Saving Briar

Harlow woke in an enormous bed, in a room that she didn’t recognize. Every part of her body hurt, but her mind immediately went to Kayla and she tried to sit up. A moment later a woman she didn’t recognize was at her side.

“Your daughter is safe. She’s outside, playing with some of the other children. Please lay back. I need to get the doctor, he’s just down the hall.” The woman was calm and at the kind look that Harlow saw in her eyes she relaxed, laying back against the pillows.

“Is Theon?” Her voice trailed off, unable to complete the thought. She remembered what had happened, moments before she passed out from the pain and trauma of everything that she’d been through.

“I think I hear the doctor right this moment. Let me get her for you.” The woman didn’t answer her question, but the look in her eyes told Harlow all that she needed to know. Theon was dead. Cara had killed him, moments after he’d reclaimed the leadership of his pack. He’d had one brief, shining moment of being the Alpha he’d always meant to be, and then he was snuffed out, leaving darkness behind in his absence.

“Okay.” Her voice was soft. She didn’t have the energy to argue.

A woman entered the room, wearing a modest green dress, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor as she approached the bed that Harlow had woken up in. Harlow felt her forehead wrinkle, expressing the confusion that she hadn’t yet voiced. She knew all of the doctor’s who worked in the small town that she’d grown up in and this woman wasn’t among them.

“My name is Dr. Wilson. But you can call me Sarah.”

“Where am I?” It suddenly occurred to Harlow that she might not be in the Packhouse like she’d initially guessed. Had someone brought her back to Vegas?

“You’re safe, but I think our Alpha wants to explain to you where you are and why you’re here. He’s been quite worried about you.”

“Theon?” Harlow’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. She was suddenly terrified by what the answer would be.

The woman shook her head and Harlow saw sadness flash through her eyes before she turned away. “When you’re feeling up to it, I’d like you to stop by the hospital. There are some tests I’d like to run. You were stabbed with a knife coated in a powerfully distilled wolfsbane. It should have killed anyone who was so much as scratched who had even a drop of wolf-shifter blood flowing through their veins. And if the hollering of the former Beta of that pack you were in was correct, you were his daughter? He was wailing that both of his daughter’s had been killed, before you had been brought here.”

Harlow closed her eyes, trying to process everything that the other woman was telling her had happened.

“Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t really my father. I didn’t grow up knowing him as my father.” Harlow whispered, before another thought crossed her mind. “Maybe it’s because I’ve never shifted? You said anyone with a drop of wolves’ blood, but I’ve never shifted in all my life. Could that make a difference?”

“You’ve never shifted?” Now it was the doctor’s turn to look confused. “How is that possible? You’re well past the age when even the latest shifters turn.”

“My mother and one of the doctor’s were drugging me. I think it’s so no one would suspect who my father was. And because my mom probably wanted a human daughter.” Harlow shrugged.

“I definitely want to run those tests. I have a theory- but it will take me a while to see if it’s right. If there’s any way we can get our hands on whatever it was she was drugging you with, that would help hugely too.” Harlow nodded, and the other woman continued. “I think that maybe, you were being drugged with wolfsbane, to keep you from shifting. How often did you take the injections?”

“Twice a day. As long as I can remember my mom said that I had type one diabetes. But when I was older I learned that people with type one diabetes have to have frequent blood sugar tests and I usually only got tested at the hospital, and I only ever saw one particular doctor. I always had to take two injections a day or my mom would freak out.”

“If I’m right, and you were injected with wolfsbane twice a day, for years, you might have built up a tolerance of sorts. It still kept you from shifting, obviously, but it also may be what saved your life. The stab wound was shallow, and not all that bad. But the blade was tested, because our Alpha brought it along with him, worried after what happened to the others who had-” her voice trailed off as she thought more carefully of what she was about to reveal- “who had touched it and he was hoping we’d find a way to save you since everyone was already shouting that it had to be poisoned. The lab here found that it was still covered in wolfsbane.”

“And so you think that the injections I’ve been taking, that have weakened me and made me unable to shift, ended up saving my life?” Harlow’s voice had become thick, as the doctor’s avoidance of what had happened to Theon further confirmed her suspicions.

“I’ll want to run a full blood workup, and try to get some of your old medicine, to see if my theory is correct.”

Harlow nodded, overwhelmed with everything she’d learned since she opened her eyes, not ten minutes earlier.

“How long was I unconscious?”

“Two weeks. Your body had quite a lot of healing to do.” The woman replied with a small smile.

“I’d like to see my daughter? She’s human again, isn’t she?” The idea that the small girl might not be able to shift back occurred rather suddenly to Harlow, but the doctor quickly put her mind at rest.

“She’s perfect. And yes, she’s in human form. But before we bring her up here, someone else wants to see you.” The woman pursed her lips, glancing at the door, before letting her eyes return to her patient.

“Who?” Harlow whispered, unable to find her voice.

“Our Alpha. Cian Malek.” Harlow felt a shiver pass through her body at the mention of his name. She didn’t speak, instead she only nodded, watching as the other woman rose and hurried from the room.

Of course the Alpha would want to meet her, Harlow told herself. He probably thought she had more information about what had happened back at the supposed celebration, and he hoped she could explain it. Maybe he was even a member of that werewolf council she’d heard so much about.

There was a knock on the door, and she managed to call out to whoever it was to enter.

The man who entered the room was tall and handsome. He had rather short golden blond hair and bright blue eyes and Harlow had no doubt, from the moment that he entered the room, that he was the Alpha that the doctor had just mentioned. He commanded the space around him, simply by existing. Harlow knew that beneath the simple white button up shirt he wore, with the sleeves pushed up almost to his elbows, that he was muscular and fit, like almost all men of his station. Yet even from her place, tucked into the bed, she was almost certain that he was large, even for an Alpha werewolf.

She finished taking him in and raised her eyes, meeting his steady intense gaze. The heat that she saw there took her breath away. This man clearly felt passionately about something, and for a moment as she stared back into his eyes she almost thought that he looked nervous. Then he dropped her gaze and ran a hand roughly through his hair.

“I thought-” he began, but stopped, continuing to stare at her before he began again. “When I first saw you I was fairly certain that you were my mate. And now, looking into your eyes I know.” He closed his eyes for a long moment and Harlow expected him to say anything other than the words that left his lips. “Now I know that you are my Luna. Thanks to Goddess that I have finally found you, my beautiful, strong, mate.”