Page 44 of Her Reborn Mate

I wanted to give Vincent his space. Also, I did not want to go into a long explanation with the pack members as to how I had killed Maurice. When the time came, I would tell them within the right context. Right now, I had pressing concerns of my own. Alexis was hungry, and we were all out of groceries.

Hurriedly, I went to the commune’s only quick mart. Even though he never sold the best stuff, it saved me half an hour shopping from him rather than going down to Fiddler’s Green and shopping from there.

“Everything all right there, Will?” the grocer asked me.

“Everything seems to be all right, John,” I said, taking a cart and going down the aisle.

“Heard through the grapevine that Maurice bit the dust,” John said, following me around the mart.

“I was the one who spread the news,” I said, putting vegetables in the cart, taking out steaks from the fridge, and getting juices and soft drinks from the racks. “I killed him.”

“Served him right. The man was a blight on this town,” John said.

“I would prefer not to talk ill of the dead,” I said.

John took the cue and went back to behind the counter, where he resumed solving the crossword in the newspaper. I could sense his vision boring into me, but I chose to ignore it. He could pry all he wanted. I was not going to spill the beans to him.

Once I had all the groceries I wanted, I went back to the counter, where John began bagging up all the items. I reached for my wallet and fished it out of my jeans.

“Oh, come on now. You’re not expected to pay,” John said.

“I may be the Alpha, John, but no one is above the law of economics. If I just started taking things and not paying for them, the pack would suffer,” I said.

John went into a monologue, telling me how Maurice never paid for anything and that I was different from all the Alphas that he had seen in his lifetime. I could not focus on what he was saying. While I’d been standing across the counter, a deep pain rose into my chest and constricted my entire body. I did not know what it was.

I tried to fight it, but the more I struggled, the more this pain crippled me till I could not stand anymore. I fell on my back and began convulsing. Foam dripped out of my mouth, my limbs locked into place, and my vision began darkening.

“Will! Will!” John screamed, but I could not even open my mouth to respond to him. It had been so sudden, this attack, that I was not prepared to deal with it. My vision began darkening, and my mind reached into its deepest and darkest part, playing a harrowing memory before my eyes.

I was back on the rooftop where Blair had injected Wolf’s Bane in me. I was lying in Alexis’s arms, my mouth frothing, my body petrified. The pain that I was feeling now was at par with the pain I had felt back then. It felt like I was dying all over again.

It was not fair, I thought as my consciousness started to slip. It was not fair that I’d gotten everything in order, and instead of enjoying the fruits of my labor, I was dying yet again.

Alexis!I called out, using my bond before I fainted.

Chapter 19: Alexis

Dr. Morris stared at me gravely, the stethoscope hanging from his neck. He took off his glasses, then rubbed them with a tissue before opening his mouth. I held onto Will’s hands. They were cold and unmoving.

“The good news is,” Dr. Morris said slowly. “He is stable.”

“Could you be a little faster?” I asked vexedly. “I see you’re deliberately taking longer than usual!”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I do not know how to tell you this without it coming off as extremely difficult. I am trying to find the right words. As I said, the good news is that he’s stable. The bad news is that he’s stable in a condition that we would not like him to be stable in. He’s unconscious, and it’s been several hours, and he’s not woken up. A few more, and we’ll have to consider him comatose. Every time Mr. Will Grimm comes in, his body is in worse shape than it was before. I just did the blood test, and there is an altogether new compound in his body wreaking absolute havoc. That’s why he’s in this state,” Dr. Morris said, sitting down beside Will. “Is there something that you have to tell me?”

“What is this new compound doing to him?” I asked, afraid to know the answer to this question.

“Consider his body a battlefield, if you will. The experimentations that Edward Beckett did to him are army number one. Now, this new compound that has entered into his system, let’s call it army number two. Will’s white blood cells and his body’s immune system are army number three. There’s yet another compound in his system that’s working with the antibodies in fighting off the poisons. Let’s call that army number four. I think I know where the last compound came from. Vincent procured it for him, didn’t he?” Dr. Morris asked.

“Yes. Vince came with a potion many weeks ago. They nurtured Will to health,” I said.

“I’m afraid that potion’s effect has run its course. Right now, army number one and two are winning the war against army number three and four. If this keeps up, Will’s body is going to disintegrate under the duress of this constant battle,” Dr. Morris said.

“What can we do?” I asked nervously, holding Will’s hands tighter.

“Why don’t you begin telling me about how he got this new poisonous compound into his body? Then we’ll discuss a course of action,” Dr. Morris said.

So I told him, as bluntly as I could, how Blair and Maurice and Ralph had prepared Wolf’s Bane and had injected Will with it. I shared with Dr. Morris how I had initially thought Will to be dead as a result of Wolf’s Bane’s effects. Dr. Morris listened intently, taking several notes, then looked up at me quite seriously, shaking his head.

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