Page 19 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

“Passiflora parritae, mixed with…” Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. Then she blinked, looking confused as she glanced around the room, then startled as she noticed me standing at her side. “Leigh? What— where are we?”

Had she been sleepwalking this whole time?What the fuck is going on?

She almost dropped the vial in her confusion, but I reached out and scooped it from her hand, patting her on the shoulder. “I’m not sure what just happened, but you sensed this underthe chair. In the dark, from your room at the other end of the hall.”

“What? No, I was asleep. They gave me this nightgown to borrow until we can go into town to shop, and then… Well, I don’t remember anything after I turned off my lamp.” She worried her wide bottom lip between her teeth and wrapped her arms around herself.

“It’s okay. Let’s go wake Reed up and see what he thinks about this.” I glanced more closely at the room we were in, and my breath froze in my lungs when I looked up, noticing the air vent directly above the chair. “Maybe we should wake Kane up too.”

I paused, holding the vial carefully as I looked back at her. “Doespassiflora parritaemean anything to you?”

“No? Passiflora is a genus, commonly known as passion flowers. But, I don’t know of a parritae variety? Except…” She rocked on her feet, swaying drunkenly as her eyes glazed over again.

“The parritae species of passionflower is extremely rare, all modern specimens stemming from a single plant, and no known specimens remain in the wild. It is mostly used as an ornamental, rare collectible for expert gardeners, but has little-known properties as a highly toxic depressant, lethal in large quantities.”

I blinked at her, my mouth hanging open as she shook her head again as if coming up out of the water and shaking it out of her hair.

“O-kay. I think we need some help here. You stick with me.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, careful not to spill the single green drop or get it on my skin. I had a feeling we’d just found the poison that killed Kane’s parents, and I didn’t want to take any risks with Petal. Or Olivia, for that matter. Something more than just the mark on her palm was up with her, and I felt like we needed to get to the bottom of it.

I hesitated in the hallway, uncertain who to wake first. Finally, a demented—okay, let’s be honest, it was a gleefully petulant—sort of logic hit me, and I just went down the hall, rapping my knuckles loudly on each of the doors. I hesitated at Gael’s. I couldn’t help it. But it didn’t matter, because the racket of everyone else had woken him, I guessed, because the wooden door swung open under my hovering knuckles.

He stood in the doorway, alert yet rumpled from sleep, and a little piece of my heart crumbled to dust when his eyes turned cold as they landed on me.

I suddenly wished I’d put on something more than my black nightie.

Shit.Shake it off, Leigh.

It was comfy and cool, damn it. And if he didn’t like it, he could look somewhere the fuck else.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was a harsh bark, his eyes turning from cold to glowing as he sniffed the air, scenting for danger.

His eyes fell to the vial I was still carefully clutching, nostrils flaring.

“What is that?”

“Well, funny story.”

“Leigh, are you all right? Is it the baby?”

Brielle stumbled to my side, half-asleep but wholly panicked at the sight of me prancing through the halls waking them all in the wee hours. Suddenly, I questioned my half-cocked plan to wake them all.

I turned and put a hand on her shoulder, shaking my head so she’d know I wasn’t dying or anything. “Okay, so, this is going to sound weird. But I heard a noise in the hall and decided to check it out.”

“Alone?” Gael’s lip curled in a snarl, and he stepped forward angrily, as if he could physically herd me back into my room.

I shot him a frown and continued. “But when I checked in the hall, it was just Olivia, and?—”

“My friends call me Oli,” she murmured quietly, looking around the circle, then quickly dropping her gaze, a furious blush creeping up from the neck of the awful nightgown.

“See? We’re all friends. Anyway, when I poked my head out,Oliwas walking down the hall. She said she sensed something, so I joined her on her little excursion.”

“Leigh, love, it’s really late—early, I don’t flippin’ know.” Brielle dragged a hand over her face and gestured for me to hurry the fuck up.

I quickly filled them in, pointing out the door next to the suite’s entrance. But the more I spoke, the more Oli grew pale across from me in the circle of pack mates.

“Can I see that?” she asked, pointing at the vial.

I passed it over with a small shiver, happy not to be holding something likely poisonous.Murderous.

---