Chapter 58 The plegue
Morning arrived with chaos wrapped in the messenger's trembling voice. Adrian stood at his study window, watching smoke rise from the lower town where they'd burned the first bodies. Ten deaths. All within hours of each other. All after displaying the same symptoms: fever, madness, then a violent transformation that turned wolf against pack.
The door opened without ceremony. Marcus filled the threshold, his usual military bearing fractured by something Adrian had never seen in his head warrior: fear. Not the clean fear of battle, but something deeper. His sword hand shook despite his white-knuckled grip on the hilt.
"Another fell." Marcus's voice carried the rough edge of sleeplessness. "The count is eleven now. The medics can't contain it. Whatever this is spreads faster than we can track."
Adrian turned from the window. The morning light caught the silver at his temples, made his ice-blue eyes look even colder than usual. But beneath that frozen surface, panic clawed at his ribs. A king couldn't show fear. Not when his people were dying. Not when the mate bond pulled at him constantly, demanding he go to Lila, keep her safe, protect what was his.
He forced his voice steady. "Where's the latest victim?"
"Pack hospital. But Your Majesty, the conditions there..." Marcus trailed off, his jaw working. "It's beyond anything our healers have seen."
They moved through the palace corridors at a near-run. Servants pressed themselves against walls as the King passed, their faces pale with the rumors already spreading. Adrian smelled their fear, sharp and acrid beneath the usual palace scents of beeswax and stone.
The hospital hit him like a physical blow. The smell reached him first. Blood and sweat and something else, something wrong that made his wolf recoil. The building that usually ran with quiet efficiency had transformed into barely controlled chaos. Healers rushed between beds where patients writhed and screamed. Some were restrained with thick leather straps that creaked under the strain. Others lay too still, their eyes staring at nothing.
Doctor Iris emerged from an emergency room, her white coat splattered with blood that looked black in the harsh morning light. She'd been the pack's head physician for twenty years, had treated everything from battle wounds to difficult births. Adrian had never seen her look shaken. Until now.
"Your Majesty." She dipped her head, but her hands trembled as she pulled off blood-soaked gloves. "We're losing control. The victims last only an hour once symptoms appear. First comes fever. Then their wolves rise, but wrong. Twisted. They attack anything near them, even pack members they've known their whole lives."
Adrian's jaw clenched. "What causes it?"
"I don't know." The admission cost her. Iris had built a career on knowing, on finding solutions. "It's unlike any disease in our medical texts. The speed alone is impossible. But I think..." She hesitated, meeting his eyes. "This feels divine. Or demonic. We need a seer. Someone who can read what medicine cannot."
A commotion erupted deeper in the hospital. Adrian heard shouting, the crash of furniture, a wolf's snarl that raised every hair on his neck. Two massive warriors appeared around the corner, dragging something between them. No, someone. A wolf, but wrong. Its eyes rolled white. Foam flecked its muzzle. The ropes binding it looked ready to snap.
"They found him attacking his own family," one of the warriors panted. Blood ran from claw marks across his chest. "Killed his mate before we could stop him."
Adrian moved closer despite Marcus's warning growl. The King had seen death in countless forms. Battle, execution, assassination. But this was different. This wasn't death. This was corruption, something that twisted nature itself.
The bound wolf's eyes suddenly focused on Adrian. For one heartbeat, clarity returned to that ravaged face. The man beneath recognized his King. Then madness crashed back like a wave, and the wolf lunged with impossible strength.
Adrian was fast. King's blood, battle-trained reflexes. But the rapid wolf moved like lightning. Its claws caught Adrian's forearm, tearing through skin and muscle. Pain blazed white-hot. The scent of his own blood filled his nose, copper-bright and wrong.
Marcus moved without thought. His sword left its sheath in one fluid motion. Steel flashed in the sterile lights. The blade took the rapid wolf's head clean off. The body dropped, still twitching, while its head rolled across the blood-slicked floor.
Silence crashed over the hospital. The two warriors who'd been holding the wolf stumbled back, faces blank with shock. They'd killed a pack member. Killed him on the King's steps. The weight of that death hung in the air like smoke.
"Why?" Adrian's voice cut through the quiet, edged with fury that made his wolf rise behind his eyes. "Why did you kill him?"
Marcus didn't lower his blade. "Because if I hadn't, he would have torn those men apart. And you." He turned, and Adrian saw something break in his warrior's face. "They bite, Your Majesty. One bite and the victim turns. Becomes like them. Rapid. Mindless. We've already lost three healers that way."
The words landed like stones. Adrian looked down at his torn forearm. Blood ran between his fingers, dripped onto pristine hospital floors. Three parallel gashes, deep but clean. The rapid wolf's claws had missed major vessels by inches.
"Your Majesty." Iris was already moving, grabbing supplies with practiced efficiency. "We need to clean that immediately. If any infected saliva got in the wound…"
"It didn't bite me." Adrian let her guide him to a treatment room. "Just clawed."
"Thank the Goddess." Iris worked quickly, her hands steady now that she had a task to focus on. She poured something that burned like liquid fire into the wounds. Adrian didn't flinch. "We've noticed the transformation requires a bite. Claws seem to just injure. But we can't be certain. This disease follows no rules I understand."
She stitched with careful precision while Adrian forced himself to breathe through the pain. Each pull of the needle sang along his nerves. But worse than the physical pain was the knowledge burning in his mind. His kingdom was falling. People were dying. And he had no idea how to stop it.
"Isolation," Iris said quietly, tying off the last stitch. "That's all I can recommend. Separate the sick from the healthy. Burn the bodies immediately. And pray we can find answers before this spreads beyond the lower town."
Adrian studied her face. Iris had delivered his son. Had served his father before him. She'd never lied to him, never softened truths because he was King. "What aren't you telling me?"
She met his eyes. "The patterns trouble me. All twelve victims lived in the same district. All fell ill within hours of each other. Diseases don't work like that. Even the fastest plague needs days to spread. This..." She shook her head. "This feels intentional. Like someone released something into that area deliberately."