willing to help me test remedies in the future?"

I grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at him.

During recovery, he only asked one question that wasn't about my injuries: "Who did this to you?"

"A powerful alpha who decided I was in his way," I said.

Coming back from a fire alive had a way of clarifying things. Cain felt like someone from another life.

"Then why did you save me?"

"Do good. Don't ask why." He said it like it wasn't complicated.

For a moment, he actually sounded like a healer.

His skills were real. Pack members came from all over — Alpha-ranked families and ordinary omegas alike. Those who could pay, he charged. Those who couldn't, he covered the cost himself and made sure they finished their treatment.

It was the first time I understood what it actually meant to be a Pack Healer. I was uneasy about taking so much from him, afraid he'd eventually circle back to the test-subject request. So while I recovered, I learned what I could about herbal medicine and made myself useful around his workspace.

Under his care, I could speak again within days. The burns were more complicated.

"Stillwater Territory doesn't stock everything I need. Once we get to Ironwood Settlement, I can finish the treatment."

I went quiet. "I don't have any money. The fire took everything."

"Healer Caius, I'll pay you back. I just need—"

He half-smiled. "It's not entirely for you. The Ironwood Settlement leader is an old colleague. He wrote to say people are getting sick from the local water supply. I'm going anyway. You can work off the debt as my apprentice. Deal?"

"Whatever you say, mentor."

I exhaled.

Near Ironwood Settlement, word came that the gates were sealed. A thief had stolen something valuable, and the Pack enforcers were searching. Caius and I were stuck outside in a Moon Goddess Sanctuary.

The sanctuary keeper was reluctant to let us in — a high-status she-wolf was already staying there, and he didn't want to mix groups. But the she-wolf's attendant caught sight of me, whispered something to the keeper, and he changed his mind.

"The Moon Goddess brings people together for reasons. Please, come in. There are two open rooms in the outer wing."

Almost as soon as we settled in, Caius found that several sanctuary residents had spiking fevers. He examined them and told me quietly to lock my door and avoid contact with anyone showing symptoms.

I did exactly that. By nightfall, more people had collapsed.

Caius's usual ease was gone. "Elara. Get some cloth — have anyone without a fever cover their face. Mouth and nose."

"You too."

The sick ones burned first, then couldn't keep anything down. We started carrying the ones who died out of the sanctuary. I watched the numbers climb and thought about Caius alone in his room with all of them.

"It's a plague. That's why Ironwood sealed its gates."

He spoke through the screen partition between our rooms, his voice flat and even, nothing like the way he normally talked. "Do you remember what I've taught you?"

Something cold settled in my chest.

"Nine grams is ten grams, and that's a bath soak, not a drink. Four boils is poison. Three boils is medicine. Your fire control is going to kill someone."

"Elara. Teaching you medicine was probably my biggest mistake."

But there was no one else. I called back, "I remember."

"Then the outer courtyard is yours."