The Sick Pack

The Sick Pack

Lyra's POV

The messenger fell at our gates, blood streaming from his mouth.

I dropped the bandages I was using to help injured wolves from last night's attack and ran toward him. Even from a distance, I could see something was badly wrong. His skin was gray, his eyes were cloudy, and he was shaking like he had a fever.

"Help me," he gasped as I knelt beside him. "Please... the pack is dying."

Darius appeared next to me, his face grim. We'd barely survived the covenant's attack twelve hours ago, and now we had a new problem.

"Who are you?" Darius asked the man.

"Beta Cole from Ironclad Pack," the messenger wheezed. "I need to speak to the StarBlood wolf."

My heart stopped. Ironclad Pack. The place where I'd been bound for twenty years. The wolves who had beaten me, starved me, and treated me like garbage.

"That's me," I said quietly.

Beta Cole's eyes widened when he looked at me. "You... you're living. They said you were dead."

"What do you want?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Our Alpha is dying," he said sadly. "The whole pack is sick. Our doctors say it's a curse, and only you can break it."

I felt Darius tense beside me. We both knew what curse he was talking about. Elder Thorne had told me about this before he died - enslaving a StarBlood wolf would bring punishment on the pack.

"How many are sick?" I asked.

"Everyone," Cole responded. "Even the children. It started three weeks after you escaped. First, the strongest fighters got weak. Then the women stopped being able to feed their babies. Now dogs are dying every day."

Despite everything they'd done to me, I felt my heart breaking. I thought about the children I'd sometimes seen playing in the pack grounds. They'd never hurt me. They didn't deserve to suffer for their parents' abuse.

"What exactly do you want from me?" Darius asked coldly.

"We need her to come back," Cole said, looking at me with urgent eyes. "Alpha Marcus says if she forgives the pack and lifts the curse, he'll give her anything she wants."

I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny about it. "Marcus wants me to come back? The same Marcus who drained my blood and tried to sacrifice me?"

"He's dying too," Cole said. "The curse hit him hardest of all. He can barely stand up now."

Part of me wanted to feel happy about Marcus hurting. After everything he'd put me through, didn't he deserve it? But another part of me - the part that still remembered being a scared little girl who just wanted someone to care about her - felt sad.

"I can't go back there," I said finally. "It's too dangerous."

"Please," Cole begged. "The children are innocent. They're dying because of something they had nothing to do with."

Those words hit me like a punch to the chest. He was right. The children weren't responsible for binding me. They were just victims too.

"Lyra," Darius said quietly, "we need to talk privately."

I helped Cole sit up against a tree and gave him some water, then followed Darius a few steps away.

"You're thinking about it," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Those children-"

"It's a trap," he interrupted. "Morgana probably caused the sickness herself to lure you out."

I shook my head. "Elder Thorne told me about this curse. It's real magic, older than Morgana. It happens when a pack enslaves someone with celestial blood."

"Even if that's true, going back to Ironclad Pack right now is suicide," Darius countered. "Morgana knows you'll feel bad about innocent people suffering. She's probably waiting there with an army."

"But what if she's not?" I asked. "What if this is real, and I let children die because I was too scared to help them?"

Darius took my hands in his. "You're not responsible for solving everyone's problems. You've already saved so many people. You don't owe Ironclad Pack anything."

"I know that," I said. "But this isn't about what I owe them. It's about who I am."

Before Darius could answer, Thomas came running toward us.

"Alpha, we have another problem," he called out. "Three more carriers just arrived. From different packs."

My stomach sank. "What do they want?"

"The same thing," Thomas answered grimly. "All their packs are getting sick. They're all begging the StarBlood wolf to come help them."

I felt like the world was spinning around me. "How many packs?"

"So far? Seven," Thomas said. "But I think there will be more."

Darius cursed under his breath. "This can't be a coincidence."

"It's not," said a new voice behind us.

We turned to see Elena, Haven's Rest healer, approaching with a worried look.

"I've been researching the old texts," she stated. "When a StarBlood wolf is captured or mistreated, it doesn't just curse the pack that hurt them directly. The magical imbalance spreads to any pack that knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it."

