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It’s been about six hours since four of the twenty-two remaining patients took the experimental drug Mitch brought in to counter that poison’s function and facilitate shifting. They’ve all now successfully shifted once.

Mitch is overseeing their care at the moment, Cat by his side. He offered it to the six sickest, but only four were willing to try it and to Mitch’s credit, he didn’t push. He also didn’t offer it to the kids, but they’re all out of their beds, including the little girl with one arm. They’re all running around playing with the other kids outside the schoolhouse. Linc was over there in wolf form playing ball with them until a few minutes ago.

“He’s gonna make a great father someday,” Stacy told me while she watched his wolf let the kids climb all over him.

“Definitely,” I agreed.

The four Silver Hills patients who have shifted are exhausted from it – it took a lot out of them, but they’ll attempt it again in a few more hours.

Stacy told Mitch earlier that the reception he’s getting from people here is down to fear mongering, which goes back to even before John Meadows’ rule, and every member of this pack has been afraid of the SCC for most of their lives because of exile from the original Silver Hills pack from Argentia Mountain in Alaska. I’ve never heard this lore and Mitch says he doesn’t know of it either.

Mitch gave a speech about how he’s just like we are, that he’s a retired alpha of his own pack, mentored his replacement, but also one of the wolf shifter representatives of the SCC and that he’s not only here to help, also to gather evidence to determine if Wyatt Meadows is guilty of crimes against his pack, which he would stand trial for.

This got murmurs churning among the crowd. Stacy won’t speak up for the SCC; she told Mitch directly in front of her people that she wants to believe Mitch is on the up and up but that not only did they grow up being taught to fear and distrust the Supernatural Council Collective, she also didn’t like what she’d heard they did to Riley Savage and Erica Young.

And me, Jase, and Linc all exchanged amused glances at this. I wanted to whoop in victory with pride at my mate standing her ground with a powerful SCC alpha shifter, looking him directly in the eyes and standing for what she believes without trembling, with a strong voice. It wasn’t long ago she wouldn’t look any alpha in the eyes unless commanded to do so.

I think her people appreciated it, too. She’s not just saying what people want to hear; she’s being real with them.

That said, Cat Savage did speak up for Mitch as a very qualified medical doctor and talked about numerous medical strides the SCC’s medical team have made for shifter and vampire illnesses. She told the room that she trusts Mitch with their medical care, that she trusts his advice without question looking after our own six-hundred plus member pack, and advised that this drug could help, allowing them to shift and therefore feel a hundred per cent sooner.

When Stacy spoke up for Cat stating that Cat is Tyson Savage’s mother and then expressed her gratitude to Cat for helping the pack even after what she did to Ty on their alpha’s orders. Stacy looked around at the group and drove the point home that Cat still came to help and has saved lives already. This seemed to make a difference.

Catrina Savage is a kind, gentle, maternal woman that puts everyone who meets her at ease, but I know for a fact that Stacy advising she’s Ty’s mom made a big difference. After Cat spoke up for Mitch, we got our four volunteers. One of those, Patsy, the lady Stacy sang to last night.

Mitch is monitoring them all for the next few hours and then he’ll have them try shifting a second time to see if they can do so on their own or if they’ll require an additional dose of the drug. He’s also explained to everybody that because the medication is still experimental, he’ll be documenting patients’ reaction to it for medical research.

Because I’d realized I might be persuading people unintentionally when we had one hundred per cent of the pack take Dani’s healing elixir, I didn’t say a word when Mitch began his speech about the experimental drug that could help reverse that herb’s shift-blocking.

Stacy wasn’t here for the elixir as she was visiting with Addy, but Dani offered her a dose when we got back to the mess hall after the locator spells. Stacy asked if it’s safe if she might be pregnant and Dani smiled brightly at her and promised that it is before looking at me and beaming even more before whispering about being ecstatic to hear the next generation of our coven is brewing and assuring me the firstborn Young witch of the next generation is absolutely safe in the cauldron .

My wife laughed at her womb being referred to as a cauldron.