CALIFF
I instantly felt Shadow- she was terrified, and the spikes of pain flooded my chest. And there was so much fear in her thoughts. My self-protective instinct roared.
At that moment, I stopped breathing. My heart stopped beating. I forgot what I was. I forgot I was with humans. With my speed, I ran to catch Shadow before she fell. And she was clutching her throat.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” I didn’t have to ask. She raised her glass at me before she took a sip, and it hit me hard- the impact was catastrophic. My world crashed down on me. I didn’t only fail to protect her. I also failed as her mate, as her husband.
“Wolfs-bane. I-I can’t breathe.” Those were her last words. Her eyes were transfixed, and she was barely breathing as she lay motionless in my arms.
“No, no, no. Baby, stay with me.” I shook her, but she didn’t respond. Her face was pale.
“What’s happening?” someone asked, and I couldn’t answer. I just stared at my motionless mate- my world.
“Brother, what happened?” This time, it was Calder gripping my shoulder.
“Call the driver, ready the car. We’re leaving.” I stood up while Shadow was in my arms. “Just hang in there, baby. Please?”
“I’m calling her father and Zarah,” Everlee said hurriedly.
“Take my phone. Their numbers are in there.” I rushed through the crowd and approached the staff exit, which was a little less crowded.
Calder grabbed the phone from my jacket and faced the screen towards my face to unlock my phone. “I’m dialing her father now.”
“She drunk Wolfsbane,” Everlee concluded. “I got the glass.”
“At least one of us is thinking straight. Good job, babe,” Calder said to his mate.
The SUV screeched to park. Calder opened the door for me. I got in, placed Shadow on my lap, and swiped the hair away from her face.
“Baby?” I called her name three times, but she didn’t respond. “Shado, come on, baby. Talk to me, please?”
“Faster!” I growled at the driver, and he drove like a lunatic. I didn’t give a shit if the cops caught us. I could deal with them later. What mattered to me right now was to save my mate.
“Sir, something happened at the nightclub. We’re on our way.” Calder put the call on speaker.
“Is it my daughter? Is she all right?” Sebastien asked urgently.
“No, sir. I think someone may have spiked her drink with wolfsbane.”
“In my club?” Sebastien roared. His voice vibrated in my phone speaker. “I will find him and rip his body apart. I swear in my life, he wishes he wasn’t born. Where is my daughter now?”
“With me. She’s not responding,” I replied, my voice shaking.
“I feel her pain. And what the fuck were you doing, Califf?” He roared again. “Where were you? I trusted my daughter with you because I thought you could protect her. You are just as incapable as everyone else!”
I understood his predicament. Hell, I was mad, too. My body was still shaking in anger, and I wanted to tear up someone, to feel the blood in my mouth, feel my fangs as I bite down into the flesh, but that could wait.
I squeezed my eyes shut and drew a deep breath. If I used my rage to spit back, I would only make things worse, and the fact that it was my fault, leaving Shadow to drink alone, I deserved all the anger and curses he threw at me because I had no doubt he loved his daughter.
“Calm down, brother. There’s time for that.”
“Bring her to me so we could have a talk, young man.” I could see him growling, eyes glowing. “Whoever did this just made his worse enemy tonight.”
“We’re on our way.” Calder hung up and dialed Zarah.
“What is it, Califf?” she answered tiredly.
“Zarah, this is Calder,” said my brother in a shaky voice. “Shadow drank something with wolfsbane. We need your help. She’s unconscious.”
“No, no, no, my sweet child. How did I not feel it?” I could see Zarah panicking.
“She took off the necklace,” I told Zarah that would piss her off further.
“Damn it, Shadow. I’m on my way.”
Thankfully, the driver knew the shortcut and the way in the city. We arrived at the palace without delay.
“Take her to her room,” Sebastien ordered, his tone deadly.
“Baby, hang in there.” I rushed with my super speed and put her in bed. I cupped her head and looked directly into her eyes, searching for her voice in my thoughts, but I couldn’t find her. It was like she was gone.
I shut my eyes, reaching out again, but I shook in disappointment and frustration. I couldn’t barely feel her. I stumbled to the floor, and my body was shaking.
I cried in silence, clutching something to hold on to. My heart was breaking. My world was crashing, and I couldn’t do anything to help my mate.
“Darling? Baby girl? Hey, sweetheart, it’s your father. Can you hear me?” Sebastien talked to Shadow, but he got the same result. Shadow was not responding. It was like she just fell into a deep coma.
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Darling, come back to me.” He grunted and growled, which startled every one of us. “I can’t fucking feel her! Why I can’t fucking feel her?”
“Oh, Goddess. He’s in hybrid form,” said Everlee in a terrified voice. Sebastien’s mother was also a witch.