"What does that mean?" I asked, though I was afraid I already knew.

"It means every pack that traded with Ironclad, every Alpha who saw you being mistreated and ignored it, every wolf who knew slavery was happening and stayed silent - they're all affected by the curse."

I sat down hard on the ground, stunned. "How many packs knew?"

"Most of them," Elena said sadly. "StarBlood slavery was an open secret in the werewolf world. Everyone knew it was happening."

"So the entire werewolf nation could die from this curse?" Darius asked.

Elena nodded. "Unless Lyra forgives them and lifts it."

The weight of duty crashed down on me like a mountain. Thousands of innocent wolves - children, mothers, adults who had nothing to do with my enslavement - were dying because of something that happened to me.

"There has to be another way," I breathed.

"There might be," Elena said slowly. "But you're not going to like it."

"Tell me."

"The curse can be transferred," she stated. "Instead of forgiving everyone, you could choose to redirect all the magical punishment onto one person."

"Who?" Darius asked.

"The person most responsible for the original crime," Elena answered. "In this case, that would be Marcus."

I thought about it. Marcus had deceived me, used me, and tried to kill me. If anyone deserved to suffer from this curse, it was him.

But then I remembered something Elder Thorne had told me: "Revenge makes you just like the people who hurt you."

"I can't do that," I said finally. "Even to Marcus."

"Then you have to choose," Elena said gently. "Either go to the packs and forgive them in person, or let thousands of innocent wolves die."

Before I could answer, Jake came running toward us, his face pale with panic.

"Alpha!" he shouted. "We've got incoming! A huge group coming from the south!"

"Covenant forces?" Darius asked, immediately alert.

"No," Jake answered, breathing hard. "It's pack Alphas. At least twenty of them, all flying white flags of truce."

I felt sick. "They're all coming here?"

"It gets worse," Jake continued. "They're not alone. Each Alpha brought members from their pack - the sickest ones. There are hundreds of dying wolves going toward our gates."

Darius grabbed my arm. "We need to escape. Now."

"Wait," I said, something clicking in my mind. "This is too perfect. How did all these Alphas know to come here at the same time?"

Elena's eyes widened with understanding. "Someone told them. Someone coordinated this."

"Morgana," Darius growled. "She's using the curse to force you into the open."

"But the curse is real," I argued. "I can feel it in my blood. These wolves really are dying."

"That doesn't mean Morgana didn't plan for it," Thomas pointed out. "Maybe she knew binding you would cause this curse. Maybe she's been waiting for it."

Before anyone could reply, a new voice called out from the approaching crowd.

"Lyra Ashworth!"

I looked up to see a person walking ahead of the other Alphas. Even at a distance, I recognized the voice.

It was Alpha Garrett from Ironclad Pack - Marcus's father and the wolf who had bought me as a baby.

"I know you can hear me!" he yelled. "I'm here to give my pack to you! Everything we own, everything we are, it's yours if you'll just save our children!"

The crowd of sick wolves behind him was bigger than Jake had said. There had to be at least five hundred dogs, all looking weak and desperate.

"This is emotional manipulation," Darius said furiously. "She's making you choose between your safety and innocent lives."

"But they are innocent lives," I replied, tears beginning to form in my eyes.

"And if you go out there, you'll be captured," he countered. "Then even more innocent people will die when Morgana completes her ritual."

I looked at the coming crowd of dying wolves, then at my friends from Haven's Rest who were counting on me to keep them safe.

How was I supposed to choose between saving strangers and protecting the people I loved?

"Lyra," Alpha Garrett called again, his voice carrying across the distance. "I know what we did to you was terrible. But please, don't let our children pay for our sins."

As if called by his words, a small figure broke away from the crowd and started running toward us.

It was a little girl, maybe seven years old, with twisted hair and clothes that were too big for her. She was so weak she could barely stay standing, but she kept stumbling forward.

"Please," she called out in a tiny voice. "My mama is dying. Please help us."

The little girl fell just a few feet from our gate.

And in that moment, looking at her small, powerless form, I knew I couldn't turn my back on them.

Even if it killed me.