LOGINShare
Chapter Five: Poison and Pride
Last Updated:
2025-01-10 02:56:19"Three dead wolves in one night." Emma stared at the toxicology reports spread across her office desk, the numbers blurring after eighteen straight hours on shift. "All with the same modified poison."
Sarah locked the door behind her, carrying fresh coffee. "The labs came back on the latest victim. Blood work's identical to the others."
"And getting worse." Emma pulled up the molecular analysis on her computer. "The poison's evolving. Each batch is more sophisticated than the last."
Through her office window, she could see Steve's room across the hall. He'd finally fallen into a restless sleep, his fever hovering at dangerous levels despite her magical intervention. Even unconscious, he commanded attention—the Alpha in him refusing to be diminished by something as mundane as near-fatal poisoning.
"You should get some rest," Sarah said, studying her face. "You've been running on fumes since they brought him in."
"I'm fine."
"Right." Sarah's tone dripped skepticism. "That's why you've been staring at the same page for ten minutes. Look, I don't know what happened between you and tall, dangerous, and unconscious over there, but—"
A crash from Steve's room cut her off. Emma was moving before she consciously registered the sound, doctor's instincts overriding personal hesitation.
She found Steve trying to stand, monitors beeping in protest as he ripped out his IV. "I have to get back," he growled, eyes flickering between human green and Alpha red. "My pack—"
"Your pack needs you alive." Emma pushed him back with more force than strictly necessary. "Which you won't be if you leave before the poison's cleared your system."
His hand caught her wrist, fever-hot skin against her pulse. "Then help me. You've seen the reports. This isn't just about me or my pack anymore."
"Don't." She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.
"Emma, please. Look at me."
She did. She wished she hadn't. Five years had carved new lines around his eyes, added silver threads at his temples. The cold aristocrat who'd rejected her was gone, replaced by someone who looked... haunted.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice raw. "What I did that night—there's no excuse. I was arrogant, stupid, and cruel. I've regretted it every day since."
"Regret doesn't change anything."
"No." His thumb brushed her wrist, right over her racing pulse. "But maybe this is fate giving us a second chance."
Emma yanked her hand back. "Fate? The same fate that let you break our mate bond without a second thought?"
"I thought I was protecting the pack." The words seemed to cost him. "There were threats, political alliances at stake. I convinced myself it was the right choice, that I could ignore what my wolf already knew—that you were perfect. Strong. Exactly what the pack needed."
"And now?" Bitterness crept into her voice. "Now that you need my help, suddenly I'm qualified?"
Before he could answer, Emma's pager shrieked. Another victim incoming. Her heart sank as she read the details.
"Female, seventeen years old." Her voice turned clinical, professional. "Same chemical signature as your wounds."
Steve's face went ash-white. "Claire. My sister."
Emma was already moving. "Sarah! Get a trauma bay ready. And bring me everything we've got on the antidote trials."
"Emma." Steve's voice stopped her at the door. "Save her. Please. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but she's innocent. She wasn't even part of the pack when I—when everything happened."
For a moment, Emma saw past the Alpha to the brother desperate to save his sister. She thought of her own brother, lost to a hunter's bullet years before she'd even met Steve.
"I'll do everything I can," she said. "But afterward, we need to talk about the warehouse. About exactly what these hunters are planning."
She didn't wait for his response, already running toward the emergency bay. Her wolf stirred restlessly, sensing the weight of what was coming.
The ambulance sirens grew closer, and with them, a scent that made her blood run cold. Under the chemical burn of poison, she caught something familiar.
The hunters hadn't just copied her old pack's healing herbs.
They'd weaponized them.
They'd been watching her all along.
Related chapters
The Healer's Bond Chapter 6: Inner Siege.
It was more serious and deadlier than she thought. “Put them under a lot of morphine,” Emma hastily ordered the interns as she jogged back into the intensive care unit ward. Her heart wrenched as she watched Steve shiver in pain with his eyes rolled up into his dead. For the first time in after five years, she was at loss at what to do.See this as a challenge. She told herself. You are a healer, and one of the things that comes with it is solving the problem. Now, what is the problem?She looked at the charts monitor and saw that Steve’s fever was getting higher by the minute.“What do we do?” Sarah asked as she looked at Emma pensively.“A CT scan immediately,” Emma said. “We need to see exactly how this virus works, we need to see how it multiplies, we need to see how it regenerates, from there, we will know what to do from the results.”Sarah left the room to get the interns to wheel the Alpha to the lab.“Interesting,” Emma whispered. The Viruses were actively working and attache
Last Updated : 2025-03-01The Healer's Bond 7. CURE.
