Tingles washed through my body at what this meant as I checked the other people in the alley. I was shoved away from a man I thought was sleeping. A woman told me to fuck off, but I collected the few wrappers I could find anyway. Almost all of them were Granny’s. Almost all of them showcased my design, created as a child, created to thank her for taking me in. I think I’d been thirteen. Fourteen? Weston would know. He’d probably read about that card in one of my journals.
The people in this alley must’ve taken quite a bit if there were this many wrappers. That, or they didn’t consume food as much as they consumed this. Judging by the way their bodies wasted away, that was likely the case.
Gods, I hoped it wasn’t. I hoped their need for my product wasn’t stronger than the need for sustenance. That wasn’t what this product was made for, though I feared this was exactly how it was used.
With dread crawling into my heart, I exited the alley making a mental note to return in the daytime. Hopefully they’d be cognizant and able to chat then. Hopefully they’d want to. I wanted more information. Ineededmore information. The implications of what I’d just witnessed in conjunction with the things Weston and his people had been saying worried me.
I also wanted to see if I could help them in any way, maybe to find proper lodging. I had more money than I needed and could afford to help these people get a leg up and out of their current situation.
I didn’t know what I would do if it turned out Weston had been right all along.
Chapter 25
Weston
Iknew she was gone before I even opened my eyes. I could smell her delicious scent, but it merely lingered, the source no longer by my side.
My heart ached and I rolled onto my back. I finally opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling. I didn’t want to see her empty place in my bed. It was a hole that no one else could ever fill, I knew that as surely as I was breathing.
“You did the right thing,” my wolf told me. It was the first time he’d spoken to me in days.
“I know,” I replied, “but it hurts.”
“At least you got to hold her and feel her. You got to speak to her and learn about her. She is in your memories. I never got to meet her wolf. You denied me that.”
“You know why. Would you have us put her in more danger? Do you have any idea what the royalty of this kingdom would give to have someone with her power? They’d rope her in and try to breed her immediately, aiming to create another one like me.”
He didn’t respond, conceding that fact. Without me to protect her, without a pack to support her, she was vulnerable.I hadn’t been lying; a lone wolf of her stature was always in danger. I’d preyed on them in the past.
Thanks to Aurelia’s journals, we had a few leads—names we recognized but that we hadn’t found any other information on. Granny had hidden those connections a lot better than she’d hidden Aurelia. That had to be by design.
As I laid there mulling over the situation, I thought about getting up. But we didn’t need to hurry anymore. We were back to searching for the creator of the dangerous drugs stamped with Granny’s name. Aurelia had designed their base, that was clear, but we needed to find who was altering them.
Speaking of Aurelia’s product, I felt fucking amazing. I hadn’t slept well since starting this journey, concerned for both my pack and the kingdom. If the royals of this kingdom caught us, it would pull the dragon kingdom into debt or war, and I would very likely be killed in the crossfire. The royals of this kingdom would make sure of it. They’d been trying to get rid of me since I walked away all those years ago. They hated that the dragons had me in their employ.
The sleeping product had lulled me into a deep slumber for the whole night. I felt utterly refreshed. My body had been able to heal from various aches and pains completely, and then fill up my cup, so to speak, with the needed downtime.
I finally let my head fall to the side, my gaze lingering on the empty space beside me. My heart constricted.
What if she needed me and I wasn’t there?
What if I never saw her again?
“Knock, knock.” Hadriel called out to me from just outside the tent flap. “Rise and shine.”
After a pause where I still said nothing, his head slowly pushed through the flap. His gaze darted around the interior before he stepped in, slipping the flap back down behind him.
“I’m going to pretend I am waking you up now, yes?” he whispered, moving into the space. “We have a duty to this pack and to Aurelia. We need to play this off. You have to feign outrage at being drugged and we have to storm the town to look for but not find her. I have no clue how we are going to pull that off because she is not great at being sneaky, but I’ll come up with something.”
“How’d you know it was a sleeping agent?”
“I had a little listen at the side of the tent, obviously. I wanted to be prepared for today and also make sure no one else was eavesdropping. Come now, up we get.”
I didn’t move to get up. I couldn’t be bothered.
“Sir, you need to keep up pretenses. Doing so will help protect her.” He nudged my arm.
“Is this what you do to the dragons? Annoy them until they do what you want?”
