The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 45

I screamed, the fireworks unable to mask the horror that escaped from deep inside my body. It came out sounding primal, like something was eating me alive.

Aldrich had followed my gaze and immediately ran inside. The last detail I remembered was a pale Aldrich ordering the guards to watch me. I fell to my knees, traumatized at the demented sight.

Was I having another nightmare? Was this all actually happening? Were fireworks merely a figment of my subconscious, and Alan getting hurt was another addition to my dreams of bleeding friends? Everything was occuring in split moments, each event happening within the length of a second. I forgot the color of things and the names of people. I forgot that people actually died in real life, that b***d does not ooze but pour.

The guards Aldrich commanded surrounded me with heavy concern. They lifted me from the ground, I think. I wasn’t sure what exactly happened after I saw the b***d stains on the stone.

“We must get you inside,” one of the guards told me, ushering me toward the door. I stepped into a cloud of pandemonium; everyone already knew. People were yelling, guards hurrying around to comfort everyone. The King and Queen were nowhere to be found, most likely escorted off somewhere safe. People were no longer dancing on the floor, but running across it outside.

I didn’t know how my lips found the words, but I uttered out to the guards, “get me to Aldrich. Bring me to him.” I remembered my son in that moment, looking around for him. “Keep my son safe. Inside.” I didn’t have the sense to command them further.

They escorted me outside like a rain cloud, orbiting around me with their weapons drawn. We walked over to the spot underneath the balcony. I did not see the faces of anyone, nor the shape of our surroundings. I did not remember if trees were tall or wide, if they were rectangular or triangles.

The only thing I knew was him. Aldrich kneeled in front of his best friend’s body, b***d on his white linen. He looked like a child trying to put back together his favorite broken toy.

“How did this happen?” Aldrich asked his entourage brokenly, his voice coming out as neither a whisper nor a yell. Just broken words.

A crowd began to form around Alan’s body. I fell to my knees again, a scream stuck in my throat. This had to be a nightmare.

Our friend looked like he splattered. His bones no longer were prominent through his skin, seemingly shattered to a million pieces. I wanted to throw up as I saw the b***d coming from some sort of head trauma, staining his gorgeous auburn hair. He definitely fell from the very balcony we stood on.

Aldrich reached down to something on the ground beside him. The army general’s hands were shaking as he unfurled a note.

“The arrows can fly, but not their victims,” he read, gripping the note with b***d stained hands. He then turned the other way and retched onto the ground.

I looked away, my head feeling very heavy upon my shoulders.

Alan did not fall. He was pushed.

Aldrich gained some of his composure, but his face was ivory white, wet with tears. I had never seen him so disgruntled. “Take…take his body back to my estate,” he whispered, and the crowd around us tried desperately to hear him, “to my infirmary.”

His warriors obeyed, wrapping his broken body in a blanket. I just realized I was crying when I tasted salt, and my throat burned. Was I sobbing?

They loaded Alan’s body into a carriage and then they were off. I watched after them through the distorted vision of my tears, feeling lifeless. My knees scraped the ground, and there was b***d in the sheer lace of my skirts.

Aldrich saw me and immediately came to my aid. Before he did, he tore the note into a thousand pieces.

“Go home,” he commanded roughly, grabbing my arms as another carriage arrived at the palace. “I don’t want you in the middle of all of this. I will have Danika return with Theo.”

“What?” I sputtered, shocked at the sound of my own voice. “No…n-o. No. You can’t…”

“You’re in shock, Cathy,” he said, softly caressing my cheek. “I have some matters to attend to, but I will be back to check on you. I will make sure the whole village protects you.”

“No,” I repeated raggedly, “h-he was my…friend. I must help.”

“This is between my brothers and I,” he said with an authoritative finality that I could not argue unless I wanted for his guards to drag me away. They were all watching, already prepared to fold me up and send me off.

“What about your brothers?” I asked, my hands shaking against my lap.

“I will tell you everything once I find out,” Aldrich promised me, squeezing my hands tightly in between his. He looked at me with tears staining his cheeks. I had never seen him look more like Theo; he appeared like a lost, scared little boy.

I frowned before nodding. He beckoned for the guards to come pick me up and then I was being carried through the air into a horse drawn carriage.

I did not have the capacity to worry about Theo. I knew he would be safe with Danika. I knew she would shield him from any information, not that he would understand any of it anyway. All I could think about was my friend, nothing but a pile of meat and his bones most likely shattered to human sawdust.

I would not let him deem me breakable and something to protect. I knew he did it out of heightened paranoia, for he knew I could protect myself, but I would not accept sitting around and doing nothing while.

As the carriage brought me back to the estate, my mind was already wide awake again, sifting over all the spells and healer strategies I learned within all of my years.

I could not let my only friend go.

***

Aldrich

I did not have to find him; Benjamin was exiting the palace with a lazy grin, as if the banquet was delightful. The b***d on his nose crusted over, showing that it had just recently stopped bleeding. She must have broken it.

I stormed over to him. I wasn’t sure if I was going to hit him, impale him, or yell at him, but my mind felt too mad to consider which one was better.

My best friend, my best warrior. Dead.

Killed.

“Murderer,” I roared, approaching him with a hard shove to his chest. He flung backwards like a rag doll, cackling as he fell to the ground.

“Whoa, whoa now,” he teased, looking up at me with an entertained smile, “I’m a lot of things, but not a murderer.”

“I know what you are,” I snarled, holding back the violent acts my body yearned to enstow upon him. “You are a liar, a sawyer rat, a murderer, and a treasonist.”

“Treasonist?” he asked, standing up from the ground. He brushed the dirt from his tunic casually. “I would call you the same thing,” he laughed to himself, “Letting all your warriors sacrifice their lives for you sounds worse than anything I did.”

I growled, unsheathing my sword automatically. He only grinned at that, like a play he was watching just got more entertaining. “You are no longer qualified to be the King of the pack. You never were,” I said, pointing the sword directly at my half-brother. “I declare war on you, first Prince Benjamin, for treason and betrayal.”