“What is this shinning cell?” Sarah asked, her voice tinged with awe and wonder.It was the werewolf gene and what was also responsible for making bonds between other wolves possible but Emma was not going to say that. It was not yet time for Sarah to know about her world. It was too dangerous.“Please send the result to my office right away, I need to go see one of the patients,” Emma said and left Sarah’s lab.There was a lot of questions on her mind as she walked and passed by other nurses and patients being prepped for surgeries or scans. It was a really busy night for her and like always she was spending it in the hospital. In all honesty, there was no one waiting for her at home.Her work as a healer and doctor was her life. She was a neurosurgeon at the hospital but a healer and user of wolf magic off duty. Sometimes she combined to the two which was rare.However, she knew that she was going to have to use both her medical and healing abilities to help Steve. But first she nee
Last Updated : 2025-03-01The Healer's Bond 8. A TEMPORARY CURE. II.
Emma had no idea if what she was about to do was going to work but she had to try. From her discussion with Steve, she had realized that she needed to slow down the attack of the virus until she could find an actual cure. She already had everything she needed. The blood sample and the biological make up of how the virus worked. However, she still had no idea about the main substance used to engineer the virus but she knew that werewolf DNA was involved. She had left Steve in his ward and was finding her way back to Sarah’s office.Sarah almost bumped into her as he got to the entrance of her lab.“Emma!” Sarah cried out in excitement. “You are not going to believe what I have found.”“I hope it is a miracle, Sarah, because I need all the help that I can get.” Emma replied as she fully entered the lab. “What did you find?”Sarah sat on her work stool and pushed her microscope towards Emma to look. “I extracted the virus itself to see what it was specifically made of.” Sarah said. “I c
Last Updated : 2025-03-02The Healer's Bond 9: UNWANTED MEMORIES.
“I don’t believe it,” Sarah exclaimed as she watched the charts connected to Steve’s body. The werewolf was stable and his blood pressure was back to normal. Well, not human being normal but a win was a win.Emma could believe it because being a healer was a large part of her identity. A knock brought their attention away from Steve. It was a female nurse who had a puzzled expression on her face.“Um, Doctor Emma, the patients that came in all seem to be doing just fine,” she said. Emma nodded, relieved. “Thank you and keep a close watch on them for any changes.” Emma replied. The Nurse nodded and left.“Mercury Chloride,” Sarah murmured and shook her head, still amazed.Steve stirred awake and moaned a little. His eyes flew open and he looked around until his gaze fell on the woman that he had rejected a long time ago. “Emma,” he groaned and tried to get up.Emma ran to his bed side and gently pushed him on his back. A small jolt of electrical current passed through her as she did.
Last Updated : 2025-03-03The Healer's Bond 10. THE PROTECTOR
Steve watched his surviving pack members with a haunted expression on his face. He had failed them all with his foolish decisions. If he could turn back the hands of time, he would without any hesitation.The only thing he could do now was make do with the hand that he was dealt. He had to find a way to salvage his losses.There were six men on the hospital beds in a large ward with the chemical Emma prescribed entering into their system.He could still feel their pains as they slept through the pain.When he could not bear to gaze upon their prone bodies any longer, he walked out of the hospital.His pack was decimated and he needed to find whatever was left of his surviving werewolves.He could still see flashes of the day the vicious attack took place, how the virus brought down the strongest of his men and women before he escaped.The sun was rising and he realized that Emma had spent the night making sure he and his pack members were stable. It pained him that he had to see Emma
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Healer's Bond 11. PROTECT THE QUEEN.
PROTECT THE QUEEN.In a game of chess, when the king is compromised, the game ends. However, the queen holds most of the power because if used well, she can change the tide of the game.Steve was compromised and Emma was his queen. Even though she did not know it yet. He was going to do whatever was necessary to keep her safe so she could focus on finding a cure for him and his pack.These four dubious looking werewolves went to together to the receptionist and Steve got within earshot. His wolf hearing was not what it used to be because of the infection so he had to strain himself really hard to pick up what was being said.“…Doctor Adams...” Steve ears perked up at the mention of her name. Shit! They were here for her!The good thing was that he had put the whole map of the hospital to his memory before going to meet Emma the first time he had entered the hospital. It was an habit of his. Steve preferred to know the lay of the
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Healer's Bond 12. AN ALPHA IN ACTION.
