Healing Wounds

Nova's hands shook as she pressed the healing paste onto Thomas's chest. The freed wolf thrashed against the ropes that held him to the bed, his eyes rolling wildly as Marcus's voice kept bursting from his mouth.

"Get out of my head!" Thomas screamed in his own voice before it twisted again into Marcus's cold laugh.

"This one is mine," Marcus's voice hissed. "They're all still mine."

Nova didn't stop working. She smeared the glowing blue paste in the shape of a protection symbol while whispering the ancient words her grandma had taught her. Around the room, other healers did the same for the dozen freed wolves who had fallen at the same moment.

"Hold him steady," she told two assistants as Thomas bucked against the ropes. "The paste has to dry in this pattern or the magic won't work."

Outside the healing room, Lucas paced. Every scream tore through him like a knife. These wolves had suffered for decades under Marcus's control, and now, just when they thought they were free, they found he still had hooks in their minds.

Elijah burst through the trees, running toward him. "I've checked all the borders. No sign of Marcus physically breaching our territory."

"He doesn't need to be here," Lucas growled. "He's working through them somehow."

Another scream came from the healing room. Lucas recognized Thomas's voice and winced.

"This is my fault," he said. "I should have made sure the cleansing was complete. I should have saved him years ago."

Elijah grabbed Lucas's shoulders. "Stop. You couldn't have known. None of us could."

Lucas pulled away. "You don't understand. Thomas was my friend long before all this. When he disappeared fifty years ago, I should have looked harder. Should have found him before Marcus twisted him into that... thing."

"Lucas—"

Another scream cut off whatever Elijah was going to say. This time it was Sarah, Thomas's mate. She wasn't even one of the corrupted wolves, but she'd fallen moments after Thomas did.

"What is happening to them?" Lucas whispered.

The healing den's door opened, and Nova stepped out. Her white hair was plastered to her face with sweat, and blood stained her hands where Thomas had scratched her.

"The binding paste is working," she said. "It's blocking Marcus's voice, at least for now."

"Is Thomas—"

"He's still fighting," Nova said. "But there's something else happening. Something I don't understand."

She led them inside. The air smelled of plants and sweat and fear. Thomas lay still now, the blue paste dried on his chest in a complex pattern. His eyes were open but unfocused.

"Watch," Nova said. She lifted Thomas's arm.

A black line ran just under his skin, like a vein filled with ink. As they watched, it hummed and moved slightly, as if something lived inside it.

"What is that?" Elijah asked.

"I think it's Marcus's corruption," Nova said. "But it's different now. Before, it changed their whole bodies. Now it's... concentrated. Like it's hiding."

Lucas knelt beside the bed. "Thomas? Can you hear me?"

Thomas's eyes cleared slightly. "Lucas? He's still here. Not... talking now. But watching. Waiting."

"We'll get him out," Lucas promised. "Just hold on."

Thomas grabbed Lucas's wrist with surprising strength. "Not just me. All of us. He left... pieces. In all of us."

Around the room, the other freed wolves showed the same black lines under their skin. Some had them on their arms, others across their chests or faces.

"We need to get these out," Elijah said. "Some kind of purification ritual?"

Nova nodded. "I'm already preparing. We'll need the whole pack to help channel energy."

Over the next three days, Nova directed the largest healing ritual the pack had ever tried. Wolves from both territories—Eastern and Western—worked together, making circles around the healing den. Those with magic directed it inward. Those without brought food, water, and fresh flowers.

Lucas refused to leave Thomas's side, even when Elijah insisted he needed rest.

"I abandoned him once," Lucas said. "I won't do it again."

On the fourth morning, the ceremony reached its peak. Nova stood in the middle of the healing den, her hands raised as she directed the pack's energy. The blue paste marks on the freed wolves began to glow brighter and brighter.

"Now!" she shouted.

