Page 13 of The Alpha's Fallen Spell
“Jerry is on his way.” Griffin touches my shoulder. “The witch is holding the portal for him.”
Maya doesn’t hesitate. I follow close behind, and Griffin steps in silently after us, his presence quiet but alert.
The moment Maya sees the girl on the bed, she stops. Not like she’s surprised. Like the breath inside her is stuck.
She inhales once, sharply. Her eyes widen a fraction, then narrow with what looks like recognition but also dread. She crosses the room quickly and crouches beside the bed, her hand hovering near the girl’s arm, not touching her but close enough that the heat of her palm could possibly be felt.
Then, she leans in and breathes deeply. A sigh escapes her lips. “I was afraid of this,” Maya murmurs.
I frown. “Afraid of what?”
Maya straightens, but her gaze stays on the girl. “The reason they called her a prototype is because she’s an experiment, like me.”
I suspected it. I just didn’t want to be right. Because it means other humans are out there, being experimented on by the Silver Ring Organization. “Are you sure?” I ask her.
“I was born human,” Maya murmurs, “but somewhere in my ancestry, there was a shifter. I had a recessive gene. It wasdormant, sleeping. I didn’t know anything about it. But someone did. We need to know how these people are able to figure it out.”
She pauses, her jaw tightening. I recall that Mathew, whom Maya had thought was her friend, was actually a secret agent of the Silver Ring. He gave her a drug to activate her dormant gene.
“The scent of other shifters—real shifters, like you and Griffin—it feels too sharp. Your presence is overwhelming, dominating. My wolf wasn’t born naturally. It was forced into being. It took time, and a bond, to bring balance. Over the years, I’ve gotten used to it.”
Her hand finally settles on the girl’s arm.
“But this one,” she says softly, “she smells...normal. No sharpness to her scent, no dissonance. She’s like me. Her gene was awoken.”
I glance at the girl’s face again. Her eyelids are still closed. She is sleeping through all of this.
“Why is she so unstable?” I ask. “You had control when you shifted. She didn’t. It was chaos. There was no awareness. Only violence.”
Griffin steps closer, his expression unreadable. “Because I was there,” he says. “Because we were bonded. My presence helped calm Maya’s wolf the first time. It grounded her.” He looks at me now, his gaze steady. “And if she’s your mate, Erik, you may be able to do the same for her.”
The room falls into a quiet so still, I can hear the fire popping.
I look at her. The girl whose name I still don’t know. Whose body is covered in the evidence of horror I still don’t understand. And my wolf stirs within me again.
I watch her lying there, so small and fragile against the coarse cotton sheets. The wounds across her stomach haven’t begun to heal, still raw and angry on her pale skin. My wolf paces anxiously within me, demanding to protect her, demanding closeness to her—but the man in me hesitates.
“Just seeing the state of her,” I say quietly to Maya and Griffin, “I’m not sure she needs a fated mate right now. She needs care and healing.” I run a hand through my hair, agitation building in my chest. “And she’s incredibly young.”
Maya opens her mouth to respond, but before she can speak, we hear someone entering the cabin.
Jerry’s medical bag is clutched in his weathered hands. The royal healer, a man in his late fifties with silver streaking his temples and lines of wisdom etched around his eyes, moves with practiced efficiency. But when his gaze falls on the girl, he stops short, shock washing over his features.
“Oh, dear Goddess,” he whispers, moving to her bedside. “What happened to this child?”
He settles beside her, hands already glowing with soft, golden, healing light. His fingers hover over her body, not touching, just reading. I watch his expression darken as the magic seeps into her wounds, reaching damage I can’t even see.
Jerry’s eyes meet mine, horror etched into every line of his face. “What was done to her?”
I swallow hard, the words like ash in my mouth. “She was skinned alive. And probably not just once.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Jerry’s hands tremble slightly before steadying, the healing magic flowing stronger now.
Griffin says nothing, but I notice Maya’s grip on my brother’s arm tightens, her knuckles white. And that tells me everything I need to know: my brother endured similar torture during his captivity. The realization makes my stomach turn.
A small sound pulls my attention back to the bed. The girl’s eyes open slowly, storm-gray and disoriented. The moment she registers unfamiliar faces, panic floods her features. Her breathing accelerates, her body tensing to flee.
I move before thinking, sitting on the edge of the bed and gently taking her hands in mine.
