Page 44 of The Alpha's Shattered Bonds

Turning away, I focused on the shelves cluttered with evidence bags, needing to escape the weight of their stares. I picked up the plastic wallets, grasping at something to ground myself.

“All the evidence is bagged up,” I said, forcing resolve into my voice amid the storm of emotions roiling within me.

“Justin’s returned from seeing the elders. Here’s all three sets of keys,” Logan said, handing them to Tyler, his tone clipped.

I risked a glance at Logan. His brow was furrowed. His dark brown eyes sparked with a flintiness. We needed to get out of this closet. I was all too aware from the squeeze of the matebond in my chest that the thrum of pain there might soon turn to anger. The last thing we needed right now was to start fighting between ourselves—not when the real enemy who had poisoned the herbs with dark magic and tainted the cure was still out there.

I broached the topic with them both now. “How are we going to prove that Linda’s the one behind all this?”

“We need to question the infirmary aides,” Tyler said decisively.

Thankfully, Logan turned out of the closet, following Tyler’s command.

I followed, relieved to be out of the confined space despite what lay ahead of us.

Kelly was still on duty monitoring the packmates alongside Healer Linda.

The night had long drawn in, and the infirmary was dimly lit, the lamplight casting long shadows across the white walls. The scent of chamomile and jedra intermixed, creating a calming atmosphere that contrasted sharply with the turmoil roiling within me.

I noticed Tyler’s tactical presence as he deftly instructed Healer Linda, his voice low but authoritative. “The patients are doing fine. The jedra is proving effective. You can go home for the night, Linda.”

“But shouldn’t I be—”

“Seraphina’s more than capable of overseeing the treatment here alongside Kelly,” Tyler insisted.

His words, full of faith and trust, sent the same flutter of warmth through my chest that his lips had coaxed.

His explanation about how he hadn’t regretted what had happened between us, only how it had come about—through Linda’s drugging him with a heat potion—had been a revelation. To think that Healer Linda, who was now freely walking out the door, had drugged Tyler was staggering. My stomach clenched. Was she really the one spreading this illness through our pack? Had Linda become so embittered by Tyler’s decision to call off their mate ceremony that she would stoop to harming the entire pack out of revenge? Nausea rose within me as I realized we were inching closer to uncovering the truth behind the roots of this illness.

Now that Linda was gone, Tyler was straight on the phone. I heard him telling the other infirmary aide, Laura, to come to his house. A spark of inspiration came to me. The infirmary had a patient log detailing when and who the patients had been seen by. Sitting down at the desk, I scanned the neat handwriting of visitors over the last week, looking for any correlations that could shed light on how the black powder had been added to the herbs.

Purpose bloomed, blanketing the whirlwind of emotions that had threatened to overwhelm me earlier. I felt a sense of familiarity as I scoured through the recordings in the log, feeling as if I could almost be in the library, combing texts for answers.

“Here,” I said, my finger hovering over a name. “Several of these patients who were newly infected—Jackie and Susan came into contact with both aides, Kelly and Lauren, right before the potions were brewed.”

Tyler leaned down, his breath warm against my cheek as he looked over my shoulder. “Elder Darius approved their placements in the infirmary. They’ve likely only been following Linda’s orders, but we need to be sure.”

Tyler, Logan, and I started toward Tyler’s house after setting up Justin to watch over the packmates and telling him to come to Tyler’s if Healer Linda or anyone else appeared,

But Logan stopped, “Alpha Tyler?”

He gestured for me to go on. I walked onwards with Kelly, my heart drumming nervously. Logan wasn’t about to get sidetracked about things with us, was he? Part of me understood him wanting to unravel the tangled mess we’d inadvertently woven, but frustration rang through me. We needed to focus on uncovering the traitor.

But I was utterly perplexed when Logan ran off a moment later in the opposite direction to Tyler’s house. I opened my mouth to ask Tyler, but he shook his head as he joined me and Kelly.

Ten minutes later, back at Tyler’s, Laura was already waiting at the back door. Calmly but with gravity, Tyler interrogated the two aides. They both affirmed that Linda had processed the herbs herself before handing them over to them to deliver treatment.

The confirmation ignited a spark of anger in Tyler’s eyes. “Thank you both. I want you to go right home, Laura. Kelly, go back to the infirmary. Justin is standing guard all night. See that neither of you say anything about our conversation here,” he said.

As the back door clicked shut and the infirmary aides left, quiet fell around us. I was suddenly very aware that this was thefirst time Tyler and I had been in the kitchen since… since I’d been laid out like a feast on this very table between us. My heart drummed, wondering whether his thoughts had gone to a similar place.

Fighting to clear my thoughts, I got up to get a glass of water. “Where did Logan go?”

“He had an idea about how to get concrete evidence,” Tyler said.

As if his ears were burning, Logan returned. He wasn’t alone. Tara was with him. She brought a laptop, which she promptly opened and sat on the table.

“Is it planted?” Tyler asked.

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