Hundreds of wolves howled as one. The sound shook the trees and made the ground shake. Inside the freed wolves, the black lines writhed and rose to the surface of their skin.

"Fight it!" Lucas told Thomas, holding his friend's hand. "Push it out!"

Thomas's back arched as the evil fought to stay inside him. The black line slithered up his arm toward his heart.

"No!" Lucas grabbed the black line with his bare hand. Pain shot through him, but he didn't let go. His dark magic flowed into his fingers, wrapping around the corruption. "You don't get to keep him!"

The black thing squealed—an awful, high-pitched sound—and then melted into smoke. All around the room, similar smoke rose from the other wolves as Marcus's leftover corruption was forced out.

Thomas fell back onto the bed, breathing hard but with clear eyes for the first time. "Is it gone?"

Nova checked his arm. "The mark is gone, yes. But we'll need to watch for any signs it's returning."

Over the next week, the freed wolves started to truly recover. Elijah took charge of helping them find places in the unified pack system. Some returned to homes they'd been taken from. Others, with no live relatives, formed new bonds with willing pack members.

"They're adjusting better than I expected," Elijah told Lucas as they watched a group of freed wolves learning the new pack hunting patterns.

Lucas nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. Every night, he still dreamed of Thomas stuck in that corrupted form. Of all the years his friend had suffered while Lucas lived his life, never knowing.

"You're doing it again," Elijah said, hitting Lucas's shoulder. "Blaming yourself."

"How did you know?"

"Our bond, remember?" Elijah tapped his chest where their mate link connected them. "I can feel when you're spiraling."

Lucas sighed. "I just keep thinking—"

A commotion from the training field stopped him. One of the freed wolves had fallen. By the time Lucas and Elijah reached her, her face was flushed red and she was gasping for breath.

"Get Nova!" Lucas ordered as he knelt beside the falling wolf.

The wolf—Mira, he remembered her name now—looked up at him with scared eyes. "Something's wrong," she whispered. "I can't shift."

Lucas tried to help her change forms, giving his alpha energy as he would for an injured pack member. Nothing happened.

Nova arrived minutes later, already pulling plants from her medicine bag. But her usual confident look faltered when she saw Mira.

"This isn't like the corruption," she said after inspecting the sick wolf. "This is something else."

By nightfall, three more freed wolves had fallen ill with the same symptoms: fever, weakness, and failure to shift. Nova worked hard, trying remedy after remedy, but nothing seemed to help.

"Could it be some kind of aftereffect from being controlled so long?" Elijah asked as they gathered in the meeting room.

"Maybe," Nova said, though she didn't sound convinced. "But there's something strange about the pattern of who's getting sick."

"What do you mean?" Lucas asked.

"It's only affecting wolves who were held the longest. The ones who had the most direct contact with Marcus."

A chill ran down Lucas's spine. "You think he planned this? Left some kind of... delayed trap in them?"

Before Nova could answer, Kael burst into the chamber. "Thomas is sick now too. But it's different—he's shifting uncontrollably. And there's something else..."

Lucas followed Kael at a run to the healing den. Inside, Thomas thrashed on the bed, his form flickering between human and wolf so quickly it was hard to see where one ended and the other started.

But what made Lucas's blood freeze was the mark reappearing on Thomas's arm. Not a black line this time—a sign, like a brand burning from the inside out.

"What is that?" Lucas asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Nova leaned closer, her face pale. "It's a binding mark. Old magic. Very old."

"Binding to what?"

Thomas's eyes snapped open, glowing red just for an instant before returning to normal. When he spoke, his voice merged with another—not Marcus this time, but something far older and more terrible.

"The first ones are awakening," the double-voice said. "The ones that came before wolves. Before humans. The ones that hunger."

Thomas's body went rigid, then fell limply on the bed.

As if reacting to his words, howls began to rise throughout the territory—not the normal howls of wolves, but something broken and wrong.

The sickness was spreading.

And it was changing.