The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 26

Aldrich

As I was rebandaging my wound, I heard a scream pierce the night.

Instantly perking up, I was on my feet immediately, grabbing for the nearest weapon. I didn’t know where it came from or how close it was or who screamed, but it sounded wet, like b***d was gurgling in the screamer’s throat. It could have been a wandering vampire slaughtered by my troops, or a werewolf slaughtered by the vampire.

But then the one scream multiplied into several.

I realized then, with one brisk look at the time, that it was the middle of the night and we were sleeping where we were going to deploy in the morning. I was usually awake during these hours to secretly tend to my wound—no one else was, however.

Just as I was about to morph into wolf form, a warrior burst into my quarters.

“Sir,” he gasped, b***d splattered on his face, “the vampires have attacked.”

“How did they replace us?” I demanded angrily as I morphed, preparing to turn into the cold blooded killer destined for an attack like this. I heard the cries of my men decorating the night more than the stars.

The guard frantically watched the scene then turned to me for a moment to coldly announce, “Agar has revealed our army deployment map to the enemy.”

A blazing array of anger, disappointment, betrayal, and disgust brewed inside of me. He had replaced my best friend’s position because he was someone I thought I could trust, then became someone I even rather liked. How could he do this?

“Are you certain?” I stupidly asked, still too flabbergasted to imagine him doing such a thing. The man who sat with me until dawn surely did not do this.

“I’m positive, sir,” the warrior snapped, “the bastard is fighting with the vampires.”

I ripped into the night from the cabin like an unchained, ungodly beast, throwing my head back to roar a battle cry. In a blind, pained rage, I decapitated the closest vampires with my jaws and used my claws to weave through their necks. The beast in me was unhinged, thirsting for violence and the taste of intestines and bone marrow.

Werewolves were slaughtered left and right. The dead stared at the sky, unseeing, their organs splayed across the field like ribbons and frayed pieces of fabric.

I jumped onto one of the vampires feeding on a wolf’s corpse and locked my jaw around its neck. Effortlessly, with one bite down and a pull away from his body, his head detached while in my mouth.

This was going to be a loss. We were finally getting ahead in the war, learning their tactics and their weaknesses slowly, patiently sewing our victory with thin and practiced thread. While Agar was in my cabin observing the deployment map and the numbers of our men every night.

I was about to disembowel all three vampires in a row next to me when I noticed him. In the corner of my eye, Agar was deserting, running for the trees.

Roaring, I came up on him as if I flew. It was merely a lunge, and I used a vampire’s hard chest as my launching pad, my claws impaling through its marble skin. I cut through the air too quickly for Agar to turn around; he was on the ground before he knew I was lunging for him.

He knew it was me, because he cried out. I growled, targeting his neck, but then realized there was a better way.

“It wasn’t my fault!” he cried, the fierce and unwavering warrior sounding like a desperate schoolboy.

“Then whose was it?” I roared, aggressively turning him over. “Did the map just hand itself over?”

He looked up at me in terror, but his eyes were adamant. “I didn’t have a choice!” he cried, holding his claws in front of his face, as if to shield my wrath. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“This is what it is like,” I sneered violently, and grabbed his wrist, steering his claws toward his abdomen, “to be stabbed by your own.”

“I did it to save my family!” he cried, “I had to save them.”

I paused, glaring down at him. “Your family will now be without you for the rest of their days. How were you possibly helping them, you coward?” I spit, and pressed his claws into his stomach to pierce the skin.

“Prince Benjamin!” Agar sputtered, and that prolonged my pause. “Prince Benjamin has been controlling me to obey him by threatening to kill my family.”

Even more anger came crashing through me. My own people were my enemies now, too. What could possibly be his motive?

“I suppose I’m doing you a favor then,” I snarled before pressing his claws all the way through his stomach, nearly impaling him in half. The traitor warrior slumped dead to the bloodstained ground.

Cathy

I returned from the gardens to attend dinner with Theo and Alan, but I wanted to dress Theo up first. He would be dirty from training outside and I wanted to make sure he was bathed and properly attired; I didn’t trust the maidservants to do so.

There had been a period of days where nothing strange was happening, and I became comfortable to once again frolic outside in the flowers. Maybe it was an enemy of Alan’s. Maybe they were content with his injury and ended the schemes then and there.

When I came up to Theo’s bedroom, I was smiling, but it disappeared quickly. He was not in the room.

That slow, eating dread started picking at me like a fish upon rocks. Don’t panic, Cathy. He was probably outside for longer than planned with Alan, who simply never kept track of time. Sometimes, they come in after the servants have already cleaned up. Theo will most likely be by the second entrance from the grounds, the servants cleaning mud from his shoes.

I traveled down the stairs to that location, still not letting myself fret, and found that he was not there, either.

Was it now time to panic? Maybe he was in my chambers. I ran back up the stairs to check my own room, gasping for breath at this point. To no avail, I did not replace him there.

I found a passing servant from the kitchens and grabbed his arm, not caring for impoliteness. “Where is my son?” I demanded, panic edging my voice.

The servant apologetically did not know. I resisted the urge to scream, not knowing where to run to.

Then a nagging theory crept upon me. There was one place I did not check, the one place I first thought of then prayed I would not have to.

I sprinted to Alan’s chambers. They were on the west side of the palace while we were on the east, and by the time I arrived, my head felt inflated and light. Dizzied, I stumbled into the room, gasping.

There he was.

I ran over to where he laid on the bed. A team of medics was observing him, but there was no apparent wound or injury at first glance. Guards looked at me with as much apologeticness as the servant did, seemingly reluctant to speak to me.

“My lady,” the guard greeted me, looking at me wearily, “I’m so sorry. We found him unconscious in the fields.”

I gasped, feeling even more like I was going to pass out. “What do you mean found? Was no one watching him?” I pushed them aside to look down at my son. He was now awake, looking up at me disheveled. His hair was interwoven with dirt and he looked ashamed to see me so scared.

“I’m okay, mommy,” he said, but I didn’t think he believed it.

“Where is Alan?” I asked them, incredulous that he allowed for this to happen. Especially after I told him everything.

“He was watching Theo and turned his back for a moment to consult with some soldiers. Then he found him like this,” the guard answered, “he is now patrolling the perimeter of the woods trying to replace who did this,”

“Did what?” I breathed, grabbing Theo and pulling him against my chest.

“This, mommy,” he responded, and reached around me to grab something from the nightside table. I pulled away to see what it was.

An arrow. “They found this taped on my back.”