The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 57

Alan was out the door before I was.

Even in his wheelchair, he was fast. The guards swiftly replaced the chair with crutches so that he could move on uneven terrain, and I followed him out the door.

“Stay with the guards,” I commanded Theo. He nodded, his little face looking petrified, and I felt a stab of guilt that he had to experience all of this so frequently.

We ventured out with a group of armed guards. All of the estate was now informed of the weird happenings after Alan’s supposed death. We did not tell them a healer brought him back, instead we claimed that he never died in the first place, and that he was broken, but his heart never stopped beating.

Our entourage searched through the estate, one group looking through the building, and another surveying outside. Alan and I were the group outside, because that was the setting of a worst case scenario. What if she was shot by an arrow? What if whoever wrote that note was angry with me for ripping it up? Was she “eaten whole by the snake?” That foul, god awful creature from my nightmare. My subconscious was too dumb to deem it as an obvious metaphor; I was honestly scared to replace out the cautionary tale behind it.

Alan was the one calling the loudest for my sister. He looked gravely concerned, his face paler than ever. I was calling along with him until my throat burned; we searched through the training grounds then eventually laced through the woods.

I had a horrible feeling in my stomach. This was highly uncharacteristic of my sister; her daily routine consisted of waking up at noon, powdering and painting her face, eating lunch with a glass of white wine, sitting in the garden, writing in her diary until dinner, taking care of Theo, going to bed early, and repeat. She rarely ventured from this luxurious schedule unless she had brunch plans or a shopping trip.

But I’d know if she had a trip or plans outside of the estate; she always told me or offered for me to come.

“Danika!” I yelled, feeling a thick knot in my throat. The fact that we were searching for my sister in the woods right now was almost too much to comprehend. Delicate, daisy frolicing Danika—somewhere in the woods? Possibly injured somewhere in the dirt? I could not even imagine my pretty, prim sister in those conditions.

It felt like forever that we were calling like this, and an hour must have passed since we entered the woods. We did a perimeter of the mouth of the woods surrounding the estate, but discovered no traces of her. Alan looked to be in immense pain exploring on the crutches, and I was not exactly my sharpest either, hungry and still sleep deprived.

I was about to fall to my knees and cry until I heard a guard exclaim something; I didn’t hear what his words were, for they sounded like they were far away. Alan and I rushed over to where the guard was bending over.

She was lying on the ground within the fallen leaves.

I cried out, throwing myself down to examine my sister. Alan threw his crutches behind him and knelt down with me, grabbing her wrist.

“Oh, my god, Danika,” I cried out. He pressed his fingers against the inside of her wrist.

“She’s alright,” he sighed out in relief, exhaling but still chalk pale.

She was completely unconscious, her body limp like a corpse. But she was breathing, her lips parted as if she was deep in a sleep.

It reminded me much too gravely of the way Alan’s body was contorted when he was killed.

“Check for any injuries!” I demanded to our staff. A medic immediately stepped forward to examine her, and we stood up to get out of the way.

We nervously watched as the medic checked her vitals. I looked to Alan anxiously, my heart pounding so hard that it hurt my chest. I’d never forgive myself if Danika was hurt in any way. What made her unconscious; did someone coax her out here, or did they drag her body?

After a few painstaking moments, he declared that she was stable, just merely unconscious for some unidentified reason.

“I’d have to look into it in the lab,” he stated, “but she’s okay.”

I looked around the woods surrounding us, as if the perpetrator was still there. Obviously they wouldn’t be, but just in case they were watching from afar, I glared into a random patch of trees. I flicked my fingers as a threat, and whoever saw would know what I meant.

I woud learn how to commit murder with magic soon if I had to.

“There’s a note,” Alan declared with a sigh. I rolled my eyes, not even affected by it anymore.

“Read it,” I muttered.

He peeled the taped note from my sister’s palm. I cringed at the deliberate placement and the thought of our enemies touching my sister in a state like that.

They were again reminding me of what they were capable of.

“The Professor will soon show you another magic trick: how to disappear.”

My eyes widened at that. They were now threatening Clement.

“F**k,” I cursed, scratching through my hair furiously.

“The Professor…” Alan said, frowning. “The Clement guy?”

“No one in my life is safe,” I muttered through clenched teeth. Fear was no longer a friend of mine; only the perpetual rise and fall of anger.

***

We were back in the infirmary. Alan nor myself left my sister’s bedside the entire afternoon, waiting for her to wake up from whatever state she was launched into.

“What do you think it was?” I murmured, sitting at the foot of the bed. He reclined in his wheelchair, staring at the wall adjacent to us.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking defeated. He suddenly seemed exhausted.

“We can’t keep living like this,” I said while shaking my head.

“It doesn’t help that you introduced a complete stranger to our home,” he muttered, looking away in annoyance.

I turned to him. “Alan, I didn’t cheat on Aldrich. I’ve trusted Clement for years. He taught me everything I’ve ever known,” I reminded him, “try to remember, he saved your damn life.”

“Why are you getting so defensive then?” he questioned doubtedly.

“Because everyone is villainizing him!” I retorted, “He’s been here a day and is everyone’s sudden mortal enemy.”

“By everyone, you mean Aldrich.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, “but he should know I would never cheat. He knows how hard it was just for me to open up to him, a handsome prince. The standard doesn’t get any higher than that.”

“You know he’s not the most trusting fellow,” Alan reminded me through narrowed eyes. “And as his best friend, I don’t trust this Clement guy.”

“They threatened Clement as well,” I snapped, waving the note in front of his face.

“Clement?”

Danika said, looking up at us with blinking, dazed eyes.

“Danika!” I exclaimed, grabbing her shoulder with caution. She looked up at me like she had not yet surfaced from a dream.

“You said Clement,” she insisted, “where is he?”

Alan frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was just talking to him,” she frowned back, “where am I?”