Jalisa
Ivan was still unconscious on the dressing room couch. “Is he going to be okay?” I asked. I felt sick to my stomach seeing him unmoving, dripping in sweat, his skin pale. He was barely breathing. I couldn’t have let this time go by only to lose him again.
The older doctor treating him stood up, closing his medicinal bag. “I injected him with a potion that will wake him up soon. We’ll know more then. Those zapping defense wards can do a lot of damage to the brain. However, my overall check didn’t find any damage.”
“Why would someone do that? It wasn’t there when we came in here, so they put it up after we were inside.”
I turned to Aaron, who stood beside me, staring down at his best friend with concern. “Did you notice anyone leave the banquet hall?”
He lifted a shoulder, shaking his head. “I honestly wasn’t paying attention, Jalisa. This is the only event in the building tonight, and the staff stated that the doors to the building are locked. That doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t have let someone in.”
“But it’s most likely that someone from the wedding did this. Or the staff.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his face twisted in frustration. “We did not need this. Maybe it’s another dissenter.”
I crouched down and stroked Ivan’s damp hair. He was burning up, sweat beading on his forehead. This was the last thing I wanted for him. If this was someone from the dissenters group, I would never forgive myself. “But we aren’t a treaty marriage.”
“But we are Nodoorians on Prinath territory. That might be enough. Our guests wouldn’t hurt us if they were dissenters. Either way, we’re going to look into it, and no one’s leaving here until we question everyone.”
Ivan’s father, Theodore, who was sitting in a chair pulled up to the couch, cleared his throat. “It could have been a staff member who didn’t like serving our kind. You can’t trust these people.”
The very Prinathian doctor raised his brows and looked away. I hated to think it, but Theodore was right. There were many Prinathians who didn’t like Nodoorians here. However, I couldn’t rule out that this could have been our families. But which side? Although this was the dressing room that I used, anyone watching us knew that Ivan came with me. My family wouldn’t do this to me, but I couldn’t imagine Ivan’s family risking him coming to my room and getting hurt either. Had we angered our families so much that they would hurt their ownchildren to scare us apart? I touched my neck again, recalling the attempted claiming years ago. Maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched for my family. Maybe it was Jullian. He hated this union. Maybe this was his way of teaching us a lesson? For that matter, maybe it was a dissenter, angry with me for backing out of the plan. If I got hurt, this was punishment. If Ivan was the one hurt, well, they didn’t want me with him anyway. There were too many unknowns, and it was terrifying.
A groan drew my attention back to Ivan as his eyes fluttered open. “It feels like someone is sitting on my head.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s a side effect of the shock from the ward. It’ll subside soon with the potion I gave you.”
He struggled to sit up, and I helped him adjust on the couch, sitting down next to him. He grabbed the sides of his head, groaning again. “Vertigo. That’s fun. What the hell happened?”
“Someone put a zapping defense ward up while we were in here.”
“Well, that’s rude.”
The doctor crouched down beside me and raised three fingers in front of Ivan. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Ivan yawned. “Sorry, three.”
“How are you feeling, besides the headache and vertigo?”
“Fine. And it’s getting better. I know how those wards work. I’ve had worse. I’m an alpha.”
The doctor looked unimpressed, which I appreciated. There would be many who thought that because Ivan was an alpha, he was invincible. “That may be, but you should go to the infirmary for overnight observation.”
He scrunched his face. “I’d rather go home.”
The doctor pursed his lips, giving Ivan the once over before turning to me. “You’ll have to watch him overnight then and come straight to the infirmary if anything happens.”
I nodded. “I’ll stay up.”
“You won’t have to do that but just stay by his side.”
Ivan shook his head, squinting his eyes at me. “I’m sorry but who is this beautiful faerie?”
My heart stopped. No. I refused to believe that he got amnesia from that shock. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility though, which almost threw me into a panic. I could already feel his father burning with anger a few feet away from me.
“Oh dear,” the doctor began. “I think going to the infirmary now might be best. Do you not know that this is your wife?”
Ivan blinked his eyes several times and then gave a slow grin. “Lucky me. What’s your name, love?”
