The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 28

Alan eventually returned to the palace with anger on his face and dirt on his clothes. He approached us looking criminally defeated, and there were bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days

I was still frozen in place, my mind folding over the threat, trying to analyze it. A valid theory was that the woman in the woods who gave Theo “water” was Emily. She had failed to kill me, but maybe she was warning me that she was preparing to attempt again? That theory was cemented by the fact a maidservant was not only threatening me, but using Emily’s name as well.

“We didn’t replace any trace of the son of a bitch again,” Alan snapped, and Danika abruptly shushed him, implying a sleeping Theo in the next room.

“Sorry I’m frustrated,” Alan sneered, narrowing his eyes at my sister, “have you done anything to help?”

“I did, actually,” she argued, and a smirk split her face. I noticed the amusement kissing her features as they spoke, and the secret admiration in his glaring eyes. “I slapped a maidservant.”

“Why? You’ve been here for no less than a month and you’re slapping the help?”

“Yes. You should go ask one to draw you a bath right now,” she looked him up and down, wrinkling her nose.

He opened his mouth to say something but I interrupted. “She didn’t do it for no reason,” I murmured, staring hard at the floor. My vision zoned out on a stain upon the tile.

She nodded, looking at him smugly. “She told me to warn my sister to leave for her own good,” she mocked, “but I slapped her when she said she’ll never be as good as Emily.”

Alan frowned, puzzled. “Aldrich told me the story about Emily, but how could it be her? She’s not skilled with an arrow. Plus, Aldrich is gone—what could she possibly want?”

Danika and I met each other’s gazes and immediately rolled our eyes in unison.

“What?” he demanded.

“You don’t understand women,” Danika said exasperatedly.

“I have everything that was once supposed to be hers,” I reminded him, and confusion decorated his attractive features. “Even though she has Elias and his estate, she wants Aldrich to still pine for her.”

He looked like he was gradually beginning to understand. “Plus, she’s not stupid. She’s probably figured out that I was the one who cursed her.”

“I’ll slap this bitch, too,” Danika muttered, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“So, you think the one who shot me in the leg and taped an arrow to Theo’s back was Emily?” Alan asked with heavy doubt, looking at me like I was a blundering fool.

“No,” I admitted, sighing, “that’s what I don’t get. But Theo said a woman offered him water before he passed out. She’s good with tampering drinks.” I recalled my wedding night with a shudder.

“She could have people working for her. Clearly, she does, if her name is on the lips of maids,” Danika mused in an unsavory tone.

“Well, whoever it is, we’re going to replace out,” Alan promised, and he looked even more tired in that moment. “But first, I’m going to have that bath drawn.”

***

It was late. When I returned to my rooms, I realized that the moon was high in the sky, and I instantly felt as tired as Alan looked. When was the last time I got a good night’s rest?

I checked on Theo before retreating to bed. He was tucked away and snoring, a content look on his small face. I managed a slight smile at the sight.

I sank into bed and for once felt the exhaustion with glee, welcoming it into my bones. I knew there were many things to decipher and even more to be afraid of, but it was the first time I was able to discuss them out loud. I felt paranoid, but not the crazy kind anymore. Alan and Danika knowing the dilemma trimmed a layer of weight off my chest, and as I drifted to sleep, it even felt light enough to breathe.

I was finishing giving Theo a bath. He was dirty from the training grounds, and we were playing around with the bubbles. Sunlight filtered through the bathroom window, sprinkling rainbow prisms across the marble. Theo giggled as I gave him a beard of bubbles. The heat emanating from the bath warmed my skin, coating me with steam against the autumn crispness in the air.

“You next!” Theo cackled, and then rounded up a ball of gleaming bubbles before coating my chin with them.

I grinned, feeling buoyantly happy. I hadn’t felt this way since living in the cottage.

“I haven’t seen you smile like that in so long, mommy,” he said, admiring my face.

“Well, you make me happy,” I told him, placing the bubbles in his hair to match his beard.

He looked at me intuitively. “You stress a lot. More than you did before daddy.” It didn’t even cause me to flinch when I realized he was referring to Aldrich. I even liked the feeling it gave me, like we were a family.

“Things are different, now,” I reminded him.

“I miss my happy mommy,” he pouted, “not this stressed, mean lady.”

“I know. Me too.”

After I thoroughly cleaned him, I removed him from the tub and proceeded to dry him off. He stood pouting as I toweled off his wet, fair skin, and then wrapped him in a comfy white robe.

“Alright, go to your room. It’s almost dinner time,” I told him, faking an excited smile.

“You didn’t dry my hair, mama,” he protested with a whine, and I realized I forgot to do that.

“Sorry, honey,” I said, and quickly went to dry his hair. It was saturated wet, as if he was just freshly submerged in the water.

I rubbed his head with the towel as many times as I usually did then dropped it to the floor, nodding to his room attached to the bathroom we shared. “Now go.”

“Mommy, it’s still not dry,” he complained again in the same nagging tone. Frowning, I looked at his head again, as if he just jumped back into the tub. His dirty blonde hair was so permeated, it looked black.

“That’s strange, I dried it like I always—” I choked on the rest of the words in my throat, the towel on the floor permeated with b***d.

I grabbed him and observed his head–there was a wound in the back of it in the shape of an arrowhead. Gasping, I took the towel, pressing it to the wound. The towel turned even more a dark crimson red, the b***d trickling down onto his white robe. I screamed, desperately calling out to the guards.

“Nothing bad even happened, mommy,” he said, grinning.

I woke up violently, facedown against my pillow. My throat was raw, and from the last nightmare, I theorized I had been screaming. I prayed that no one heard me, especially Theo. Maybe the pillow muffled the screams this time.

This nightmare was more grotesque than the last. It was starting to get out of hand; I had never dreamed of something that violent happening to Theo.

It was only my subconscious reminding me what could’ve happened if the woman decided to harm him.

I missed Aldrich so much at that moment. I yearned for him to wrap his arms around me, to say, “I’ll never let anything happen to you, my Cathy.” What I said in the garden was true; whether I loved him or loved the stability he gave me, there was definitely love present. I yearned for him to rip the woods apart tree by tree until he found who was doing all of this, I yearned for him to threaten my subconscious to stop giving me nightmares. I yearned to laugh at the absurdity of things he says.

I took a sip from the glass of water on my nightstand, still gasping. Of course, only a few hours passed–the only sleep I managed to grasp these days. As I set the glass back down on the nightstand, I noticed something white in the darkness.

My heart stopped. Lurching my arm toward it, I held my breath, my chest feeling like it was caving in. Fear wanted to turn my limbs into stone. It was a note. My fingers trembled as I unfolded the paper.

In the same nauseatingly perfect handwriting, it read, Someone you love will learn to fly very soon.