Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tempest
Fender hadn’t wanted me to leave, and alarmingly, I hadn’t wanted to either.
Last night with him had been wonderful, and after everything that had happened earlier that day, I’d needed wonderful. Disease had been freed. He was the reason people were sick and dying all over the city.
I strode into the clinic and stopped suddenly. People filled all the available seats, some forced to lie on the floor.
“Where have you been?” Magnolia said as she rushed toward me. “I tried to call you.”
I grabbed my phone. It was dead. “Sorry, I must have forgotten to charge my—”
“You’re here now, that’s the main thing,” she said and rushed off.
Jumping into action, I hightailed it to my locker, changed, and got to work.
I checked on Jessica and the others I’d treated as soon as I could, they were all still with us.
My potion seemed to be working, but since I couldn’t tell anyone what I’d done, their improvement had baffled the other healers.
I didn’t know if Warrick had told anyone about the situation we were in, and the real reason for this outbreak, so I kept my head down and did my job, and while I was at it, I secretly administered my potion, prioritizing the children and helping as many of the sick that I could, feeling guilty that I didn’t have enough for everyone.
It didn’t take long until the bottle was empty.
The rest of the morning went by in a blur. So many patients, so much pain.
It was late afternoon when the main door to the clinic flew open and Iris Thornheart, along with her mate, Draven, burst in. They each held a toddler. Tate and Raff lay limp in their arms, faces flushed and sweaty with fever, their little bodies trembling.
I ran to them. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here,” I said to Draven and reached for his son. “Let me take him.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes were vibrant green and all wolf. “Can you save them?”
Iris sobbed and I grabbed her, supporting her when her legs almost gave out.
“Please, help them. Please. I’ve tried everything, every tonic and potion, every bit of healing knowledge I have.
” Her face had gone white, as if every ounce of blood had drained away.
“Nothing’s worked. Nothing…I-I don’t know what to do.
” She pressed her mouth to her son’s burning forehead. “Help us.”
“This way.”
I led them to the room reserved for staff, and the only bed left in the clinic.
Iris and Draven laid their sons down, and Iris kneeled on the floor beside the bed, holding their hands, kissing their little fingers, and talking to them in a soothing tone, even as her entire body shook from the strength of her emotion.
Draven, the alpha wolf of the Silver Claw pack, and her mate, stood behind her, a haunted look in his eyes. I could feel the sickness coming from him. He was already infected. I grabbed a chair and pushed it up beside him. “You need to sit before you fall down.”
Iris spun to him.
“I’m fine, petal,” he said, even as his legs gave out and I quickly slid the chair under him.
“How?” she said. “How is this possible?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she choked out.
“The boys are all that matter. Don’t worry about me.”
Iris turned to me, and there was steel in her gaze now, mixed with horror. “This should be impossible. Draven is immortal, our boys should be immortal, this can’t be happening. You need to save them. Please save my family, Tempest.”
They were going to die.
Draven became immortal after he mated Iris, and their sons should be as well, but they were sick, deathly so.
Immortality or not, they would not be the same by the end of this illness.
And if they didn’t die, at the rate their organs were shutting down, they would wish they were.
Even if they survived, their bodies would decompose, they’d rot until they were only bone, and still, they would be forced to live, while Iris watched them suffer—unless she decapitated them.
Iris was going to lose not only her children but her mate as well in the most horrific of ways, and if she didn’t take matters into her own hands, it would be slow and painful. Bones took thousands of years to decay completely, they’d be driven mad.
Oh goddess. I couldn’t allow that to happen, not to them, not to anyone.
Magnolia was trying to be strong around her sister, but she knew. She saw the signs as well as I did.
Their fevers were out of control, and none of them could keep down fluids.
The twins were unconscious now, and I had no idea how Draven still had his eyes open in the condition he was in, or how he was still upright in that chair.
With my magic, even with how exhausted I was right then, I could hear the irregular arrhythmia of his heart.
I could feel organs dying slowly in all three of them.
He and his pups had moved to the next stage rapidly.
The virus had changed since it first hit the city.
Now it moved more rapidly, hitting harder and faster.
We’d lost all control, though now knowing what…who caused this, we’d never had any. Apparently, Disease had finished toying with us. He wanted us all dead.
My fingers curled tight. I couldn’t just let them all die.
No matter the consequences. My life, the future of the Matildas wasn’t more important than the babies lying on that bed close to death, and all the others filling this clinic. If I didn’t do more now, there’d be no one left. Disease would take us all anyway.
“There’s something I can do.” I turned to Magnolia. “Jessica, the others that are recovering—”
Magnolia’s eyes flared. “That was you? You did that?”
“What I have is limited but there is more I can get—”
Magnolia grabbed my upper arms. “Do it. Help them, please.”
“I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
Two hours later, I strode down the hall of the clinic, holding a potion made with the last Agattealia Pontella flower in existence.
The Matildas had been shrieking in my skull the whole time I’d done it.
I’d tried to explain, but they wouldn’t listen.
They refused to understand. If for some reason, I lost consciousness now, they’d take control of me, walk me back out of this hospital, and I’d never be seen again.
Now they were silent, in a way I’d never felt before. I swallowed thickly. I never felt more alone.
“Tempest,” Magnolia cried when she saw me. “Hurry.”
