Chapter 50: Chapter 0050

•DOMINIC•

I was walking down the academic corridor when I heard a scream from the other auditorium. I stopped and tried to listen to see if I had heard clearly.

It was a sharp and involuntary scream that didn't come from fear but from pain. I stood still for half a second, and tried to listen some more.

My wolf didn't hesitate. He moved through me like a current and put one word in my chest with a certainty that left no room for argument.

Aveline.

I hit the door with my shoulder and it swung open hard enough to bounce off the wall behind it.

The room was empty, and then I looked toward the front of the room, at the raised podium near the board, and I saw her.

She was on the floor.

I crossed the room in a few strides and dropped to my knees beside her. She was on her side, with one arm folded beneath her, completely still.

Her breathing was shallow, and the heat coming off her skin hit me before I had even touched her. It was as if she had drunk a dangerous potion that was fatal to werewolves.

I reached out and put my hand against the side of her face, and the bond that had been severed a few days ago came alive.

I pulled back instinctively and stared at my own hand like it had done something without my permission.

That was impossible. She had rejected me. I had accepted it. I had felt it being severed, I felt that clean and terrible snapping sensation, and I had spent every hour since then adjusting to the silence it left behind.

But I felt it again when I touched her. The same pull, the same recognition, and the same bond that I had tried to ignore for a month and keep at the same time.

I shook it off my mind and tried to focus on saving her life.

I turned her onto her back and got my first clear look at her neck. There was a bite mark, or a syringe mark that was terrible in the eyes.

The edges of it were already discolored in a way that told me whatever had been introduced through it was still working its way through her system.

It had to be wolfsbane. Someone had dosed her with wolfsbane, and not incidentally. This had been deliberate and measured, enough to put her down without killing her.

My jaw tightened.

I slid one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her knees and lifted her from the floor, and she didn't move.

Her head fell against my chest and I held her closer, desperate for her to hold on for some time until I got help for her.

The hallway outside the auditorium was empty.

I moved quickly, away from the classroom and toward the smaller hall that ran adjacent to it, a narrow connecting passage between the academic block and the administrative wing.

I pushed through the door with my shoulder and set her down on one of the benches inside.

"Aveline." I kept my voice low and put a hand against her jaw, tilting her face toward me. "Open your eyes."

But there was nothing.

I tried again, firmer this time, and got a faint crease between her brows in response.

Her body was working through something it wasn't equipped to process on its own and waiting for it to metabolize naturally was a risk I wasn't willing to take, not with how pale she was, not with how shallow her breathing had become in the time it had taken me to get her here.

I made the decision quickly.

I gathered her back up and took her through the side exit toward the medical building. It was a ten-minute walk, but I got there in seven minutes.

A few students turned to look, but I didn't slow down or explain myself.

The school doctor, an older man named Harlan who had been at the academy longer than most of the faculty, looked up from his desk when I came through the door and was on his feet before I had said a word.

He led me to the examination room and I placed Aveline down on the table. I stepped back and let him help her.

I stood near the door, watched, and didn't say a word.

He checked her pulse, her temperature, and her eyes. He found the bite mark on her neck and examined it without commentary.

He administered something through a small injection that he told me would help her system clear faster, and her breathing began to even out within a few minutes.

When he was satisfied, he straightened up and crossed toward me.

"She'll be alright," he sighed. "She needs rest and fluids and someone to check on her through the night, but she's past the worst of it."

I nodded. "What was used on her?"

"A concentrated compound. Whoever did this knew what they were doing." He paused, studying me for a moment, and then said, "Come outside with me for a moment."

We stepped into the small corridor between the examination room and his office. He closed the door behind us and kept his voice low.

"When I was examining her," he began, "I noticed a birthmark on her shoulder." He watched my face carefully as he spoke. "On her left shoulder blade. Are you aware of it?"

I looked at him. "No. I haven't seen it."

He nodded, as if this answered something he had been working out in his own mind.

"What does it mean?”