First

Chapter 65

The night was eerie and dark, the hoots of the owls sounding through the dense forest path, the trees hummed a melodic yet scary hum until the forest’s rhythm was broken by the loud painful grunt of a man.

Dry blood coated every inch of his skin like a tattoo even as crimson red liquid spilled out of a wound from his torso, running down his legs who despite their tiredness refused to stop running.

It was Tatum and securely clutched in his arms a pouch and in it

Was was a young sprout of the dry scorpion lily.

Getting it wasn’t easy but it was worth it.

Getting into the enemy pack and securing the herb was the easy part but because of how rare they are, they had the place boobie trapped and he was struck by a poisoned spear whose wounds he can’t seem to heal from even after days on the road.

even

His wolf was most affected by the poison and he could not shift. The enemies were still hot on his heels after a fierce one to many battle as he was escaping that saw him sustain multiple injuries and he had to avoid the cities and stay on the offroads until he was close to his pack territory.

At the wee hours of the morning, he knocked on the door of an old cottage, a short distance from his pack borders, heaving with ragged breaths, his strength failing him.

The door opened and a tall lanky man with huge transparent goggles stood in front of him, eyes curt yet full of concern.

“Alpha,” he had barely said when Tatum collapsed on his arms, his vision going completely dark.

When Tatum opened his eyes, a pungent smell filled his nose but he

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was used to Alfred’s concoctions by now. His body had been cleaned and he could see green mush underneath the gauze wrapped around his torso.

Alfred was a renowned medical practitioner who quit the profession to dive into the herbal and mystic healing arts of the lost age.

He groaned deeply as he sat up, his eyes darting to the little test tube Alfred was swirling over a benzene burner.

“Is it ready yet?”

“Sooner than later,” Alfred replied in his hoarse voice, pushing up his glasses. “You should lay back and let those herbs properly soak up the toxins from your wound. If you had gotten here even just a minute late, the blood oak pack would have been without an Alpha.”

“I’m fine,” Tatum replied but hearing that he could have been dead, reminded him of when he rode his motorcycle off a cliff to his near death to escape capture from the enemy.

Laying below that cliff, badly hurt, he knew what it was like to truly be afraid of death for he desperately wanted to live, not because he valued his own life so much but because in that moment, Leila came to him, she finally smiled at him again, she held his arms, cradled his head in her laps, she told him that she loved him and she wanted him to fight, for her and for their future together.

It may have all been a product of his imagination but he found renewed strength as he realised he truly did not want Leila to leave him, not because of Carmela, not because of his pack members and not even because of the prophecy.

“I must commend your determination Alpha or is it the love you have for your Luna?” Alfred asks rhetorically, dipping the base of the tube into cool water.

Love……is that the feeling he has? Does he love Leila? He just knows

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that the thought of being without her increasingly discomforts him with each passing day.

Would it really be such a bad thing to be in love with her? But she doesn’t love him, she made that clear enough and is making it so clear with her incessant demands for a divorce.

He stares at the tube as Alfred holds it over the burner again. For the last two years, he has suffered a lot, going into deep jungles, climbing mountains at unbelievable peaks and even paying huge prices at a point or two to gather all six herbs used in making this special potion.

He should be happy about it, that his efforts have finally come to fruition, his sacrifices have been worth it but how can he be?

Once Leila takes that potion and gets her wolf back, any hold he has over her will be completely gone.

She will be able to sense her true mate and he will have to let her go.

He heaves a deep sigh, feeling the void already occupy his heart with a rather sharp pain just at the thought of it but he cannot be selfish.

She is incomplete without her wolf and he would rather have her whole and apart from him than incomplete and beside him.

Her happiness is what truly matters, not his selfish desires.

“It is ready Alpha,” Alfred’s voice brings him back down to earth.

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