The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 46

Cathy

When we returned to the estate, I did not retreat to my bedroom, but the library.

I would reach the entire grand library before I let Alan decompose and disappear forever. Besides Aldrich and Theo, he was the only thing that kept me stable, that made me feel normal. He was the only soul I had everything in common with; good enough to be loved by Aldrich, not good enough for any grand recognition or admiration. Always traveling within Aldrich’s shadow, people’s admiring gazes wandering over our shoulders.

I instantly went to retrieve a book from the section of healing. I climbed up the ladder in a haste, and plucked out a textbook. I moved too quickly, losing my step and clumsily falling from the ladder a couple yards onto the floor. When I landed, I cried; not because the fall hurt, but because I imagined my friend falling more than ten times this, and what he must have felt. I hugged my knees to my chest and cried for a minute.

But I only allowed myself a minute.

I got myself back together by reminding myself I was the only one who could help Alan. Everyone else was probably already planning his funeral, and Aldrich planning his revenge. But I could not accept that. I would never accept his death, especially not as a healer. It was in my bones to save him, in my very being.

I swiftly flipped through the textbook, doing so many times in so many books that my fingers started to ache. My eyes were too blurry for the pages, and I cried out in frustration, slamming my fist on the table. I had to focus. Alan’s life was counting on me. I imagined Aldrich bent over his body, his tears mixing with his best friend’s b***d. He would never be the same.

I read over an array of salves, of healing ointments and cosmetic fixes, but nothing about repairing bone or life. It was all surface layer healing. In my witch books, there were no solutions to bringing someone back to life besides sacrificing your own self. I found nothing useful, not even aid for a head wound.

By the time there was a stacked pile upon the table, I realized I never found the book I was waiting to discover in the section. I got up to look for it, but it was clearly missing.

Shit.

I must have forgotten it at the cottage. There was a whole bookcase of novels I forgot, and just figured I forgot them for a reason. It was a healing book on how to bring someone from the dead, and I assumed that I would never have the skills nor the desire to learn how to do that.

Without bothering to change or eat to suppress the effect of the alcohol or wipe the tears from my face, I was running out of the library and out of the estate and into the forest. I think I kneed a guard in the stomach to get past the entrance, and elbowed one in the throat that tried to stop me. In my blind, panicked madness, no one could touch me. I left behind my pair of heels, which I threw behind me as I left. I did not care if I lost my foot to a poisonous snake; I did not have the time to retrieve boots to run in.

The trees passed me in tall, curled blurs, the autumn night air biting at my cheeks. I knew I shouldn’t have been out here, knew it was far too dangerous to be outside alone in the dark when my friend was just murdered, but I didn’t care. If they killed me attempting to save him, so be it.

The moon was brighter now, as if it knew to help me. I considered transforming into a wolf to quicken my speed, but I was afraid the animal inside of me wouldn’t be able to handle the shock to my system.

Eventually, my cold, naked feet were falling against the familiar dirt path. I ran as far as my legs were able to move, my chest heaving in exhaustion. I stumbled over my own feet several times and fell once or twice, dirtying my dress past the point of revival. I must have looked like the lost princesses in fairytales who were outrunning something in the forest.

I was outrunning Alan’s death.

I willed my feet to move faster, for my human legs to suddenly know how to run fast and see the approaching weeping willow within the minute. But I was nearly drunk and in shock and not sure what was happening, if I was awake or even alive. My heart was pounding enough to remind me I was indeed alive, but I still wasn’t sure. I paused for only a brief moment to rip parts of my dress, making it easier to run in. I tore the skirts with ease, my adrenaline concocting superficial strength.

As I was piercing the night, I remembered my favorite memory with Alan.

He noticed me watching from the window. Embarrassed, I cowered away, pretending to be deep in my book. But he walked inside anyway, grinning amusedly.

“You can come outside with us, you know,” he teased, holding the bow at his side. It was the first evening after Aldrich left, and he and Theo were outside practicing. I took my usual spot by the window in the cottage, watching while pretending not to be. I just grew accustomed to watching.

“Oh no, that’s alright,” I insisted, waving him off.

He laughed, walking over to me. “Please come out. I could really use a second pair of eyes in case this kid shoots me by accident,” he said, asking me without making me feel embarrassed about joining in on masucline fun that I was not formerly invited into.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” I said.

Alan grinned, placing the bow in my hands. “Come out with us.”

And so his insistence worked. I felt enough dignity to walk outside and watch, not feeling left out like I did with Aldrich. Alan found ways to incorporate me into the training, and one time, he even used my form as an example of how not to shoot. We all ended up laughing when I shot not the target, but a nearby tree by accident. Theo rolled around in the grass laughing.

“I may actually need protection from you,” Alan said, and I laughed.

I couldn’t let him die.

I was almost there, the trees and the branches and the vegetation seeming more familiar to me. I wondered how long I had been running for. Soon enough, I would see the weeping willow, and it would slither in the wind as if encouraging me. I would replace the book and study it as fast as I could before experimenting with all the methods, even if that meant giving away every droplet of my b***d.

Just as I rounded around a white oak, I smacked into something hard. I fell back from the impact, landing hard on my spine upon the dead leaves. A person stood in front of me.

Startled, I looked up from the ground in a panic. Then complete shock replaced the panic when I discovered who was looking down at me.