“Stable. Not improving.” My eyes moved to the pouches. Recognition loosened the tension in my jaw by a fraction. “Is that the right herb?”
“Yes. It just arrived.”
Lucian opened the first pouch. The bloodmoss was still fresh. He crushed a handful between his palms and held the compress against Percy’s wound while I prepared the ashwort tincture. My hands moved through the steps with the muscle memory.
Percy hissed at the contact. His eyes cracked open, hazel streaked with gold, and he managed a crooked grin.
“Is that the good stuff?”
“Veyndral-grade. Try not to drool,” Lucian said.
“Sure, no problem.” He winced as the ashwort burned against the reopened tissue.
Even now. With what appeared to be a targeted compound eating through his regeneration, Percival plays it off.
The herbs took effect within the hour. The dark lines retreated, fading from his veins in slow pulses. The wound’s edges stopped unraveling and began to close again. Slower than normal lycan healing. But steady. Moving in the right direction.
I pulled Lucian into the kitchen while Mira changed Percy’s bandages.
“The Veyndral herbs are working where his natural regeneration failed.” I kept my voice low. Arms crossed, posture rigid. “Which means whatever was on that dart was specifically designed to counteract lycan healing.”
“Silver compound?”
“Partially. The dart tip had silver residue, but silver alone would have burned, not suppressed regeneration. There’s a secondary agent I can’t identify.” I paused. Let the next words carry their full weight. “This isn’t human chemistry, Lucian.”
The revelation settled between us.
“The scent trail being wiped,” I continued. “Weapons designed for our biology.” I met his eyes. “Hudson was a human stalker. He shouldn’t have had access to any of this.”
“You think whoever was helping him provided information about our real identity?”
“I think whoever was helping him has been studying us. And I think Hudson dying was convenient for them. Dead men don’t answer questions.”
The implication was clear to both of us. Hudson had been a tool. Used and discarded. And the hand wielding him was still out there, still watching, carrying weapons designed to harm and potentially kill lycans.
“The body?” Lucian asked.
“I disposed of it properly.” The memory surfaced and rage rose in my chest. “He died too quickly. A mercy he didn’t deserve.”
Lucian’s hands balled into fists. His jaw worked, and I watched the same anger build behind his eyes. Controlled fury of what he would have done differently if he had time.
I also have a lot of creative violent ideas.
“We had no choice. We didn’t expect the shooter,” he said.
“No. We didn’t.” My jaw tightened. “Which is exactly the problem.”
From upstairs, Mira’s voice drifted down through the ceiling. She was talking to Percival, fussing all over him. The sound of her worry carried through the floorboards, and my chest tightened at the tenderness in her tone.
We headed upstairs. Mira looked up from beside Percy’s bed where she’d tucked a fresh blanket around his shoulders. The guilt in her eyes was a wound of its own.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice cracked on the second word. “You shouldn’t have been shot because of me...”
“Mira. We talked about this. It’s not your fault.” Lucian sighed. “It may not even be your enemy.”
She blinked. “What?”
“The shooter wasn’t aiming at you. The dart was designed for lycans.” He held her gaze. “It could have been meant for us.”
