Page 91 of A Silent Prodigy for the Lycan Princess

“Are covered,” she reassures me.

I straighten my coat and, with confident strides, make it out of the restroom and towards the elevator leading to the basement. Meanwhile, I can hear Nox chatting with someone. He is playing the doofus now, pretending he is new and has no idea how to copy something from the archives. One of the nurses apparently even walks inside with him, showing him how to maneuver through the archives.

“Helps to have a handsome face,” Zoé whispers.

I chuckle. People always underestimate Nox for his slightly gloomy expression, the scar on his face, and his being a bit of an introvert, but he isn’t shy, he can deliver, and he is certainly attractive. He is also very loyal to me and my family, due to my father sparing his life when he came to our pack as a child, tasked to kill my dad.

Nox got a second chance in life and is living it to its fullest.

I press the button for the elevator, taking me to the basement, fortunately, all alone there. Once down, I realize Zoé was right, and there is only the cleaning staff down here with me. I nodat them before passing by and continuing on my way. I make it through one safety door with my card without being disrupted.

“Someone is coming your way,” Zoé suddenly whispers. “He was in the blind spot of the camera before. Wait…” I can hear her typing something while I slow down. “It’s the department leader,” she mutters, shocked.

It’s the first time that Emilien disrupts our conversation. “Better return, Aurelia. Nox is being successful in the archives and—”

I spot the man Zoé was talking about, realizing he has likewise seen me.

“No,” I mutter. “I will raise more suspicion if I just turn around now. Name?”

“Dr. Charles Moreau.”

“Do you have anything about him?”

“Wait…” More typing comes through the earpiece. I keep my eyes pinned to my phone, pretending to look up something while waiting for Zoé’s reply. “Was off work yesterday, loves hiking, has two teenage boys. One is a mountain biker and tends to have accidents due to the sport. He is treated here at least once a month.”

I don’t react, and instead, I pull the earplugs out of my ears, only keeping the small earpiece that connects me to Zoé, pretending I’ve been listening to something on the phone. “Good morning, Dr. Moreau.”

“Good morning,” he pauses, gazing at my name tag. “Dr. Alami.”

We both pause, the typical awkward moment when two people aren’t quite sure what to say. But Nox isn’t the only one who can be a flirt, so I put on my most charming smile, noticing how Dr. Moreau returns it immediately. “I hope you got some much-needed rest yesterday,” I say. “Did you manage to go on that hiking trip you mentioned last week?”

Clearly, I have no idea what he talked about last week. He can’t even remember Dr. Alami, fortunately, but I’m hoping that, as the head of the department with so many doctors and nurses under him, he just will fall for the trap.

“Oh, the hiking trip,” he says, as if he is roaming his memory. “No, unfortunately, I couldn’t do it. My son had a tournament.”

“I didn’t know they held mountain bike tournaments around this time of the year.”

His eyes light up at my interest in his son’s activities, which is kind of heartwarming. “Oh, I was surprised too, but apparently, Simon’s club always holds an event right before New Year’s Eve.”

“As long as he doesn’t end up in the ER,” I joke.

He laughs. “True words.” He looks at me, clearly only trying to be polite. “Are you working on New Year’s Eve?”

“She is on a short trip with her fiancé,” Zoé whispers. “She worked on Christmas.”

“No,” I smile. “I had my shift on Christmas. For New Year’s Eve, I’ll be away with my fiancé.”

Dr. Moreau smiles warmly at me. “Then, I wish you a good start to the new year.”

“Thank you, to you too,” I say.

We nod at each other one more time before going our separate ways. It’s silent on the other line while I make my way to the blood bank.

“Aurelia,” Arden finally says. “That was hot.”

“He is right,” Zoé giggles. “Oh, wait, Nox needs me.”

“Don’t worry about me. I will be fine,” I say once I reach the blood bank. I use my card to enter the cooled room, looking around for a moment. There are many refrigerator-like objects standing around, and more bags of blood fill the shelves. I roam them, noticing that the one I’m looking for is truly the smallest one. AB RH negative. I take my phone, photographing the bags so that we can see the tags with the dates, barcodes,and other information on them. Then, I roam around for a donor list. There has to be something. Donating blood isn’t done anonymously; donors are numbered. I continue to search some shelves and cupboards until I find one with neatly placed folders. There are names, ages, and dates of blood donation on them… even numbers, and fortunately, they are sorted by blood group. I swiftly grab the one for the AB negative donors and photograph the donor list. It’s when I go to return the folder that I spot a name… Louis Auclair. He is… he is one of our victims.