Lucy’s POV
More and more werewolves dropped to the ground, their bodies making dull thuds on the floor of the hall. Some people fell atop tables, tipping them over and falling down the glasses and plates atop them. Glassware crashed to the ground, adding to the chaotic atmosphere.
My mind went to Tessa and Rosa and I searched around the hall with my eyes, trying to locate the last place I had seen her having fun with the Halflings. I didn’t know what was causing people to drop to the floor unconscious, but I was deeply worried that they might have been affected too.
Rosa rushed to us, holding Tessa by the hand. Immediate relief washed over me, but Rosa’s eyes were bloodshot. She looked more frantic than the last time I had seen her, and her hair that had been perfectly styled now had wisps sticking out at odd angles around her face like a bird’s nest.
Tessa wrapped her arms around me, and I could feel her trembling. Of course, such a scene as this was sure to frighten a little child.
“Where’s Reed?” I asked her, remembering the Halflings and immediately feeling bad for not thinking about them earlier. Even though they now had people taking care of them, I was still supposed to watch out for them, and I hadn’t been doing a very good job at that.
“They’re okay, I think. Their parents came and took them home when Rosa came to pick me.”
At least one thing had gone right. “So they’re fine, right? They didn’t faint?”
Tessa shook her head. “No.” Her pretty blue eyes searched the hall, where more than half of the attendees were strewn across the ground like ragdolls. “What’s happened to them?”
Shaun went over to a woman nearby and crouched so that he could get a better view of her face. He leaned in and sniffed her mouth, which was covered with a thin film of foamy spit.
“Something smells odd,” he said quietly as he got back to his feet. He turned to Rosa. “Do you have any idea what was used in these drinks? You were on kitchen duty for this event, weren’t you?”
Rosa’s eyes shed a couple of more tears, and I realised why she looked so distraught. She was scared. If she had been on kitchen duty and people seemed to be affected by something they had eaten, all hands would point to her and the others in charge of the kitchen.
“I don’t know what happened, I swear,” she shook her head. She was still a slave in the eyes of Moongrowl, any little issue was going to put her in a lot of trouble. “I should have been more attentive, but I wasn’t.”
“Why, what happened, Rosa?” I asked her. “Why should you have been more attentive?”
Her body shook with a shaky breath. “While we were preparing the drinks, this woman . . . I think her name is Gert, came into the kitchen with a bag of what I assumed to be spices. She said that she was sorry about all the trouble she had caused and wanted to make things right. I should have come to confirm from you-I should have-but the head chef for some reason immediately agreed and took the spices and started using them. I got so busy afterwards that it skipped my mind to tell you about it earlier today.”
“Are you saying that you think that people have been poisoned?” I asked for clarification.
Rosa nodded. “I just have a feeling that this was the reason why some of the other cooks, especially the slaves like me, were told to leave early. Everything about it was so suspicious, but most of us didn’t question anything.”
“Did you see she spices used?” Shaun asked Rosa, his voice hard as steel.
She shook her head. “No. Most of us who weren’t well-acquianted with the head chef weren’t allowed to come close to where they were using the spices. They just told us to leave. That we were ‘going to contaminate’ the meals they were preparing. It wasn’t the first time we had been openly treated like that, so we all didn’t question it and just left. But I just had a feeling that something wasn’t right.”
“Where’s the head chef?” asked Shaun.
“I don’t know if she came to the festival. I haven’t seen her today.”
I pulled Rosa to my side and wrapped her in a brief hug. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, Rosa. Thank you.”
“I should have done more,” she said, sounding very dismayed. “Now people are getting hurt and it’s-”
I shook my head. “It was never your fault,” I said, reminding her of her words towards me the other day. “You’re helping us right now, and I suspect that because of you, we’ll be able to get to the bottom of this.”
Shaun got the work immediately. “We have to find the head chef and ask her what was put into the dishes served. But I still have to find my brothers to know if they’re missing as well, or if they were also affected by the same thing.”
“But that leaves one question. Why aren’t some people affected?” I asked. “We’re still conscious.”
“The obvious answer. Some of the meals don’t have whatever was added in the others, right Rosa?”
She nodded, looking a little calmer now that the weight has been taken off her chest. “Yes. We had made a couple of batches before Gert came with the spices. It’s likely that we were lucky to not have taken anything with them.”
“Well, I’ve only been drinking, if that counts,” I added.
“And I’ve not taken anything at all at this festival,” said Shaun.
Tessa moaned and clutched my dress tightly. “My head hurts,”she said, struggling to keep upright. “It hurts . . . bad.”
And then she gasped and went limp against me. She would have slid to the floor if I hadn’t grabbed her quickly and allowed her to land against my body.
“Tessa! Tessa!” I shook her gently, fear coursing through my veins. “Tessa!”
She didn’t respond.
“Shit.” Shaun cursed and picked her up from my arms. He handed her over to Rosa. “Get her to the hospital and tell the doctor to figure out an antidote to the poison, fast.” He looked around the hall, taking note of the unconscious werewolves. “We’re going to need a lot.”
