Chapter 79: The Healer’s Diagnosis

Words : 1227 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Chapter 79: The Healer’s Diagnosis Dr. Sarah Chen POV The needle slipped from my shaking fingers and clattered onto the stone floor of my healing room. I’d been the Silver Peak Pack’s head doctor for twenty-three years, but I’d never seen anything like what was happening to Lily Carter and Caleb Silver. "Another seizure!" I shouted to my helper as Lily’s body went rigid on the examination table. Her back arched impossibly high, and a horrible keening sound left her throat - not quite human, not quite wolf. I grabbed the syringe I’d dropped and quickly filled it with moonflower extract. The ancient medicine was our best tool against supernatural injuries, but I wasn’t even sure it would help with whatever was wrong with these two. Caleb sat in the corner, watching Lily with empty eyes that should have been filled with fear. Any mate would be frantic seeing their lover in such pain. Instead, he looked like he was watching a stranger. "Hold her still," I directed Marcus, who had insisted on staying despite my protests. The Alpha’s face was gray with fear as he pressed his daughter-in-law’s shoulders against the table. I injected the moonflower straight into Lily’s neck. Within seconds, her seizure stopped, but the comfort I felt quickly turned to horror. Where the needle had entered her skin, black veins appeared, spreading outward like toxic spider webs. "What is that?" Marcus demanded. I’d never seen anything like it, but somehow I knew exactly what it meant. "Shadow poison," I whispered. "But that’s impossible. Shadow dogs were destroyed centuries ago." Marcus stepped back, his face going even paler. "Sarah, are you certain?" Before I could answer, Caleb suddenly stood up. "I need to go," he said in a flat voice. "I have pack duties to attend to." "Your mate is dying!" I yelled at him. "How can you think about duties right now?" Caleb paused at the door, looking back at Lily with the same empty face. "She’s not my mate," he said bluntly. "I don’t remember her being my mate." The door slammed behind him, leaving Marcus and me looking at each other in shock. In all my years as a healer, I’d never heard a bonded wolf talk about their mate with such coldness. "Something’s very wrong here," I muttered, pulling out my medical scanner - a device that could read magical energy patterns in a wolf’s body. "Help me move her to the examination chair." Marcus lifted Lily easily, her dazed form looking tiny in his strong arms. As we positioned her under the scanner, I noticed something that made my blood run cold. The Triple Moon Mark on her wrist, which should have been glowing silver, was totally dark. "Marcus, look at this." I pointed to her hand. "When did her mark stop glowing?" The Alpha leaned closer, squinting at the dark design. "I... I don’t remember it ever shining. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Of course it glowed. She’s mated to Caleb." A terrible suspicion started forming in my mind. I activated the reader and watched as green light swept over Lily’s body, reading her supernatural signature. What I saw on the screen made me stumble backward. "That’s impossible," I breathed. "What? What do you see?" I pointed at the reader with a trembling finger. "Look at her neural paths - the ones that should connect her to her mate. They’re not just cut, Marcus. They’re gone. Completely erased, like they never existed." Marcus looked at the screen, confusion clear on his face. "But she’s mated to Caleb. The whole pack watched their ceremony." "Are you sure about that?" I asked quietly. "Think carefully, Marcus. Do you actually remember their marriage ceremony?" The Alpha opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. His brow furrowed as he focused. "I... of course I remember. They were mated during the Winter Moon Festival. Everyone knows that." "But do you remember watching it happen? Do you remember the wedding details?" Marcus was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was unsure. "No. I don’t remember the real ceremony. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been to hundreds of mating events over the years." I turned back to Lily, my healer senses screaming that something was terribly wrong. "I need to scan Caleb too. Right now." "He left." "Then send someone to bring him back. This is an emergency." Marcus nodded and spoke into his contact device. While we waited, I took more thorough readings of Lily’s condition. The shadow poison was spreading faster now, and her body temperature was falling dangerously low. "She’s going into supernatural shock," I told Marcus. "Her body is shutting down because it can’t handle whatever was done to her." "What was done to her?" "I don’t know yet. But I’ve never seen neural pathways totally erased like this. It would take incredibly powerful magic - the kind that was apparently lost when the shadow wolves disappeared." Ten minutes later, two pack guards dragged a complaining Caleb back into my healing room. "I told you I have important work to do," he grumbled. "More important than your mate’s life?" I challenged him. "She’s not my mate," Caleb said again, and this time I heard something in his voice that chilled me. He wasn’t being mean or angry. He truly didn’t understand why everyone kept calling Lily his mate. I pointed to the second examination chair. "Sit down. I need to scan you." "This is ridiculous. I feel fine." "Sit down or I’ll have the guards hold you down," I said strongly. Grumbling, Caleb took his seat. I activated the scanner and watched his energy patterns show on the screen. What I saw made my knees weak. His neural pathways looked exactly like Lily’s - totally empty where the mate bond should be. But there was something else, something that made my hands shake as I changed the scanner settings. "Marcus," I whispered. "Look at this." The Alpha looked at the screen. "What am I looking at?" "Caleb’s memories," I said quietly. "The sections that should cover everything about Lily. They’re not just blocked or hidden. They’ve been carefully removed from his brain." Marcus stared at me in horror. "That’s impossible. No one has that kind of power." I turned to face both men, my heart pounding with the terrible truth I’d found. "Someone does. And they’ve done something to Lily and Caleb that goes beyond just breaking their mate bond. They’ve actually erased their love for each other from their minds." Caleb looked confused. "What are you talking about? I never loved her. I don’t even really know her." "Yes, you do," I said softly. "Or you did. Someone stole your memories of loving her, and now she’s dying because her body doesn’t understand why her mate doesn’t want her anymore." Before anyone could respond, Lily’s body started convulsing again. But this time was different. The black veins from the shadow poison suddenly flared bright red, and she let out a scream that broke every piece of glass in my healing room. When the sound faded, Lily sat up on the examination table, her eyes now totally black. "The shadow wolves send their regards," she said in a voice that wasn’t her own. Then she smiled, showing teeth that had become razor-sharp fangs.

Chapter 79: The Healer’s Diagnosis

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