Emma had said her goodbyes to Sarah after they had gone back and forth on what was going between her and Steve.“There is something between the two of you, I can feel it.” Sarah had said when they had both stood had the large hall of the sixth floor looking out the walls of the panes that over looked the city.“I do not know what you are talking about, Sarah,” Emma said wearily as she watched the rising sun and its rays as it gleamed on heavily dewed cars and buildings. Her shift was over and she was calling it a day.She had instructed the interns under her to carefully watch and report any changes that happened to the remaining pack members of Steve’s pack.“Oh, come on, Emma!” Sarah exclaimed playfully. “I saw the way he held your hands and the yearning in his eyes, there is something going on.”“Really?” Emma said in slight disbelief. “Yearning in his eyes?”“I know what I saw, Emma, you can deny it as much as you want.” Sarah chuckled and replied.“Or maybe you need some romance
Last Updated : 2025-03-05The Healer's Bond 13. More Blood
“We cannot keep running forever, Emma,” Steve said as they both ran up the stairs. The hospital was fifteen stories high and Emma knew that the two surviving men were in hot pursuit.“We will think of something, let us keep going,” Emma said as she raced. Steve felt a bolt of energy the moment he heard her say we.Steve sighted a large red axe inside a glass. It was used for emergency fire outbreaks. An idea came to him and he went towards the glass. His first impulse was to break it but then he thought better of it and decided to open it the proper way by only crushing the padlock with his hand.It took a lot of effort but he used what was left of his wolf strength and the padlock cracked in his hand. He swung open the glass and grabbed the axe before running back to join Emma.“What do you plan to do with that?” She asked him as they ran.“I plan to protect you with it,” Steve said.They were on the eighth floor of the staircase before Steve’s body began to succumb to fatigue. He wa
Last Updated : 2025-03-06
Latest chapter
The Healer's Bond 124. The Deadly Floors of Grimkeeper III – A Walk Through Desire and Damnation
The crimson door creaked shut behind them, muffling the ragged breathing of the man who now lay unconscious on the velvet rug. Terra walked ahead, her golden tattoos glowing faintly under the infernal red light. Her heels clicked like war drums as she led Emma deeper into the heart of the Grim Floors.Emma's senses were overwhelmed—moans echoed faintly from behind darkened doors, the air was thick with incense, sex, and suffering. The healer in her reeled, but the werewolf in her… watched, hungry and curious.“Welcome to the feeding ground,” Terra said, spreading her arms wide as they emerged onto a balcony overlooking a vast arena below. The chamber stretched impossibly wide and tall—at the center, a gigantic black lotus floated above a pit of writhing bodies. Feeding platforms encircled the arena like theater boxes.“And what is this place?” Emma asked, her werewolf sight picking up glowing energies being drained from the bodies below and channeled into the black lotus.Terra licked
The Healer's Bond 123. THE FATHER'S DEMAND II
The silence between them was suffocating."I am not leaving, Emma for any reason and certainly not because of you," Steve growled.Steve stared angrily at the towering, pale-skinned entity before him—neither demon nor god, neither dead nor alive. Grimkeeper’s long fingers trailed the edge of a glass case containing a rusted dagger wrapped in faded red cloth."What reasons make you think that I would ever leave Emma's side?" The Sterling werewolf demanded."Sit," Grimkeeper said softly, but it was not a suggestion. It was a command that made Steve's bones tremble.He obeyed, lowering himself onto a cold obsidian bench while Grimkeeper remained standing, his shadow stretching long across the marble floor like a living thing."You asked me for the reasons," Grimkeeper said, his voice low, haunting. "Let me give you a thousand."Steve did not respond. His jaw was tight, fists clenched on his lap. Every instinct screamed at him to walk away, but something ancient in Grimkeeper’s aura held
The Healer's Bond 122. The Father's Demand
The Father's Demand"How old are you?" Steve asked, unable to contain his curiosity despite the tension between them.Grimkeeper's laugh was unexpectedly warm, rolling through the museum of his existence. "It depends on your understanding of the perception of time. But I leave that to you.""So you don't know?" Steve shot back, sarcasm a shield against the unnerving reality he faced."No," Grimkeeper corrected, "I'm saying your mind may not be able to comprehend my age. I do not perceive time the same way you do, son of Kane."Steve absorbed this, the implications staggering. "If I understand correctly, you're saying you've been around since the beginning of time.""I don't think those are the right words. I've been around before Time even became a concept," Grimkeeper replied with casual certainty that sent a chill down Steve's spine. "I will outlive even you, son of Kane, which brings me to why you are here."Something in his tone set off warning bells in Steve's mind. "Why am I her
The Healer's Bond 121. Feast of Abandon
The air changed the moment Emma's boots crossed the threshold. Steve felt it first as a prickling along his spine, then as a heaviness that settled in his lungs with each breath. Sweet, cloying, like honeysuckle left to rot in summer heat. He gripped the edge of the table, knuckles whitening as the scent infiltrated his senses, clouding his mind with images he fought to suppress.Around him, the feast hall descended into madness.Marcus, his loyal Beta, the man who had stood by his side through countless battles and bloodshed, fell first. Steve watched in horror as his second-in-command's eyes glazed over, pupils dilating until only a thin ring of color remained. The warrior's movements became jerky, desperate, as he tore at his clothing with trembling hands. A crimson-skinned creature—no, not creature, succubus—with spiraling horns and a forked tail approached him, her hips swaying hypnotically. Marcus didn't resist. His trousers pooled around his ankles as he seized her waist, spinn
The Healer's Bond 120. THE DEADLY FLOORS OF GRIMKEEPER. II.