I got up on my knees, wiped the tears away from my eyes, and found him pressing his hand on Shadow’s forehead. When he shook his head, I tumbled back.
“I can’t reach out. I can’t feel her. I don’t see anything but an abyss of darkness. What have they done to her? What my daughter could possibly do to deserve it?”
When Sebastien turned to me slowly, his eyes filled with rage, I held my breath as I submitted my life to him, whatever he planned to do to me, because I knew I deserved it. “I trusted you!” That was the last thing I heard before I hit the wall.
Everlee startled and yelped in shock.
I dropped to the floor with a thud, and a loud clattering followed. Before my heart could beat, Sebastien came to me at his top speed, grabbed me on my shirt, and hung me like a piece of rug with a heavy groan.
I wouldn’t fight back even if I could. She was right there in a coma because I was reckless- careless. I was too confident that nothing would happen to her, and I was too confident that I could protect her. Yet, I failed.
“Put him down, Sebastien! It’s not his fault!” Zarah screamed at him.
His head snapped at Zarah. “How is it not his fault when he is supposed to protect her?”
“This enemy we are fighting is the one who did this. Put him down so I can do what I can to save your daughter. He’s hurting, too. Shadow is his mate, and there’s no way he would put her life in danger.”
“He doesn’t deserve my daughter! He’s not worth of my daughter.” He dropped me carelessly and walked towards Shadow. “He better find whoever did this to my child, or I will hunt him till the end of this earth.”`
Calder helped me get up as I scrambled to my feet. I fixed my clothes and joined them.
“You made your point, Sebastien. Now shut your mouth so I can save her. I need a moment of silence.” Zarah placed a hand on Shadow’s chest. “Give me a trash bin. Quickly.”
Calder was quick to grab the trash can. Now I realized what was that for. Shadow just coughed out and threw up everything she took into the bin, but she went back unconscious.
“It would just empty her stomach, but the wolfsbane has entered her bloodstream.”
“I’ll go get tissue paper,” Everlee volunteered.
“Zarah, is she going to be okay?”
She glared at me. “What do you think, lover boy? How could you leave her alone? Sebastien might be right. You don’t deserve her.”
I swallowed hard and blinked back the tears that threatened to fall as I cried deep inside in agony.
“This is worse.” Her words were like a sucker punch.
I knew what Zarah was capable of, but when she said worse, this was beyond my scope of understanding. But I would scour the earth to find a cure for my mate.
“What do you mean?” I braced myself for a lot more bad news and pain because right now, I had no strength left for high expectations and hopes.
“I need help. I’ll summon Margaret.”
“What do you want?”
“Oh, Goddess,” she muttered, clearly annoyed. “Why does she have to suffer a lot? Losing her family isn’t enough? She went into a coma, almost lost her best friend, and she sacrificed too much helping the people she cared about, and now this.”
I stepped back as I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned against the wall when I felt like falling again. My knees finally gave up, and I rocked myself and sobbed in the corner as another pain burst in my chest, so afraid of losing my mate. I’d never felt so much loss that I couldn’t even breathe. Everything hurt. I felt like I was slowly dying while enduring the inexplicable pain.
“If there were a slight chance of saving her, I would give up everything for her. I would trade my life for her.”
“She won’t let that happen!” Sebastien grunted.
I stilled. I wasn’t aware I said it out loud until I opened my eyes and found pairs of eyes staring down at me.
“I will do it in a heartbeat.” I stared at Sebastien. “If I could go back in time and take her place, I would do it.”
“And then she wakes up, and you are gone. What do you think she would feel? She will suffer the worst, Califf. Yes, I blamed you for being too lenient over your mate. I know she’s a handful, but there’s a threat out there hunting us, and you left her out of your sight.”
“We were dancing, and she said to get a drink. I told her I’m coming with you-”
“Let me guess, she said no.”
I nodded at Zarah. “But after she ordered, she told me to join her. I was just watching her as I walked in her direction. She raised her glass and took a sip. One moment she was smiling, the next thing-” My voice cracked. My shoulders shook. “She was clutching her throat.”
“Alessandro!”
“Your Majesty.” Alessandro came in an instant and bowed.
“Get the footage in the nightclub and retain all the staff until I say so.”
“What’s going on?” The High Priestess waltzed in her formal gown. Her eyes landed on Shadow. “What happened to the poor child?”
“I need your help, Margaret,” Zarah started. “This isn’t wolfsbane alone. She could have smelled or sensed it. She barely sipped it, and it should just hurt her but not put her in a deep coma.”
“No. It isn’t.”
My breathing held in my lungs, and my worst nightmare had just come true.
“Her drink is also spiked with a concoction of a plant called Digitalis. I also sense another magic is in play.”