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Chapter Eighteen

G riffin Wild

The steady beep of medical equipment is the only sound in the room as I stand at the foot of Maya’s bed, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath.

Her auburn hair fans across the pillow, her skin pale but flushed with life.

It seems impossible after what I witnessed—the blood pooling beneath her, her heart stopping, the light fading from her eyes.

Yet here she is. Alive. Changed.

The doors to the healing chamber open, and Jerry enters, his face drawn with exhaustion. “She’s stable,” he says, his voice low. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” I admit, unable to take my eyes off her sleeping form. “How is this possible?”

Jerry shakes his head. “I don’t know. The tests confirm it, though. She’s changing on a cellular level. Human tissue is transforming into shifter tissue. It’s inexplicable.”

I nod, remembering the moment her eyes opened—the blue irises now ringed with an amber glow so similar to my own. The scent of her has changed, too, the familiar lavender now threaded with something wild and untamed. Something that calls to my wolf in a way I can’t explain.

“I want her under constant protection.”

Jerry hesitates. “Your Majesty, we still don’t know what else they might have done to her. Mathew remains at large, and we don’t know the full extent of their experimentation.”

The mention of Mathew’s name sends a fresh swell of rage through me. How he managed to escape in the chaos, I don’t know, but I will track him down. I will make him pay for what he did to Maya.

“I’ll find him,” I murmur. “In the meantime, I want you to focus on Maya.”

“When she’s awake, she’s normal,” Jerry says. “But when she sleeps, it’s for hours and hours. In the two weeks since you brought her back, though, her sleep cycles have been decreasing. I’m confident she will be more active in another few days.”

As Jerry leaves the room for a moment, I move to Maya’s side, taking her hand in mine. The bond between us pulses strongly, newly formed and yet somehow familiar, as if it was always meant to be. I brush a strand of hair from her face, marveling at the miracle of her survival.

“I love you,” I whisper, knowing she can’t hear me. “I’m never letting you go again.”

We haven’t had a proper conversation yet. When she’s awake, she huddles in her laboratory, working, researching. Part of me feels like she’s avoiding me, and another part is worried about this fanatical energy she’s displaying. She won’t even let Jerry inside the lab.

She lets me lie in this bed with her at night, though, and when I hold her, she wraps around me, restless in her sleep. And that’s not all. The mate bond that has snapped into place has helped me recover memories that I didn’t even know were missing, especially ones from my childhood.

As I watch her sleep, I run my fingers through her hair.

The Goddess had our fates intertwined from a very young age, it seems, but neither of us ever remembered.

As a young boy, I wandered off and was kidnapped by humans.

A few days later, they brought in a young girl with auburn hair, a little spitfire.

Her father had sold her to them to pay off his gambling debts.

She cried and screamed, wanting to go home with him, but our captors hit her.

My wolf grew fiercely defensive, and I tried to shield her to the best of my abilities.

Maya murmurs in her sleep, leaning into my hand, and I smile softly.

My wolf must have recognized our fated mate back then, but I was too young to understand.

I had always been warned never to shift forms in front of humans, but I found myself breaking that rule a few days later when a man came for the girl, his intentions clearly shady.

She rode on my wolf’s back as we ran, chased by humans with guns.

The nightmares she has, when she cries out—I recall those moments now. Why did I forget? Or is it that my young mind simply wasn’t able to retain the memories?

Jerry enters the room again. “Commander Erik is looking for y—”

“Jerry, you were a mid-level healer when I was young, right?”

He blinks. “Yes.”

“I seem to have regained some memories from a time in my childhood when I went missing.” The healer stiffens, and I study him curiously. “You know what I’m talking about?”

Jerry looks uncomfortable. “Well, yes. You ran away from home after a fight with your father, and you were missing for two weeks. Your parents had turned the kingdom upside down looking for you when you suddenly came home, a mess, raving about your mate. You were quite young and emotionally charged back then. You wanted to go look for her, but we didn’t know what you were talking about.

I think the whole ordeal became too much for you, and you blocked it out. ”

“I blocked it out? I forgot about Maya?”

Jerry is quiet as his eyes swivel toward my sleeping mate.

“Oh, so that’s who you were talking about.

