Page 33 of The Wolf King's Demand

“Addison!” Tyler shouted. He pulled her out of the open and behind a bush.

She reached for the place where she’d been hit. Her fingers found something small and cold still in there. A dart!

Addison yanked it out and threw it away from her. What exactly had she been hit with?

She could hear Tyler yelling out for his men, and then she saw him shift. A moment later, the enforcers came running, and they all shifted. Something moved in the trees, and they howled and chased after it.

There were the sounds of fighting and growling and even a few yelps.

Addison stood from the bush. They were in danger, and she needed to go help them.

She got one step in before she fell to her knees, and her head swam.

The dart. It had to have been poisoned. But with what? Something just to make her fall asleep or something to kill her? And how long did she have before the poison took full effect?

Her muscles felt like jelly, and her mind was foggy. That was really not good. She knew it had to be a fast-acting poison, and she was running out of time.

Whatever it was, it was attacking her nerves. It probably meant that whatever was in her system was lethal.

Vaguely, she could tell some of the enforcers were chasing down the intruder, leaving the gardens and running after him. She couldn’t let everyone leave. If they did, she would die.

“Tyler,” she called out weakly, surprised at how feeble her voice sounded.

Instantly, he shifted back, and his head snapped up to meet her gaze. His expression filled with worry, and he ran over to her. “I’m here, I’m here. What’s happening?”

Shakily, she pointed to where she’d tossed the dart. “Dart. Hit. Poison.”

His eyes went wide, and then he screamed to one of the enforcers still in earshot. “Healer! Get me a healer right now! She’s been hit!”

Addison tried to stand again, but she couldn’t even pull herself up this time. At this rate, she’d be unconscious soon. And then probably dead not too long after.

She needed to convey all her symptoms to him. Tell him the dart was lethal. Tell him she didn’t have much time.

But her tongue felt so heavy in her mouth, and the edge of her vision was narrowing. Her body was trying to pull her into a deep sleep. And it was working.

So, instead, she grabbed onto his shirt with all the might she had left to make him look at her. He did, his gaze filled with so much worry and anguish.

“Call … Taryn,” she managed to get out.

And then she could fight the pull of sleep no more.

TWENTY

TYLER

Addison lay on the floor of the castle apothecary. Tyler had picked her up and run with her to the clinic, not wanting to waste a second waiting for the healer to arrive with his bag of potions. He draped a robe over himself as he anxiously waited for Taryn to pick up.

When she did, he explained the situation hurriedly. Taryn’s voice was almost as panicked as he felt while she gave him instructions from the other end of the phone. “You need to smell the dart and tell me what it smells of,” she told him.

He raised the vile object to his nose, his wolf senses picking up on the varying scents with ease.

“It smells almost sickly sweet,” he said. “But there is the stench of putrid death about it, too.”

There was silence at the end of the phone as Taryn thought. Every moment was agonizing for Tyler as he waited for her response. “There are only a few poisons with that profile,” she said. “The first and most feared is Destroying Angel, which is derived from a mushroom. I pray it’s not that because there is no antidote.”

Her words made his gut clench. “How do we know if it’s that?” Tyler demanded, his fear making his words sharp.

“You must scrape some of the poison into a jar of Yellow Archangel,” she said. “If the mixture goes black, we’re in trouble.”

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