XADEN’S POV
Xaden pressed the cloth over his shoulder to ease the bleeding.
"Where is Loren?" He demanded.
"He is attending to the dead Alphas." One of his guards told him.
Xaden tossed the bloodied cloth on a heap of bloodied pieces of clothing.
He picked up a fresh one. "Dead Alphas? They are dead for a reason. He works for me."
"He isn’t the one who is treating the ill Alphas. The slave you brought in, Jasmine, Alpha Bale’s daughter." The guard explained.
Xaden didn’t know why he had to use all that description and remind him that Bale’s daughter was here.
"What about her?" He asked as he pressed the cloth on the bleeding shoulder.
"She is the one treating the wolves." He said. "Then Loren is the one taking away the bodies."
Why was she working for Loren?
Since when did that start? And the Loren he knew didn’t like working for anyone. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
"Would you like me to send for her?" The guard asked.
Xaden remembered when she reached out to touch his shoulder in the forest, and he vehemently shook his head.
He didn’t want her anywhere around him.
"I want Loren! Get me, Loren! No matter what he is doing! Bring him here!" Xaden roared, and the guards scurried away.
He pressed the blood, and when he saw it, it began to sputter black blood.
It was not closing up, and he was losing blood.
He felt his veins begin to show, and then his head began to turn.
He knew it. It was happening again.
He gasped and struggled as he wrestled with the attack on his mind.
His teeth began to change, and saliva dangled and foamed from his mouth.
He crashed to the floor, and then he struggled to look for the safe where he kept the treatment.
But he was too weak.
He used his belly to move, and in the process, he pulled things down.
The transformation was becoming faster and faster.
He growled and snapped, and his back began to form. Then, just as he was about to reach the cabinet, he saw his hands had become times five of the original wolf hand.
No, he couldn’t change.
He couldn’t.
He had said he would meet her after the Halo festival.
Just as he felt himself begin to do black, he slightly saw the door of his bedroom open, and then footsteps ran in.
He thought he saw Eleanor.
But that was not possible.
She was far, far away.
She came to his face.
She was saying something.
Something he could not comprehend.
Was he dying? Or was the wolf taking control?
She shook him, but he felt himself going.
He felt something pierce through him, and he saw her lift a dagger from his body.
Then everything went blank.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie chewed on an apple.
"You helped him?! By what?! Putting a hex on him?" Eleanor raged in anger.
"The man wanted it." Marie said. "He came to meet me and told me he had heard about me and wanted someone to make a trade."
"You’re lying." Eleanor said. "You tricked him. He would never do that."
"Oh, why? Because he didn’t come to you?" Marie asked.
Eleanor closed her eyes. "You used dangerous magic. It is the most dangerous magic that has ever existed. And you’re being calm about it?"
"I didn’t use it. I helped him! There is a difference! You refused to help him! And so he came to me." Marie responded.
"I didn’t help him for a reason." Eleanor said. "It’s a dark, dangerous magic. We can’t even predict it."
"And so what?" Marie asked.
Eleanor wanted to explode. "What did you trade?"
"You won’t ask what he wanted?" Marie asked.
There was no need for Eleanor to ask what he wanted.
He had asked her before.
He had met her and told her he wanted power to vanquish all his enemies.
"What did you trade?" She asked.
"I gave him victory. I assured him that he would defeat the ones who betrayed him and their bloodlines." Marie said. "I gave him power."
"Power that he already had! You turned him into a monster!" Eleanor retorted. "So, what did you take?"
Marie smiled. "I took his ability to have children. He can never have children. Moreover, he never wanted it in the first place."
Eleanore sat down weakly on a chair.
She had tried her best to deter him. She told him to leave it alone, but he had been so hungry on his quest that he had completely ignored her warnings.
"And one more thing." She said. "He doesn’t have a heart. That one he asked me to take out."
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