Chapter 179 Chapter 179

Chapter 179 Chapter 179
Jolene
The sound of hammers hitting stone echoes through the high, drafty corridors of the palace, competing with the distant hum of portable generators.
Our apartment was a mess. Merrick took one look around and declared it unusable. He had the whole place emptied out, and when they went down to the forest to cremate the rogues, he used our old mattress as kindling.
He kept the beautiful, heavy wood frame though. And most of the antique furniture.
Lysander slept in our room, and we could smell him everywhere. The Omegas had to scrub the place three times before Merrick had a new mattress and linens brought up.
Everywhere I look, our home is being pieced back together. Vanguard wolves carry heavy oak beams across the grand hall, Gary’s human crew works on patching the shattered stained-glass windows with reinforced acrylic sheeting, and Clyde is shouting through a fresh megaphone about organised cleaning shifts for the lower courtyard.
It feels good to be home, even if the home in question is currently freezing and smells faintly of damp masonry and pine smoke.
I sit at the long wooden table in the archive room, one of the few spaces on the second floor that managed to escape the aqueduct explosion completely unscathed. The walls are lined with thick, ancient leather-bound ledgers, dusty scrolls, and hand-drawn maps of the Northern Territory dating back centuries.
I pulled out some ancient tomes and looked at the strange drawings of fantastical creatures, wondering what it was I stared at, because the writing on the paper didn’t resemble any language I knew. 
A small, clay brazier burns beside my chair, casting a warm amber glow over the table. My growing bump rests snugly against the edge of the wood, wrapped in one of Merrick’s softest, oversized grey knit sweaters. 
This pregnancy feels like it’s flying by, and sometimes I look in the mirror, my head cocked as I stroke my stomach, sure that there must be two babies in there. I’m fucking huge.
Every few minutes, my daughter gives a firm, energetic poke against my ribs, as if offering her two cents on the dusty books spread out around me.
"If you lean over any further, Jo, you’re going to knock over the sage tea," Calla warns, stepping up beside me and setting a steaming stoneware mug on a leather coaster.
Beside her, Clara is carefully unrolling a yellowed parchment map that looks like it might disintegrate if someone sneezes too hard near it. The witch’s dark eyes are rimmed with red, her hands smudged with dried herbs and crushed charcoal.
"We need to go back to the source," Clara says softly, tracing her finger over a series of ancient, hand-drawn symbols spiraling around a central sun icon. "The curse that plagues the wolves, the rot that forces an Ultima to bite and convert humans every three generations just to keep the Lycan marrow from going cold… it wasn't forged by Fae magic alone."
“It’s not magic,” I say and take a slow sip of lavender-scented tea, letting the warmth settle into my chest. “Nathaniel says it’s genetic.”
Clara looks up. “Genetic? No. If it was a matter of genetics, introducing new blood to the species would have fixed the problem.”
“Nathaniel thinks humans will be able to solve the problem with science.”
“You think a lot about Nathaniel’s opinion,” Calla says dryly. “He’s a modernist. He doesn’t follow the old ways.”
I smirk and hold my cup up to my friend. “Lysander believes in the old ways, and look where that ended up.”
Calla opens her mouth to hit back, but before she can, Clara speaks, “The key is to find a balance… between the old and the new. Maybe the humans can find an answer, but the humans are a little busy right now.”
I sigh and lean forward. My husband tasked me with finding an answer to the problem, but there is no answer as far as I can tell. I think he’s just trying to keep me off the internet.
I’ll play along though, because there’s literally nothing else to do.
"Merrick said the wolves were created to balance the Fae. But if we were meant to be a balance, why does the blood decay?" Calla asks.
"Maybe it’s a curse,” I answer. “Remember how Lysander corrupted the rogues? When the bond was severed, they all died on the spot. 
“Perhaps what’s killing the wolves is something similar. A little remnant of the curse passes on down the bloodlines until it overwhelms the system and kills the wolf.”
“That makes sense. That could be it,” Clara says.
“Could it? Did no one else explore this possibility before?”
The witch deflates. “There really doesn’t seem to be an answer, does there?
My daughter stretches and does a little tap dance on my bladder, sending a sharp, sudden urge to pee straight through me.
I reach down under the oversized sweater, resting my palm over the firm curve of my stomach. The tiny, stubborn kick beneath my hand feels less like a coincidence now and more like a bridge between two worlds.
"How long has this been going on?" I ask, looking between the two women. “Wolves reaching near extinction levels before the Ultimas start making new ones.”
Clara looks at me as if I’ve sprouted a second head. “Since the beginning of time.”
I nod slowly and bite into my bottom lip. “Did anyone ever consider that maybe that’s  just the natural cycle of things?”
“Yes,” Clara says in a huff. “Until the miracle is born. It says so in the prophecies.”
"Right, well, Merrick was right about one thing - I can't just go online and promise millions of humans that I’m going to fix the world when I don't even know how to save the werewolves. How the fuck am I supposed to give everyone a miracle when we can’t even figure out what’s wrong?"
Before Clara can answer, the heavy oak doors of the archive room swing open with a low, deep creak.
Merrick steps into the room, his massive frame instantly making the high-ceilinged archive feel smaller. 
He’s wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that really does a fantastic job cradling his spectacular ass. His forearms are smudged with soot from helping the elementals repair the lower heating ducts. 
The moment his eyes land on me, the hard, kingly lines on his face soften into that quiet, familiar warmth that makes my breath catch in my throat.
"How is the research going, my Queen?" he rumbles, stepping around the table to stand behind my chair, his large, warm hand resting naturally over my shoulder, his thumb gently caressing my neck.
"It’s not going at all," I say, thoroughly irritated with the whole subject. “Fairytales and guesswork. I really think we should listen to Nathaniel about this one. He told me that the miracle isn’t some supernatural-”
“I’m so sick of hearing about Nathaniel’s theories,” Clara rudely interrupts. “He is not the being-all and end-all of werewolf knowledge.”
“Neither are you,” Merrick answers in a low, dangerous voice. “Nathaniel is a scholar. He studied this phenomenon for a long time. I spoke to him about it at length this morning. And what he says makes a lot more sense to me than some kind of ancient curse that never burns out.”
“Sire,” Clara starts. “Doubting the texts-” 
“The texts were written by Lycan who thought stars were holes in the fabric of our reality. We need to move with the times and update our knowledge.
Merrick’s hand tightens slightly on my shoulder, his dark green eyes dropping to the dusty parchment on the table. "The answer will not be found in ancient scrolls written by superstitious sorcerers.”
The room goes quiet for a second, the heavy weight of Merrick’s words hanging in the warm air.
“King, forgive me,” Clara starts, “but your mate was cured by a superstitious sorcerer.”
“Two things can be true at once,” Merrick says without missing a beat. “Magic almost killed my mate, and genetics kill werewolves over time. It is time for Jo to put down this yoke, and it’s time for you to stop expecting miracles from her. Changing the world was her job, and she’s done it.”
I reach up, lacing my fingers through his large hand, feeling the solid, unbreakable strength of the husband beside me and the daughter growing inside me.
I throw my head back and look at him. “That’s it?” I ask. “Just like that?”
“Yes. If you are truly meant to save the werewolves, if that is your destiny, then the answer will present itself… otherwise, we have to accept that the question has been answered already, and now we just need to wait.”
Calla smiles and nods. “I like that idea.”
“I don’t,” Clara says.
“Yes, well,” Merrick says dryly. “You’re a witch. You mistrust science as much as scientists mistrust magic.”
Clara scowls at him, but says nothing else.
I get up from my seat, feeling the weight of the world rolling off my shoulders as I do.