I ran, rushing into the room. Draven was on the bed with their babies, all three of them were gray, unconscious, and Iris was draped over them, sobbing. The sound reached inside me and squeezed my heart. If I’d had any misgivings about what I was doing, that all washed away now.
“I need to give them each a drop,” I said to Magnolia.
Iris lifted her head, and the devastation on her face made me flinch. “It’s too late,” she gasped out. “Oh goddess, it’s too late. Th-they’re…” Tears slid down her face. “They’re…c-cold.”
“Are they breathing?” I moved closer.
She nodded, numbly, but she knew what cold meant. The people she loved the most in this world would be stuck in living death for thousands of years until their bones finally rotted away. But they were still breathing, and I refused to give up. Not now. “Then there’s hope.”
“What is that?” Magnolia asked as I filled the dropper.
I took a steadying breath and met her eyes. “Agattealia Pontella.”
“What?” Magnolia rasped.
Iris shot to her feet.
I ignored the looks on their faces. “This is not a reanimation potion,” I rushed out. “They’re not dead, their immortality means this should heal them. We’re not trying to bring the dead to life. If this works, they will return to full health.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Iris said.
“I don’t know for sure. There are no guarantees at this point.”
“Do it,” Iris said. “Do it now.”
Magnolia opened their mouths one by one. I placed a drop on each of their tongues and stepped back.
“How is that enough?” Iris said. “That can’t be enough.”
Draven’s skin was still gray.
“How long before we know if this is going to work?” Iris said, holding her tiny sons’ hands in hers.
“I’m not sure. The patients I used it on weren’t immortal, and they weren’t as sick, but there was improvement quite fast.”
Iris stilled, lifting Tate’s hand to her mouth and pressing it to her lips. “He feels warmer.” She turned to her sister. “I’m positive he’s warmer. Check his temperature. Does he feel warmer to you?”
Magnolia quickly checked and a tear slid down her face when she nodded. “Yes.”
Relief washed through me as they checked Raff and Draven as well.
All three were warming. Trembling, I backed up, needing to get out of there.
Their core temperatures had risen, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.
I had no way of knowing if it would work, if they’d even wake.
They were different than the others I’d treated, this was all trial and error.
I started down the hall, heading for the main doors. I needed air, just for a moment.
“You had that the whole time?” Magnolia said from behind me.
I turned.
“When did you start using it on the patients here?”
“Two days ago.”
She stared at me, and she didn’t have to say what she was thinking, it was written all over her face.
“What are their chances? Really?”
I reached for the wall, feeling shaken, confused, scared. “I don’t know. Only time will tell, but it’s their best option, and as of right now, their only one.”
Her hands curled into fists at her side. “You had that the whole time, Tempest, and instead of using it, you let people die.”
She’d decided to say it out loud anyway.
I felt sick to my stomach. How could I explain?
Nothing I said would be enough. “No, I…” I shook my head, guilt slamming into me with force.
“It’s forbidden. I’m not supposed to...” I slammed my mouth shut before I said too much, but having Magnolia’s anger aimed at me when she’d been so kind, when she’d been my only friend when I first started here, hurt like hell.
“I didn’t think to use it because I was forbidden. I’m not allowed to—”
“Give me the bottle. I need to use it on the other patients before we lose anyone else,” she said, fury shining in her eyes. “Like you said, this is their only option.”
“I’ve used it on as many as I could. That is the last of it. I have no more. Anyone with a red line under their names has had a dose,” I quickly said as she took it from me. I gave it to her willingly. I wanted to help, I didn’t want anyone else to suffer. “You don’t understand. Mags, please—”
“I know what you are, Tempest. Who you are, but that doesn’t excuse this.”
My blood turned cold. “What?”
“You’re the Matilda, right?”
I swallowed thickly, my throat so tight I wasn’t sure how I was still breathing. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no, either, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her.
“I don’t care who you are, what you are. You still should have helped sooner,” she said.
She knew. There was no point denying it. “We don’t interfere with the natural way of things, with fate, that is not our place. Even if that means life or death.”
“Bullshit. That’s exactly what you do,” she fired at me.
My spine stiffened. She was hurt, afraid for her family, but I’d just destroyed mine.
“What I do, what I remove from this plane of existence is far from natural. It is evil incarnate, corrupted by the foulest of magic. If you think I have taken pleasure in any of this, in seeing people suffer, then you never knew me at all.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then why intervene now? Why not just let everyone die?” There wasn’t just anger in her voice, there was also curiosity.
“Because what is happening here is not natural either,” I said, my voice shaking.
Her eyes flared. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
I’d just lost my friend. I could see it in her eyes.
Magnolia wasn’t going to forgive me for this, despite what I’d told her.
In her mind, I’d allowed her loved ones to suffer, I’d allowed so many people in the clinic to suffer, to die, and she was right.
I had done that. I hadn’t meant to, but I had, despite my reasons and my vow not to interfere in the lives of those I was not called to assist.
My refusal to help had hurt so many people, a lot of them, and if the Agattealia Pontella didn’t work the same on immortals, her sister would lose her mate and her children anyway.
I deserved her disdain, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to make things right now.
“I know you don’t want me near you right now, but if you will let me, I’ll explain what Fender and I have discovered. ”