The Mad Alpha's Substitute Bride-Chapter 75: Not Dead Yet

(CORRINE)

When my eyes open, I find myself in a familiar room.

This ceiling...I’ve seen it before. I try to move, but I feel so weak. Where am I?

There’s something cuddled by my side, and my eyes move to my left. I see a small wolf cub sleeping.

"Finn?" I struggle to speak, and my voice is scratchy.

My son starts, and then he sits up on his hind legs, staring at me. Before I can try to say anything else, he throws his head back and starts howling at the top of his lungs.

I hear loud footsteps. Panic fills me. But when the door is thrown open, two familiar faces burst in at the same time.

Locke.

Sigrid.

Locke makes a beeline toward me, but Sigrid pulls him back. "No!" Her voice is a shout. "She’s too weak. Stay back."

Weak?

I can’t talk. My throat feels like paper.

She approaches me and brings a small bottle to my lips, ordering, "Drink."

I take a few sips and then sigh in relief.

"Don’t speak," she says sharply. Her eyes are glistening with tears.

She opens the bedside drawer next to me and takes out several potions, forcing me to drink every one of them. Her touch is gentle, and I gulp them down thirstily. They taste like nothing, but my throat is so parched that they feel good.

When she’s finally done, Sigrid murmurs, "Give it a few minutes. You’ll be better soon."

She has one arm wrapped around my shoulders to support me, and soon enough, I feel my strength return.

"What happened?" I ask roughly. "Why am I here?"

Sigrid looks at Locke and nods her head. My mate is by my side in a heartbeat. "How are you feeling?"

His voice is hoarse, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. "I’m tired. Where am I?"

"In the palace," Locke tells me. Finn’s wolf crawls into my lap and curls up. His body is trembling. I touch his fur and stroke him. He whimpers but does not shift into his human form.

"What’s wrong with him?"

"He’s been like this ever since he saw you," Sigrid tells me sadly. "He refuses to shift back."

"Finn." I touch his nose, his forehead, forcing him to look at me. "Finn, I want to see your face."

He whimpers again, and Locke says, "Give him some time. He hasn’t left your side in days." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"What happened to me?"

Everything is very hazy right now. My memories are in chunks and bits, all over the place. I need somebody to help me piece them together.

"You don’t remember?" Locke asks cautiously. "Ravenna attacked you."

Ravenna. Her very name sends a shock to my system. And then the memories start flooding back. The attack. Jerry.

"Where’s Jerry?"

"He’s fine," Sigrid assures me. "He woke up two days after the attack. You took two weeks, my dear. The royal healers have been working on you around the clock. You nearly died." She wipes her eyes. "We didn’t know if you would ever wake up. Your injuries were life-threatening, and whatever Ravenna gave you, it temporarily disconnected you from your wolf."

"Is Ravenna—"

"She’s dead," Locke says bluntly. "She died far too easily. But not before she answered a few questions."

"I see." I don’t know what else to say. I feel so tired. "Can I go to sleep for a while?"

Locke and Sigrid exchange a look, and the latter nods. "I’ll bring up some food first. You can sleep after you eat."

Locke sits by me after she leaves the room. "I thought I was going to lose you. I never want to go through that again."

"I’m sorry," I whisper, my head still too foggy for me to actually feel anything.

When the food arrives, Locke feeds me every bite with his own hands. He tries to give some to Finn, but my son is only willing to eat if I feed him myself. He still doesn’t shift back, however.

When I’m done eating, my mate lies down with me and brings Finn to sleep between us. Sigrid enters the room, removes the dishes, and turns down the lights. "Sleep. You all need some rest now."

I don’t know what that means, but surrounded by my family, I feel safe, and I let myself slip away.

It takes me another whole week to recover. Information is fed to me in bits. But by the time I’m walking around, nobody has told me what happened in the lab. And every time I ask questions, my attention is diverted elsewhere. I do get some answers, though, especially about why the palace guards were nowhere to be seen. The enemy had drawn them away.

I finally manage to track Jerry down, and I sit with him. The royal healer looks like he has aged twenty years. With Finn in my arms, I study the healer. "What happened, Jerry? I need you to tell me. No more hiding the truth. Where is Maya? Why hasn’t she come to see me yet? Why is everybody avoiding talking about her?" I haven’t been allowed to leave the palace building, so I haven’t been able to go to her cottage.

Jerry buries his face in his hands. "Maya is gone."

"Gone?" I stare at him, confused. "Where did she go?" Jerry is silent. "Cassian."

"What about Cassian?"

Then, Jerry finally tells me what happened that fateful night.

"Maya called me to the lab. She had gotten the test results. We managed to find out how the victims were being kidnapped. They were being given a specific formula that was able to disconnect them from their animal, something that should be impossible." He looks at me intently.

"The same formula was given to both of us. That’s why you weren’t able to heal properly. I reached out to the intelligence unit, and it turns out the person who was in charge of Harold’s medical examiner report was Cassian. He deleted those two pages. The two shifters who died while looking into this case had apparently come far too close to the truth. They were able to figure out that Harold’s file was accessed by Cassian, who was studying Harold’s lineage. All of the shifters who were kidnapped had lineages that went back to a very specific time period."

