Page 80 of Bad Witch

It was late afternoon when the main door to the clinic flew open and Iris Thornheart, along with her mate, Draven, burst in. They each held a toddler. Tate and Raff lay limp in their arms, faces flushed and sweaty with fever, their little bodies trembling.

I ran to them. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here,” I said to Draven and reached for his son. “Let me take him.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” His eyes were vibrant green and all wolf. “Can you save them?”

Iris sobbed and I grabbed her, supporting her when her legs almost gave out. “Please, help them. Please. I’ve tried everything, every tonic and potion, every bit of healing knowledge I have.” Her face had gone white, as if every ounce of blood had drained away. “Nothing’s worked. Nothing…I-I don’t know what to do.” She pressed her mouth to her son’s burning forehead. “Help us.”

“This way.”

I led them to the room reserved for staff, and the only bed left in the clinic. Iris and Draven laid their sons down, and Iris kneeled on the floor beside the bed, holding their hands, kissing their little fingers, and talking to them in a soothing tone, even as her entire body shook from the strength of her emotion.

Draven, the alpha wolf of the Silver Claw pack, and her mate, stood behind her, a haunted look in his eyes. I could feel the sickness coming from him. He was already infected. I grabbed a chair and pushed it up beside him. “You need to sit before you fall down.”

Iris spun to him.

“I’m fine, petal,” he said, even as his legs gave out and I quickly slid the chair under him.

“How?” she said. “How is this possible?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she choked out.

“The boys are all that matter. Don’t worry about me.”

Iris turned to me, and there was steel in her gaze now, mixed with horror. “This should be impossible. Draven is immortal, our boys should be immortal, this can’t be happening. You need to save them. Please save my family, Tempest.”

They were going to die.

Draven became immortal after he mated Iris, and their sons should be as well, but they were sick, deathly so. Immortality or not, they would not be the same by the end of this illness. And if they didn’t die, at the rate their organs were shutting down, they would wish they were. Even if they survived, their bodies would decompose, they’d rot until they were only bone, and still, they would be forced to live, while Iris watched them suffer—unless she decapitated them.

Iris was going to lose not only her children but her mate as well in the most horrific of ways, and if she didn’t take matters into her own hands, it would be slow and painful. Bones took thousands of years to decay completely, they’d be driven mad.

Oh goddess. I couldn’t allow that to happen, not to them, not to anyone.

Magnolia was trying to be strong around her sister, but she knew. She saw the signs as well as I did.

Their fevers were out of control, and none of them could keep down fluids. The twins were unconscious now, and I had no idea how Draven still had his eyes open in the condition he was in, or how he was still upright in that chair. With my magic, even with how exhausted I was right then, I could hear the irregular arrhythmia of his heart. I could feel organs dying slowly in all three of them. He and his pups had moved to the next stage rapidly. The virus had changed since it first hit the city. Now it moved more rapidly, hitting harder and faster.

We’d lost all control, though now knowing what…who caused this, we’d never had any. Apparently, Disease had finished toying with us. He wanted us all dead.

My fingers curled tight. I couldn’t just let them all die.

No matter the consequences. My life, the future of the Matildas wasn’t more important than the babies lying on that bed close to death, and all the others filling this clinic. If I didn’t do more now, there’d be no one left. Disease would take us all anyway.

“There’s something I can do.” I turned to Magnolia. “Jessica, the others that are recovering⁠—”

Magnolia’s eyes flared. “That was you? You did that?”

“What I have is limited but there is more I can get⁠—”

Magnolia grabbed my upper arms. “Do it. Help them, please.”

“I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

Two hours later, I strode down the hall of the clinic, holding a potion made with the last Agattealia Pontella flower in existence. The Matildas had been shrieking in my skull the whole time I’d done it. I’d tried to explain, but they wouldn’t listen. They refused to understand. If for some reason, I lost consciousness now, they’d take control of me, walk me back out of this hospital, and I’d never be seen again.

Now they were silent, in a way I’d never felt before. I swallowed thickly. I never felt more alone.