Chapter 32

Aria’s POV

My unconscious mind dreamed of the past.

I’d been born into a lower class family. My parents fought hard to give me the best life they could, each working two or three jobs. But that hard work led to exhaustion, and that exhaustion left them susceptible to illnesses that they might have otherwise been able to fight off.

Money was so tight that they couldn’t afford the necessary medicine. They died, but it wasn’t quick. I could hear their coughing through the walls.

I’d been afraid with how frail they looked and how much they pushed themselves, though I’d been too young then to fully understand what was happening until it was too late. I had to be the one to call emergency, remembering the number from school.

By the time the Healers arrived, nothing could be done. They were already gone.

The social workers didn’t know what to do with me. I had no other living family, at least none who were willing to step forward and claim me.

One day, I’d sat in the chair of the social worker’s office. The chair had been standard size for an adult, but for me, as young as I was, it was massive. My feet dangled and I kicked them back and forth.

“When are Mommy and Daddy coming to get me?” I asked the social worker.

I didn’t fully understand death. Though I’d been told my parents were gone, I thought that meant to work or to the store. They were taking a well-deserved nap somewhere and would come back and get me soon.

The social worker touched my shoulder. I didn’t know her name but she had kind, sad eyes.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “But things will never be the same again.”

I still didn’t understand, not fully, not until the social worker took me to a large orphanage downtown, introduced me to the caretaker and then left me there.

The caretaker gave me a pillow, blanket, and list of chores. There was no affection in his face. This was just a paycheck to him.

The other kids weren’t so bad. Like me, they had nowhere else to go. No one wanted them.

No one wanted me.

Some of my friends eventually were adopted out, but I was always passed over. Maybe I was too plain, or too old, or “Too sad in the eyes,” as one couple said.

I stayed at the orphanage until I was too old, but by then I had a mission. A purpose. A reason to keep going.

My parents died from preventable disease. If they had access to proper medical care, we would still be a family. From them, and for the little girl that I used to be who lost her family too soon, I dedicated myself to becoming a Healer.

I’d studied hard at my public school. At the library, I checked out every book on medicine that I could get my hands on. Fortunately, it all came naturally to me, as if it was something I had always been meant to do.

I earned a scholarship to college, and worked my way through the ranks of med school.

Yet even with my hard work and diligence, I was still looked down on because of my meager background. My mentor Silas often stepped in to defend me. If it wasn’t for his intervention, I truly believed that the medical school would have revoked my scholarship and kicked me out.

“This kid has ideas,” Silas said to the administrative board who had threatened to oust me to make room for more ‘deserving’ students, i.e., those with money. “And she has the knowledge to see these ideas to fruition. If you cut her out, you will be denying our pack medical advancements that she is already cooking up in her head.”

His words were impassioned, and because he was well-liked at the school, he saved me from being let go.

I’d already told him about my idea for a medicine that could extend the lifespan of werewolves. He had laughed at first, thinking I was joking – until I should him my notes and my formulas.

In the lab, we worked together for months making my ideas a reality. We even made my life-extending medicine.

At the time, we had thought it a good thing, and I had been so proud to have developed such a miraculous cure.

But then, the bickering started. Werewolves fought each other outside of my lab. Many times, people broke in, looking for the formula.

I wasn’t any safer than my lab. I was harassed and yelled out. Someone even followed me home once. After Silas made sure I always had armed bodyguards.

I didn’t feel safe. Instead I was stressed all the time. Always, I had to look over my shoulder, wondering if those shadows were just shadows or greedy werewolves who wanted the rare medicine I’d developed.

Sometimes, in my darkest moments, like this one, I remembered the time that vicious werewolf had followed me home. He’d run up behind me as I opened my front door. He pushed me into my house, then searched through all of my things.

“Where is it?” he shouted, his eyes wild, manic. “Where is the medicine?”

“I don’t have it!” I replied, fear trembling through me.

I just wanted to help people – to heal them. Why was this medicine, which had been created to only do good, bringing out so much evil in everyone?

Where had I gone wrong?

“I need it!” the man shouted. He shoved me and I fell down onto the ground. Standing over me, his eyes flashed red. His fingers curled like claws. He was shifting, sure to attack me. “I need it!”

At that time, what remained of the formula was locked up in a secret location in the medical administration building. I didn’t have access to it. The only thing I had was the formula, which not even Silas knew in its entirety.

I wasn’t going to share that information with this madman. He wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.

Claws extending, he reached out as if to slash me.

Bracing for pain, I closed my eyes tightly.

A moment passed. And then another.

The pain never came.

Instead, a warm pair of arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me gently against a strong masculine chest. With my eyes still closed, I turned my face into this new man and inhaled.

He was safety and comfort, and his scent reminded me of home.

I breathed in again, deeper, and recognized my husband.

Lucian.

Slowly, I blinked open my eyes.

I was in a bed, staring up at a white drop ceiling. Beside me, a monitor pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat. Eyes blurry, I blinked a few times to see clearly, then rolled my head back and forth to take in my surroundings.

This wasn’t just a bed, but a hospital bed. I tried to remember what happened. Had I fainted?

I’d been meeting with Lucian, and then –!

Fear seared me like a brand. I shot up on the bed and reached for my mask.

It was still there…

“Don’t worry,” Cathy said. She sat in a chair at my bedside. “Your anonymity remains safe.”