” He seems to understand now. “You met Maya and your wolf recognized her as your fated mate, but you were too young. Fated mate pairs come together after a wolf reaches maturity. If you forgot about her, it was because your wolf was trying to protect its own mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if she, too, lost her memories of your time together. ”

“She’s been having nightmares since she was a child about when she was kidnapped. She doesn’t remember me.”

“Children have fragile minds. I’m surprised she was able to retain the memory in the form of nightmares.

But Maya is strong. If your parents had known that you truly had met your fated mate out there, they would have looked for her.

It does make sense now why you rejected every match your parents and the elders put in front of you; you had already met your mate. ”

It pleases me to know that the Goddess put us in each other’s paths earlier than we ever thought. But I do wonder how Maya will feel about it.

I stroke her cheek with the back of my hand, her skin soft and flushed in her sleep.

Never again, I vow silently. Never again will we be parted.

Three days later, I sit in my private study with Cedric, Leanna, and Erik. Maps and reports cover the table between us, but my mind is elsewhere—with Maya, recovering in the royal chambers now, under the watchful eyes of the palace healers.

“Nobody has been able to locate Mathew,” Erik says, breaking the tense silence. “It’s like he vanished.”

“He’s still out there,” I growl, the thought making my wolf pace restlessly. “Planning something.”

“We’ll find him,” Cedric assures me, his voice firm. The king of the North has been surprisingly supportive since arriving with Leanna after hearing the news. “My scouts are searching within our borders. If he fled to the North, we’ll find him.”

Leanna leans forward, her dark eyes concerned. “How is Maya? Jerry says she’s stabilizing, but...” She trails off, clearly worried about her friend.

“She’s...” I struggle to find the words. “She’s changing. Adapting. Of all the things I expected when I marked her, this wasn’t it.”

“You never expected her to become a shifter,” Leanna says softly.

I shake my head. “I heard her heart stop, Leanna. I felt her die through our bond. She was gone.”

“Yet, she lives,” Erik points out. “By any standard, it’s a miracle.”

“Or it’s science,” I counter. “Whatever the Silver Ring did to her, whatever Mathew injected her with—it changed her on a fundamental level. Jerry and the other healers are still trying to understand it. Maya doesn’t talk about it.

Won’t talk about it. Won’t talk to me. To anyone.

All she does besides sleep is work in the lab. ”

Leanna relaxes at my words. “Sounds like a manic phase. This is normal for her. It means she’s on to something.

She always became fanatical like this when working on something crucial.

She’ll talk to you once she can think about anything aside from the formulas running through her head.

” She looks at Erik. “The prophecy said Griffin would be the cause of her death. But what if it meant her death as a human? Her rebirth as a shifter?”

“Prophecies are notoriously tricky,” Erik agrees. “Always open to interpretation.”

The thought sends a chill through me. Had I misunderstood all along? Could I have spared both of us months of pain if I’d only looked deeper, questioned more?

“I want to see her,” Leanna says, determination in her voice.

“Not yet,” I say firmly. “She needs time to adjust. Her senses are heightened, her emotions raw. Visitors would overwhelm her.”

Leanna looks like she wants to argue, but a warning glance from Cedric silences her.

“There’s something else,” Erik says, changing the subject. “The antidote has been fully tested. It works. We’re already producing more, distributing it to the affected shifters.”

Relief washes through me. “And Aria?”

“She has recovered,” Erik confirms. “As have most of the others who received the test treatments. We’ve lost only three—those who were too far gone before the antidote was administered.”

I nod, grateful for this small victory amid the turmoil. “We owe Maya a debt we can never repay. Without her work, we would have lost many more.”

“One more thing,” Erik says, his expression turning grave. He slides a folder across the table to me. “This came in this morning. I thought you should see it immediately.”

I open the folder, scanning the contents quickly. My expression darkens as I read, rage building inside me with each word.

“What is it?” Cedric asks, noting my reaction.

I close the folder, unwilling to share its contents just yet. “Nothing that can’t wait,” I say, though the coldness in my voice betrays me. “What matters now is that thanks to Maya, the kingdoms are safe. The disease is being cured, and our people are recovering.”

“And when Maya recovers?” Leanna asks. “What then?”