The degradation the human was going through and how Terra the succubus was feeding off it fascinated Emma. The Healer used her werewolf sight to see how Terra was getting nourished from the freaky act she performing with the poor helpless human.Emma watched closely as the veins in the anatomy of the sex creature pulsed with light. The Human began to struggle as Terra’s tail tightened around his neck as she began to hump harder on his face. “Hold still! Let my juice soak that face up!” Terra yelled as she pushed the human’s face deeper. “Yes!” The Succubus came wildly and gushed her liquid on the face of the bound helpless man.Emma was amazed by how Terra climaxed. The golden fractured star on her chest glowed brightly as her pussy nectar dripped thickly over the man’s buried face. The Succubus released the man who was coughing out liquid which Emma deduced to be Terra’s pussy juice. The man’s face was wet and dripping. He was on his back trying to catch his breath but the Succubus w
The Healer's Bond 119. THE DEADLY FLOORS OF GRIMKEEPER.
“Do you want to feed on Steve?” Emma asked abruptly as they stepped into the elevator. Terra’s eyes lit up shamelessly and Emma felt a deep pang of jealously course through her.“The Champion has resisted my charms all night long, it is actually making me want him more,” Terra answered truthfully. “It is the first time in a long time someone has ignored me, it is driving me wild as we speak.”Emma wanted to tell her to back off Steve but she decided not to because the Succubus was honest with about wanting to fuck Steve. Emma respected the honesty even if she did not like it at all.She herself did not have a claim over Steve because she was still undecided about her true feelings for him. But there was one thing she was certain of and it was that she was addicted to his cock.“I sense the tension between the two of you, the sexual kind.” Terra said. “It is a very powerful tension and all my sist
The Healer's Bond 118. SECRETS OF THE VALLEY
"I feel like he planned it though," Emma mused, her thoughts turning to Grimkeeper. The man who claimed to be her father had orchestrated the entire scenario, from her arrival to the Minotaur's attack. It felt like a test, though of what, she couldn't be certain."Your father?" Terra asked with a smile that seemed to carry secret knowledge."He is not my father," Emma replied, her voice tight with suppressed emotion. The words came out sharper than intended, cutting through the air between them like a blade. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms."I do not understand why you are angry," Terra said, her brow furrowing in genuine confusion. The expression humanized her exotic features momentarily, making her seem less predator and more person.Emma glanced at the Succubus and recognized that the puzzlement on Terra's beautifully terrifying face was genuine. The realization softened her response."Fathers are meant to be present in the lives of their ch
The Healer's Bond 117. THE RELUCTANT BLOODLINE
"Stop following me," Emma said, her voice hardened by frustration and exhaustion. The words scraped against her throat like sandpaper, raw from the day's horrors. She could sense the Succubus behind her—again—the creature's presence like a perfumed shadow clinging to her consciousness. What infuriated Emma most wasn't the following; it was how the sultry being simply smiled whenever she spoke harshly, as though her anger were merely amusing.The corridor of Grim Hotel stretched before them, impossibly long and adorned with paintings that seemed to shift when not directly observed. The walls themselves pulsed with a faint, sickly light that made Emma's skin crawl. Every step on the obsidian floor echoed, sending vibrations through her tired legs."I have been tasked to show you to your room," Terra replied, her voice flowing like warm honey. The Succubus moved with liquid grace, each step deliberate and hypnotic.Emma's jaw clenched tight enough to ache. Her patience, already worn thin
The Healer's Bond 116: GRIMKEEPER. IV.
Taurus turned his massive bull head toward her, nostrils flaring in anger at being addressed by a woman. "You will be silent, wench!" he bellowed, spittle flying from his bovine mouth. "Know that your place is beneath my hooves!" His eyes, small and mean, narrowed as he looked her up and down with contempt. "You are nothing but an appetizer to me." The threat hung in the air for barely a second before Emma moved. To most observers, it appeared as though she hadn't moved at all—one moment she was seated, seemingly tensed for action, and the next, Taurus was making a strange, strangled noise. Only Steve, with his enhanced reflexes, caught the blur of her hand, the flick of her wrist, the tiny projectile that flew with deadly accuracy. The minotaur's eyes widened in sudden panic as his massive frame went rigid. One of his hands twitched feebly before freezing in place. The needle—so small as to be nearly invisible—had struck with surgical precision at the junction of his neck and sho
