Page 41 of The Alpha's Fallen Spell
Is that what he thought of me? Is that why he was avoiding me?
I lower my gaze to my hands. I’m so powerless. Even now, when I am no longer a test subject, I’m still just as powerless.
I squeeze my hands shut. I can’t prove I’m not a spy. I wonder if Maya believes that I am. All I know is that I don’t want to stay in a place where I’m not trusted.
I focus my gaze on Maya, watching her nimble fingers handle the delicate glass vials filled with liquids of varying colors. Blues, purples, and a strange, metallic silver that seems to move on its own when she tilts it toward the light. The room smells of herbs and chemicals and something else—something ancient and magical that I can’t quite name.
My wolf stirs restlessly inside me. Since the night Erik rejected our bond, she has become weaker, more erratic. Some days, she howls so loudly that I can barely hear my own thoughts. Other days, like today, she’s quiet, almost dormant, as if she has given up, too.
“Are you sure about this?” Maya asks without looking up from her work. Her auburn hair is tied back in a practical knot, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She looks tired. I wonder if she has been working on this through the night.
“Yes,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “I’m sure.”
Maya sighs, setting down a dropper filled with the silver liquid. “I need you to understand exactly what we’re talking about here, Fiona.”
I nod, folding my hands in my lap to hide their trembling. It’s not from fear—at least, not entirely. My body has been betraying me more each day. The coughing is worse, the blood more frequent. Jerry says my wolf is dying—and taking me with her.
Maya moves away from her workbench and sits across from me, her expression grave but compassionate. “Two years ago, when the Silver Ring Organization was at the height of its power, they released a disease that targeted shifters specifically. Not their bodies, but the link between human and wolf.”
“They were trying to kill the wolves.”
“Yes,” she confirms. “And when a shifter’s wolf dies, the human follows. It’s like losing half your soul. Most can’t survive it.” Maya pauses, her eyes distant with memory. “Hundreds were infected before we understood what was happening. The wolves would start to fade, becoming weaker each day. The shifters would cough up blood and develop fevers. Their bodies would try to shift, but they couldn’t complete the transformation.”
It sounds painfully familiar. Like what’s happening to me.
“You were the one who created the cure for it, weren’t you?” I murmur. “Jerry told me.”
Maya nods, a shadow crossing her face. “Griffin and I were at odds, but he brought me back here because I had the most experience with these kinds of drugs. The palace healers were desperate. They had developed several experimental treatments, trying anything that might help those affected.”
She rises, returning to her workbench. With careful movements, she lifts a small vial filled with a liquid that seems to alternate between silver and deep blue, depending on how the light catches it.
“This was one of them,” she says. “It wasn’t meant to cure, just buy time. It was designed to put the wolf into a deep hibernation, to protect it from the disease until a proper antidote could be found.”
Hope flutters in my chest, fragile and dangerous. “Did it work?”
“We never found out,” Maya says. “We developed a different solution, and I worked with the healers to create a true antidote. They abandoned this approach.” She turns the vial between her fingers. “But I’ve been studying their notes, modifying the formula. Theoretically, this could put your wolf into a suspended state—not killing it, but suppressing it so deeply that it may as well be asleep.”
“Making me human again,” I whisper, unable to keep the yearning from my voice.
My fingers itch to reach for the vial. To be just one person again—not constantly at war with myself. To walk through the palace without fear of losing control, without feeling the stares and whispers following me. To breathe without the constant burn in my lungs.
But more than that—to have a chance to discover who I might have been.
“Functionally, yes,” Maya says carefully. “But Fiona, this isn’t a cure. Your wolf would still be inside you, just dormant.You’d need to take this regularly—once a week at minimum—to maintain the suppression.”
I absorb this information, turning it over in my mind. “Are there any side effects?”
Maya hesitates. I’ve come to recognize this hesitation; it’s the pause of someone weighing how much truth to share.
“I don’t know,” she finally admits. “No one has ever used this long term. In the short term, we can expect weakness, possibly fever as your body adjusts. Beyond that...” She shakes her head. “I can’t predict what suppressing such a fundamental part of yourself might do over months or years.”
“It could kill me,” I say plainly.
Maya meets my eyes directly. “Yes. It could.”
I expected to feel fear at this confirmation. Instead, a strange calm settles over me. “Would it be painful?”
“I don’t think so,” Maya says softly. “More likely, you would simply fade away. Your bodily systems would gradually shut down. You’d grow weaker, sleep more. Eventually, you wouldn’t wake up.”
