Page 111 of Alpha's Impostor Bride

“Y–You agree?” I stammer, taken aback by his words.

“You make sense,” he says simply.

“I agree, too.” Healer Jerry enters the room, his expression drawn.

“But what if Erik doesn’t?” I murmur.

“His Majesty is a stickler for some rules.” Jerry looks thoughtful. “But maybe we can convince him to change his mind.”

Not ten minutes later, we are met with a resounding “no.” It’s rare to see Erik so angry.

“I won’t hear of it!” he bellows. “His family won’t allow it. Harold may not have had any immediate family, but his extended family would be very much against this. And it’s been a year, Leanna. Even if you tried, you wouldn’t find anything.”

“But what if we did?” I argue. “You want to find the people responsible for Harold’s death, don’t you?” I press. “I need that autopsy. They managed to subdue him, Erik. That shouldn’t have been possible. There is no sign of a struggle at any of the kidnapping sites. No trace of blood, nothing. We’re at a loss. Unless the victims walked off with their kidnappers, the only possible answer is that they were given something.”

Erik looks displeased. “We have no one skilled to perform an autopsy.”

“No one in our world, true.” I meet his gaze steadily. “We need a medical examiner. Only humans work in that profession.”

Erik’s eyes tighten around the corners. “No.”

I try to reason with him. “Erik, we’re running around in circles. I can do all the ground research possible, but we also need to know why it was so easy to kidnap all these shifters without leaving any trace of them.”

“You expect me to trust a human to cut open one of our kind? Do you understand what sort of territory you’re asking me to step into? For centuries, we have made sure that humans don’t find out our secrets, and here you are, offering to have a human study our anatomy!”

His words are harsh, but I refuse to flinch. “What if our enemy is human? What if they have come up with something that can render us helpless before them? We need to know, Erik.”

I see the struggle on his face, but he shakes his head again. “There is no human I trust enough to even try something like this.”

“There is someone I trust,” I say quietly. “Dr. Maya Sorin.”

I feel Jerry glance at me but I keep my eyes on Erik.

“No. She’s a human. You may trust her, but I won’t take the risk of endangering my people. If she sells information, even the hint of—”

“Maya has had plenty of opportunities to sell my secrets, Erik. She has had access to Finn and me, around the clock, for eight years. I’ve trusted her to be alone with my child. She’s our best bet. She”—I hesitate at this part—“has also created medicines for me that have worked. She already has a working knowledge of how our bodies function. On top of that, she was employed as a medical examiner after she graduated. She had earned a degree in forensic pathology before she went back to school for veterinary medicine. Nobody is as qualified as her in this matter.”

“Her being human disqualifies her,” Erik says grimly. “Your friendship with Maya has made me expend a lot of resources to keep an eye on her. I admit that she has safeguarded your secrets, but all it would take for her to betray us is one moment of greed.”

I know Maya would never do anything like what he is implying, but clearly Erik has made up his mind.

“We could bring her over to our world.” Jerry interjects. “She is skilled, Your Majesty. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve taken in a human.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Erik agrees, “but only with the expectation that they cut all their ties to the human world. Relationships, friendships, family. They have to disappear from the human world. And the humans who have done this were old, near the end of their lives, and they had no one, but their knowledge was valuable to us. This woman is young. You expect her to give up everything to join us?”

I deflate, crestfallen. Maya has a mother with dementia who lives in assisted care. She would never walk away from her.

Erik sees the reluctance in my eyes. “Exactly. Even you can’t ask her to abandon her world.”

“What if she teaches Jerry?” I suddenly say. “What if she doesn’t have to be the one to conduct the autopsy?”

“I haven’t even given permission for the autopsy to be conducted. There will be an uproar in the kingdom if I allow such a thing.”

Frustrated, I turn to Cedric, who has been silent. Finally, when I gesture with my head, he speaks. “It is something to be considered, Erik.”

“Don’t tell me how to run my kingdom, Cedric. I don’t tell you how to run yours.” Erik scowls. “And this is not a subject I will budge on. The decision is final.”

I open my mouth to argue, but Cedric touches my shoulder, shaking his head discreetly. I follow him out of Erik’s office, and after Jerry leaves us, disappointed, Cedric murmurs, “If you want, I can take Harold’s body and that loud-mouthed human friend of yours to the North.”

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