“Good idea,” Savannah said.“Everett, can you—”
She paused, looking at something beyond Kadie, and everyone turned their attention to what had captured her attention.An older woman staggered toward them.
“Mrs.Smyth?”Keegan asked as she stood.“Are you all right?”
The older woman collapsed against the brick and mortar.She was pale with beads of sweat on her forehead.Juni thought she looked very sick.When Mrs.Smyth collapsed, Savannah hurried over to her.
“Is she dead?”Alpha Jericho asked.
Suddenly, a red mist sprayed from her mouth and Savannah fell back.
“Oh, my God,” she muttered.
After she scrambled to her feet, she pulled Jericho and Keegan away from Mrs.Smyth’s body.When the mist evaporated, an unholy howl came from the old woman.Her head tilted and even Juni saw that she was dead.
“Stay back!”Savannah yelled.“Shifters, don’t go near that body.”
“Why?”Alpha Jericho demanded.
Savannah bent down to touch some of the fallout from the mist.“Oh, no.This is not good.No, no, no.”
“Savannah, what is going on?”Jericho demanded.
The enchantress pulled hand sanitizer from her pocket and quickly wiped her hands.“We’ve got a big problem, Jericho.It’s the red plague.”
Juni frowned.She’d never heard of that sickness.
“The what?”he asked.
“Humans had the black plague.Shifters had the red.It kills your animal.I’ve gotta call Niall.”
They all took a collective step back from the red mist fallout.
“What the hell is the red plague?”Jericho demanded.“I’ve never heard of this.”
“Consider it a magical virus.Like I said, it literally separates the animal from the human.That red mist was her wolf dying, and since a shifter can’t live without its other half, it indirectly kills the human side as well.Even if you catch it in your wolf form.Jericho, it’s highly contagious.Everyone needs to be extremely cautious.”
“Is this what killed my old pack?”Brinnah asked, her voice thick with unshed tears.
Juni frowned.That was the pack her father had visited.He must’ve picked up the virus there and brought it back.She wondered if the alpha would put that together.
“From what your friend described, yes.”
Jericho ran a hand over his face.“Where the fuck did this come from?”
“This plague hasn’t been around for centuries,” Savannah replied.“I have no clue why or how it resurfaced.”
“Shifters are resilient,” Everett said.“What caused this?”
“A long time ago, there was a war between the shifter world and the magical world.Witches released the red plague toxin in the shifters’ water supply, and it worked so well that they were on the brink of extinction.”
“How did we survive?”Keegan asked.
“There’s only one cure,” Savannah replied in a voice filled with fear.“But unfortunately, it died out a long time ago.”
“What was it?”Jericho demanded.“I’ll send a call out to all the packs.Maybe someone has it.”
“They won’t.”Savannah shook her head.“The only cure is the horn of a unicorn.And there are no more of them.”
