Chapter 277: A Cure?
My heart was racing for an entirely different reason altogether now.
’You serious?! What can I do?’ I jabbed at my phone with such vigor that the other three men were staring at me in surprise.
"Did Damon send something rude?" Milo asked with a quiet murmur, and Darach could only snort.
"Is he capable of not being rude?"
"Hey!" Kyle exclaimed, affronted by this slight on Damon’s character. "I’ll have you know that Alpha Damon is nothing but kind to Harper!"
Darach stared back at Kyle with one incredulous eyebrow raised until a sheepish expression crossed Kyle’s face.
"Well, he wasn’t like this in the beginning. But he had changed a lot!" Kyle reluctantly admitted. He, like the rest of Fangborne, were privy to the rocky tumultuous relationship I shared with Damon at the very beginning.
It’s not every day you see fated mates challenge each other to ritual combat; Damon hadn’t even shown mercy.
"Darach, he has good news for you this time," I said, tearing my eyes away from the lines of text that he had sent about Nicole’s hypothesis. "Nicole thinks there’s a way to get your wolf back."
Darach’s mouth fell open. His voice came out in a breathless whisper. "You... you aren’t pulling my leg, right? There’s a cure?"
"There is no guarantee that it will succeed though, and the process will be long and painful. You’re going to have to take a lot of injections and pills," I said, quickly scanning through the treatment plan proposed by Nicole, as well as the possible side effects.
I winced; injections at every two-hour intervals for a month, pills every day... not to mention the laundry list of side effects ranging from muscle degeneration, hallucinations, and memory loss, to weight gain and hair loss...
"You can take a look at it and see if you want to try it," I said, attempting to hand my phone over to Darach for him to read the messages, but Darach simply shook his head and held out his hand.
"I don’t need to read this. Whatever she needs me to do, I’ll be willing to do it," Darach said, determination radiating from his very being. "As you’ve seen earlier, without my wolf, I cannot command Thunderstrike. There is no future more painful than the one I am currently living in."
"I’m willing to endure the harshest of winters to enjoy the brevity of spring," Darach finished, clenching his hands into fists. "Short of human and werewolf sacrifice, I’ll go through whatever Dr Nicole has planned for me."
Next to me, Kyle blinked rapidly, a surprisingly glassy sheen in his eyes.
"If being an Alpha doesn’t work out, you should publish a novel," Kyle said, with all seriousness. "I feel very inspired by you just now, Alpha Darach."
Before Darach could possibly take offense at Kyle’s words, I quickly cleared my throat to draw their attention back to me.
"Thankfully, there are no humans or werewolves sacrificed in the making of this potential cure, since the majority of it features herbs."
Many, many, many herbs, most of which I had never even heard of in my entire life. Damon had added a note that perhaps Hornstead could help with locating some of the rarer herbs. The other environmental conditions included rituals conducted in the light of the full moon, but that could wait until we had the herbs to begin with. I told them, and Milo handily agreed, asking for a copy of the message that he could send to his parents for reference.
"Thanks," Darach said, his voice slightly choked up. "All of you. I know this must be giving all of you a massive headache... that you’re babysitting a fuck-up like me with nothing to show for it. If this works, I owe you my life for several lifetimes over."
"Just one lifetime is enough," I said hastily, typing a quick word of thanks to Damon and Nicole.
"And don’t thank us yet," Milo added. "You haven’t succeeded. Before this cure happens, we still need to find ways to manage the pack that doesn’t involve me strong-arming them on your behalf."
"Is there anything I can help with? Do you need me to go through the documents?" I asked curiously, reaching for a stack to pull closer to me.
After the messy debacle at dinner, I wondered how I could possibly contribute. Unless I made Dahlia so mad that she died of a sudden stroke, I wouldn’t be any good at helping Darach run Thunderstrike.
"Yes, but you won’t be much help now, since you don’t know much about Thunderstrike," Darach said frankly. "I’ll explain matters to you now― I even made a presentation deck for this."
"A what?" I asked.
"Just humor him," Milo said, a wry note of amusement in his voice. "He prepared it the moment he got news you were coming to Thunderstrike."
Thus began the most informative three hours of my life. Darach handed me a stack of notes and then began his presentation, with Milo adding occasional commentary. Darach had provided an in-depth explanation of Thunderstrike’s daily workings, their structure, their members, as well as what problems they were going to face.
Of course, his father and sister were right on the top of the list for potential problems. Every day they spent in the pack was a disaster waiting to happen, a ticking time bomb ready to go off.
By the end of it all, it was late at night, and my questions were peppered with yawns despite my best efforts to pay attention. When my eyelids started to fall against my will, Darach finally got the hint to stop.
"That’s a lot of information for you to digest," Darach said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head. "You don’t need to remember all of it tonight. You have some time."
"How much time?" I asked suspiciously before a loud yawn interrupted my train of thought. Just the list of Thunderstrike’s council and notable pack members was already enough to send my head whirling.
Darach laughed.
"Would you kill me if I said you can do it by tomorrow night? I still have more information to give you, and it wouldn’t make much sense if you don’t have the prerequisite knowledge."
"And other pack members might take advantage of your lack of knowledge to cause discord," Milo added, and I sobered up immediately at the solemnity in his voice. "They tried that when I first arrived as beta, not knowing that Darach had already primed me with his information."
"I’ll... do my best," I promised, even as I felt my heart sink when I stared at the thickness of the material I would have to go through.
I had to try. If I couldn’t do this for Thunderstrike, how could I become Fangborne’s Luna?
