Chapter 61

Sienna’s POV

Asher is dying.

The words kept repeating in my head, over and over the harder my feet pounded on the ground left between me and the antidote.

Rogues had always used a specific poison on their arrows called Curare, a toxin derived from various plants. It caused paralysis very quickly, and there were few options when it came to antidotes.

But Nightwind had come up with one, finally, after years of fighting against the poison. It was a fast acting antidote, though it only worked against a certain amount of curare.

Asher was surely reaching the limit of the antidote…and soon, too. His whole body was being taken by paralysis when I left.

Oh, Asher, I whispered in my head, a melancholy seizing my muscles.

When I reached Nightwind, it was chillingly quiet. The sirens had entirely cleared out the streets, as they should, only now it was too much like a ghost town.

I approached the Alpha house, shadows falling across the front of it like a real and true nightmare. The silence that settled around my shoulders gave me the creeps.

If there were any rogues left in the area, I’d hear them coming from a mile away. At least there was that.

Alpha house was, unsurprisingly, dead silent too, Simon’s absence more notable than usual.

Poor Simon, a prisoner out there at some rogue camp.

It was a horrible thought. Even worse was the idea that he might never be found alive.

I slipped into the house, hurrying to the back and into the locked cellar off of the kitchen, where a lot of potions were stored in temperature controlled rooms. Antidotes like the one Asher needed wasn’t something that was sold on the market a lot — it was always a special request.

Considering it wasn’t often someone got shot by a poison arrow.

Now where is that antidote? I thought frantically, scanning the fridges at the back of the frigid room.

I skimmed over a number of different tags, seeing nothing related to Curare. When I finally found what I needed, it was back in the corner, tucked at the back of the shelf in a tiny bottle.

You didn’t need much to combat the toxin in someone’s system, but considering how long Asher had been poisoned, I wasn’t sure how much I’d need.

There was a point where too much toxin would get to you and wasn’t reversible.

Please don’t let that be the case with Asher, I silently begged.

I grabbed the only two bottles in the fridge, hoping it would be enough, with time left to spare.

And then I took off running. Every second I didn’t push myself harder was another second Asher might slip away.

Every time I blinked, I saw the lifeless body of his wolf, lying there in the shrubbery.

Dying.

As I approached the main square, I saw a commotion ahead. It was hard to make it out at first, the clouds covering the light of the moon, shrouding them in shadows.

But as it came into focus, my heart sank. A mother clung to her little boy, two rogues nearly dragging her away, a third yanking at the child, attempting to force him from her grasp.

What can I really do? I whispered to myself, my wolf still so dormant. Without it, I was just a nineteen year old girl.

Even though I’d been trained in combat since I was young, it wasn’t always enough. Especially against three armed rogues.

The potions were tossed in a little bag on my back, and I certainly couldn’t risk them getting damaged. If they did, I’d be sending Asher to the grave.

I slipped the bag off my shoulder and nestled it behind a rock off the main path, creeping along the shadows at the edge towards the rogue with the child.

My best option was stealth.

Creeping up behind the rocks got me all the way up to the rogue without being seen, and I didn’t waste a second in grabbing him from behind and snapping his neck.

It was kill or be killed now.

His body dropped to the floor, the little boy now free from his grasp, a croaking sob tearing from his lips that grabbed the attention of the remaining two rogues.

I cursed to myself, grabbing the dead rogues poison tipped arrows and hurling them like darts into the others backs.

The first one dropped like a fly, but the second rogue drew his blade, spinning around — the arrow dug into his upper shoulder — and threw the blade so it lodged in my upper thigh.

A howling scream left my lips as the blade made contact, digging deep into my skin. I was lucky this one wasn’t poisoned — at least I hoped it wasn’t.

Searing pain shot through me, my jaw clenched as I beared the agony. My fingers wrapped around the small shaft of the blade, tearing it from my skin and hurling it back at the rogue.

It hit its mark. Straight in the heart.

The rogue dropped dead on the spot, and the mother scrambled to her little boy, wailing.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she choked out to me, her eyes swelling with tears. The little boy stayed silent, peering up at me with gracious eyes.

“You’re okay now,” I smiled through the pain, my throat dry. The ache was slowly spreading up my thigh, making me more nervous to look at the damage.

The blade had buried itself all the way in me, the heat of the blood trickling down my leg.

I’d deal with it later.

“Stay safe. Get home and lock your doors,” I instructed the woman, who nodded vigorously, lifting her child into her arms and disappearing into the shadows.

Get to Asher, I thought, knowing I wasted precious time.

I broke into a jog, ignoring the stabbing pain in my left thigh, the smell of blood permeating the air, and headed back down the path to where I left Asher.

When I got there, the silence was more haunting than it had been at the Alpha house. I could just barely hear his ragged and very uneven breathing.

He was exactly where I left him, so still he’d look dead to any passerby. But I could see the shuddering rise and fall of his chest as he fought for more time.

“Asher,” I whispered hoarsely, falling to my knees next to him. His fur was damp, like he’d been sweating, his body fighting the poison as best it could.

I yanked the antidotes out, lifting his limp snout up to slip it between his teeth, forcing the liquid from both of them down his throat. I could only hope it was enough.

“Please be okay,” I whimpered, nuzzling my face into his fur, my head rising and falling as he fought for each breath.

My fingers tangled into his fur, the wound on my thigh starting a dull ache in my bones, the pain slowly beginning to numb.

All I could focus on was each breath Asher took, how it meant he was still with me. I clung to his fur, my eyes heavy, wound leaking, heart aching.

And I waited.