"I don’t understand."

A voice from my left says, "Cassian was a member of the Silver Ring Organization, the same group that killed Locke’s parents. He was also the one who sidetracked the guards and helped Ravenna escape." I look over, still reeling from all this information, and see Erik standing in the doorway. He enters the room. "It’s good to see you up and about. I’m sorry I haven’t visited. I’ve had my hands full, what with the Eastern royal family being murdered and all."

"Murdered?" I gape at him in alarm. "Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?"

"You’re still too delicate right now," Erik says gently. "And ’murdered’ is the wrong word. They were executed. The Eastern royal family was in cahoots with the Silver Ring Organization. From what we understand, the Eastern royals had been working with this group for decades. They were kidnapping shifters. Ravenna told us the gist of it. Her father and uncle were fully involved, as were most of the noble families of the East. We spared the only child from the royal family, an innocent boy. He will be the new king, and in the meantime, a delegate will be appointed to help him run the kingdom."

Erik sits down beside us, looking exhausted.

"What a mess." I look between him and Jerry. "And Cassian was working with them?"

Erik nods.

"I remember seeing him and Maya walking toward—"

"He attacked me and dragged Maya away," Jerry says. "If you saw her with him, they weren’t out for a stroll together. He was taking her."

"Oh no," I groan. Bile rises in my throat. I could’ve stopped him. What have I done? "Have you found her?"

Erik shakes his head. "I’m sorry, Corrine." "We have to look for her!"

"It’s useless. Locke sent his best trackers after them, and they came back empty-handed. The Silver Ring Organization has a base that we can’t find."

"But we can keep trying—"

"We will. I will," Erik assures me. "There is too much chaos in the three kingdoms, and you are far too weak right now. So, I will be continuing to search from here. You need to go back to the North with Locke and work on your health and on your kingdom."

"I can’t abandon my friend." I get to my feet.

Erik and Jerry exchange a look, and then Jerry says heavily, "We believe she’s dead."

Tears spring to my eyes. "You’re wrong."

"I’m not wrong," Jerry sighs. "Cassian said he was going to take her hostage and then get rid of her. He needed to know what she knew, and that was it. She’s long dead, Corrine."

I break into sobs, unable to stop myself. This is my fault. I dragged her into this.

Two small hands cup my face. "Don’t cry, Mom. Please don’t cry."

Finn’s voice jerks me out of my despair temporarily. My sweet boy has shifted back. I hold him in my arms, trying to swallow my sobs. I hear him crying, as well. It takes a lot of effort to force myself to calm down. This is not the time to grieve.

I look at Erik. "What about her mother?"

My voice is thick, and Jerry says, "I’ll keep looking after her. Even if Maya isn’t here anymore, I will keep my end of the bargain and give her mother the best life I possibly can."

Erik puts his hand on my shoulder. "You should go home, Corrine. You barely survived. Locke nearly lost his mind. Go back to the North and rebuild your life. Maya is gone, but your son is here, and so is your mate. From what I know of your friend, she would have wanted you to live a happy life."

Two fat tears roll down my cheeks, and I nod. "I know." I take a deep breath before asking, "Have you looked into how Cassian got involved in all this?"

"He visited the East for a study program," Erik tells me. "It was for two years. When he returned, he began working for me. He had asked Jerry if he could work in the royal palace. Nobody suspected him because he was Jerry’s nephew."

I look at Jerry. "And he tried to kill you?"

The healer’s face is drawn. "He didn’t say anything. He simply cut me down and told Maya he needed to use her as a hostage. I still can’t understand it. But I heard him tell her about the Silver Ring Organization. I couldn’t remember much, but what I did, I told Erik. Everything else Erik and Locke found out was from Ravenna’s uncle. But even that information was sparse."

Finn is clinging to me, and I hold him tight. "If you want me and Locke to go back, are you saying you don’t need our help?"

"I will always need your help, Corrine," Erik admits. "But for now, we have to put a pin in some things and focus on picking up the pieces. We have identified our enemy. But the Eastern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom have taken massive hits. There have been enormous changes in the hierarchies. The kingdoms need time to recover and heal. And I need to do damage control here."

He looks at Jerry. "I’m going to increase security around the palace, and Jerry will keep investigating whatever Maya left him with. But I don’t think we are going to include any more humans in our world. She managed to get results, but the price she paid was far too high, even for us. We’re going to remember Maya and what she did for us for a long time."

I look at the child in my arms. Maya would have wanted me to look after Finn. She loved him.

"Okay," I murmur. "We’ll go home. If you need anything, please let us know." I take a step toward Erik to hug him. "Thank you for being a friend to me all these years."

He holds me for a moment before backing away. "I hope to be invited to your mating ceremony."

I smile at him sadly. "Of course."

I look down at Finn and stroke his hair. "Let’s go home. We’ve been here long enough."