Page 46 of Her Reborn Mate

“Because the price is too high. The ingredients written within those books are hard to come by. They require a pilgrimage to find. Not to mention the method of preparing those potions. Back in the old days, the Norse folk practiced this magic and perfected it into a craft. After hundreds of years, those who practiced this craft formed their circle, separate from the werewolves, separate from the Norse. They are whom we today call the witches and wizards. Potions are their domain. Magic is their bread and butter,” Will responded, but with much difficulty. His breath was shallowing, and it was getting difficult for him to stay up. Already, his face was straining. He winced a couple of times.

“Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?” I asked him nervously, coming back to him and holding his hand. He didn’t look well. His face had gone pale. His body felt cold to the touch.

“I am afraid you are on your own on this one, Alexis. It seems fate has played a terrible joke on us that it’s separating us so soon after we just came back into each other’s lives. It appears that, yet again, my life is in your hands. Please do save me. I desire to live many years with you by my side,” Will said, his words stuttering, getting slurred and jumbled.

“I’ll save you, I promise,” I said, kissing him on his forehead.

When he did not respond, I broke the kiss and looked at him. He had gone unconscious again. I immediately checked his pulse and breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was still there.

There was no more time to waste.

I immediately left the house and raced back to the clinic, hoping that it would still be open at this time.

I caught Dr. Morris just as he was about to shut the clinic up. He turned to face me and then sighed in resignation. “You simply will not relent, will you?”

“Doctor, I have to go to the clinic. There are books…books that I need,” I said.

“I can assure you that none of the books in there are going to help you in this venture,” he said, shaking his head. At that moment, I wanted to punch him in the head to stop him from shaking it.

“Just open the fucking door!” I snapped.

He clicked his tongue, then turned around and opened the clinic’s door.

I barged in and headed for the bookshelf.

“Let me make it easier for you,” Dr. Morris said. “If it’s Old Age wisdom you’re looking for, the books that the original Grimm pack brought with it to America are on the top shelf, gathering dust.”

I looked at the top of the shelf and saw the old leather-bound books.

“There are many that do not concern you,” Dr. Morris said. “I’m assuming you’ve come here for the ones dealing with life-saving potions?”

“Can you be any less snide about this?” I said angrily, frowning at him.

“It’s not that I do not have faith in the books…. Well, I’ll be honest with you. As someone who went to medical school and then pursued a specialization, I believe that everything that is stated in those books contradicts everything that modern medicine has taught us,” Dr. Morris said.

“And what about when you shift into a wolf, Dr. Morris? Is there anything in your medical books about lycanthropy?” I asked, taking one of the books from the shelf.

“I see you’re the one being snide now,” Dr. Morris said. “In any case, the book that you hold in your hands contains a vast array of potions. It’s called theLiquid Mana and other Concoctions.My dubiousness about the matter aside, if there’s something that can help Will, it’s in that.”

Fate seemed to be guiding me, it seemed. Why else had I grabbed the one book out of the dozens of leather-bound volumes that lay atop the top shelf? I opened the book carefully, then placed it on Dr. Morris’s desk. The table of contents had several sub-sections dealing with crithomancy, love potions, sleeping concoctions, tinctures for insanity, decoctions for everyday maladies, stronger mixes for serious illnesses, and then, at the very last, there was a section that said: For when nothing else works.

Not knowing what that entailed, I immediately sifted to the end of the book and came across arcane texts written in Old English about potions that could cure blindness, heal leprosy, reanimate the dead, and perform a revitalization on the terminally ill.

“The Full Moon,” I read aloud, reading from one of the potions listed in the book. “A potion made from a coalescence of ingredients that serve one dire purpose. They bring a fallen wolf back to life. In times both normal and chaotic, sometimes, a wolf might get affected by the guile of their foes, whether they be warlocks, vampires, sirens, the undead, or other manner of cunning creatures capable of cruel crafts. The Full Moon can serve as an antidote to all contagions, maladies, ailments, and lurgies save for death itself. So long as a wolf is still breathing and alive, the Full Moon can serve its primary purpose, that is, to bring about the wolf in full health.”

I looked up at Dr. Morris, who, instead of sharing in my discovery, simply shook his head again.

“That right there is a fable, if anything,” he said. “I doubt if it’s of any credibility.”

“You lack faith, doctor. You’re a disbeliever,” I said. “These are the words of our ancestors. How can they misguide us?”

“Have you, by any chance, looked at the ingredients? That’s why I say it’s a fable. Look. It says that the ingredients needed for creating such a potion include moon dew, frost from a mountain, pink-flowered common yarrow, and stellarum. Do you even know what stellarum is? Such a thing does not exist! And you have the gall to call me a disbeliever. Where are you going to find moon dew and frost from a mountain? How are you going to get stellarum, whatever the hell that is?”

I ignored him. Instead, I took out my phone and looked at what stellarum meant. It was Latin for starlight and was a term often used for bioluminescent mushrooms that grew in the mountains. At night, when they glowed, it looked like starlight had landed on the mountains. It did not take me long to locate where stellarum grew in America. As it happened, the wiki-guide stated that it grew in the mountains north of Maine. One such mountain was visible from Fiddler’s Green. It was a single mountain called Greyback Mountain. The locals used to call it the lonely mountain. I figured that I’d get frost from a mountain and stellarum from there. What else remained? Any flower shop in the vicinity would be able to provide me with moon dew and pink-flowered common yarrow.

“When Will’s all healthy and walking and talking again, I’ll come back here and make you eat crow,” I said to the doctor. “And I’m taking this with me!” I pointed at the book.

“If your potion can truly heal him, I’ll hang up my coat and take up making potions full-time. Happy?” Dr. Morris said. “For Will’s sake, though, I truly hope your venture succeeds.”

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