Rosa nodded and left the hall, holding Tessa protectively to her chest.
He turned to me, and the fire in his jade green eyes already compelled me to obey whatever he had to say even before he said anything. “Lucy. You’re the only one I can trust enough to help me find my brothers.” His hand came up to my cheek, and I leaned into the warmth of it. “We have to split our efforts. Will you be okay on your own?”
I didn’t want to be parted from him, but we had to get to the bottom of this. What I wanted or didn’t want didn’t matter in the moment. “I’ll be fine. Just go and find the head chef or Gert. Gert was here earlier with her brother too.”
He nodded, but didn’t move, and kept looking at me for a long moment. I could tell that he wanted to kiss me, but was torn between two paths. I craved his touch too, but we had to face the issue at hand first.
“Be careful,” I told him, already pulling away from his addictive touch so that he didn’t have to make the difficult decision by himself.
He wanted to say something, but chose to nod instead. We parted ways, and I went aimed to find Vladimir once again, and hopefully, he would lead me straight to the Scott and Seth.
–
I combed the hall, but couldn’t find any of them. At a point, I had to stop to restrategize. Finding Scott and Seth wasn’t going to be so easy, but I had a feeling that either their cousins or their uncle had a hand in whatever was happening.
The festival had come to an abrupt end, seeing as half of its attendees were still on the ground, unconscious. The music had been turned off, and the laughing and cheering which had once permeated the environment was now dead, replaced by crying and frantic sounds.
Rosa would have returned soon with a doctor hopefully, which left just the issue of finding out the reason behind this mass poisoning. Was it merely a distraction for something bigger? Or was there something we weren’t tying together?
I caught a glimpse of a familiar long face slipping into a side hallway at the other end of the hall. Finn.
I followed after him, trying to not be too obvious lest I wanted to be out in the open. The fact that they had been absent at the time of this chaos, and now he seemed to be slipping away again, further cemented my suspicions.
I hadn’t even noticed that the hall had a smaller, less used passageway at the side of it. I opened the door, and saw that it led to a stairway leading down into somewhere dark and unknown. It was risky to follow without any proper plan, but I didn’t have time to waste. I didn’t want to distract Shaun in case he had found a lead on his own end of the investigation.
I stepped into the passage way, and shut the door carefully behind me, forcing my eyes to get used to the darkness.
Everywhere soon became clear, and I was able to progress deeper into the unknown. I didn’t know where I was headed, and if I was stepping headfirst into a trap, but I had come to far to turn back now. So, I kept going.
Down. Down. Down.
Finally, I reached another door, and opened it carefully. Here, there were a few candles lit up already, shining and illuminating the room ahead.
It appeared to be a large, unused room left for time to ravish. Dust coated every item that had been stored in it, and a faint musty smell hung in the air. I covered my nose with my arm to stop myself from inhaling dust too early, as I was incredibly allergic to it and could start sneezing at the slightest provocation, which was bad if I was trying to remain quiet.
The room appeared empty, but the longer time I spent in the entryway, the more unsettled I became. It felt like there were eyes on me, burning into my flesh.
There were two windows on either side of the room, with the two on the left letting in more light from the full moon than the others on the right. The room was filled with all sorts of boxes and items that were either deemed useless or stored for future purposes.
I had seen Finn come inside here for sure, but where could he have been?
I remained in place, watching and waiting, still feeling eyes on me. I was definitely being watched.
I let my claws burst forth from my fingers, waiting for something I didn’t know, but was sure would come. Even back in Bloodbath, I hadn’t been as great a fighter as my brother, but being the child of an Alpha meant that you had to know how to defend yourself when the need arose.
Something like a groan emerged from behind the boxes in front of me, and I cautiously approached them. I made my way to the other side of the stacked, dusty boxes, and I found two men tied up on the ground and struggling to free themselves from their bindings.
Scott and Seth had been tied up with thick rope, and their mouths were covered with strips of cloth that must have made it very uncomfortable to even try to speak. Their eyes were wide, shining in the dim lighting as they saw me.
“Scott. Seth!” I whispered, leaning in close to them and trying to find a way to free them, as I searched for something to use to cut their binds they both became more agitated, trying to shout from under their mouth gags.
“What is it?” I asked, pulling down the one on Seth’s mouth. “Who did this?”
“You shouldn’t have come here. It’s a trap!” he immediately said.
Just then, a shadow fell over us, and I just knew that I had messed up. Truly, I had been watched, and whoever had been keeping an eye on me, wanted me to fall into their hands without having to struggle.
“What a happy reunion,” came a distinct feminine voice.
Before I could turn around, something blunt slammed into my head, immediately disintegrating my vision into starbursts. I fell to the side with a grunt, already feeling something warm trickling down the back of my head and down my neck.
“No!” Seth shouted, but his voice was fading away from me, becoming more and more distant.
And then, came the darkness.