Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 369

Natalia’s POV

“He’s in there.” Catherine pointed a trembling finger at the makeshift infirmary tent, from which the sound of an aggravated male voice was coming. David’s voice. “Natalia, I swear upon the Moon Goddess, if this is more trouble-”

“It’s my brother.” I swallowed hard. David was alive, but apparently psychotic–I didn’t know what happened to him or why, but the implications weren’t good.

“Oh.” Catherine dropped her hand.

“I’ll explain everything as soon as I know what’s going on,” I said, to which Catherine nodded. Taking a deep breath, I turned and approached the tent.

The scene I found within wasn’t what I expected at all; but then again, I had come here not knowing what to expect. All I knew was that David was sick and had fled here from Bloodmoon, which meant that trouble was coming our way.

More trouble than we were already facing, of course.

David was lying on one of the cots, writhing against the leather straps binding him to the bed. His face was coated in a sheen of sweat and he was growling low in his throat like an animal.

Wolfsbane was a commonly used poison many years ago, back before modern medicine revealed that the poison was actually quite easily treated. However, wolfsbane psychosis had no cure other than time.

While the cases of wolfsbane poisoning had gone down immensely over the past generation–after all, who would bother poisoning their enemy if their enemy could be cured with a simple concoction of commonly found herbs?-no cure had been discovered for the painstaking, albeit temporary, mental condition that followed.

David was in the throes of that condition right now. And judging from his current state, it would likely be another two days or more until his mental fog cleared and he began himself again. (1)

“He came to you like this?” I asked the medic, stopping beside David’s cot. My brother didn’t seem to notice me.

The medic nodded. “He showed up in wolf form–only managed to shift and get a few words out before he started babbling incoherently. We’ve got him on a combination of drugs to calm him down, but only time will cure his condition.”

“What did he say before he stopped making sense?” I asked.

“He said your name, and Alpha Andrei’s,” the medic replied as she continued stirring some kind of poultice for

a nearby wounded warrjor. She paused, looked around furtively, then whispered, “And he said something about an attack.”

My eyes widened. An attack.

Curious, I leaned over and touched David’s shoulder.

“David? David, it’s me, Natalia.” I doubted he could hear me right now, but I had to try. “Why did you come here? Who poisoned you?”

1/3

Chapter 309

+25 Bonus

He didn’t answer. If he did, then it only made sense to him and not me–because all he said in response was a load of incoherent gibberish.

I sighed and pulled back, studying him. He would recover in a couple of days, but who knew if we even had a couple of days? If he had mentioned an attack, then what if it was already too late?

Suddenly, an idea sprang to mind. I quickly left the tent and found Andrei, Catherine, and Edmond. They were standing nearby, speaking quietly amongst themselves. They all looked up as I approached.

“We should get him back to the estate,” I said. “Karl might be able to heal him more quickly. I think he might have useful information about the war.”

Andrei nodded. Catherine and Edmond looked a little uncertain, but helped us move David to the SUV. After some effort, we managed to get him secured in the back without biting anyone.

The drive back to the estate felt interminable, although it was only an hour. David groaned and muttered incoherently the entire time. Neither Andrei nor I spoke, too busy focusing on the task at hand.

By the time we returned to Moonshadow, David had thankfully exhausted himself enough to be more easily moved to the infirmary. Karl was waiting when we entered, and his eyes widened as we laid David on one of the beds.

“What happened to him?” Karl asked, rushing over.

“Wolfsbane poison,” I replied.

Karl went pale. “I knew it. I knew it!”

“What?” Andrei asked.

“Helena always kept a wolfsbane plant in her chambers. I thought it was just decorative, but to be safe, I showed Celeste how to cure it and gave her potted mint and night poppies just in case. I thought Helena might use it on her for punishment or something.”

I blinked. “So you think Helena did this?” I asked.

Karl nodded, already pushing his sleeves up and getting to work on David. “Yes. It’s an uncommon poison these days, being so easy to cure and all, but night poppies are rare around the Thornwood. Helena likely thought no one would find any, and once the poison takes its victims, it’s undetectable in autopsies.”

Andrei and I exchanged glances while Karl started healing David. So this was likely Helena’s doing–which made this whole thing that much worse.

For the rest of the day, Karl toiled over David. A long time passed, and I began to lose hope. But around sundown, we received a message that David was starting to wake up. Andrei and I quickly returned to the infirmary, relieved to find that he was no longer writhing and snarling like a caged animal, although his eyes were closed and he didn’t respond much to our questions.

However, we were able to piece together a narrative from the broken answers we got after over an hour of interrogating.

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