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“Nash is already dead.”
“Then I’d like not to make the only Cana we have hate us for taking away the person he loves.”
“Cana are too good to hate.”
“Maybe. But they’re not too good to never forgive. And I don’t want to do that to Luca. I don’t want him to think of what he lost every time he looks at us. Every time he brings us our wolves. I don’t want him to hate himself when he succumbs to the call.”
Jelani crossed his arms on the table. “You’re asking me the impossible.”
“No, I’m asking you to tell me the process you used when you tried to heal people from the Sarvari bite.” As a Greater Alpha, Isaiah had been protected from witnessing as much ugliness as possible. Not that it mattered in the end.
“Keyword, Isaiah, tried. Fresh bitten or on the verge of changing, it never worked. Never.”
Isaiah knew because he’d stood at the funeral pyres of his people slaughtered in retribution for the pack’s failure. Humans didn’t care that the Varu weren’t the ones who’d delivered the bite. They still held them accountable. And when the Varu failed at curing Mah victims or preventing the death of a person bitten by a cur, the Varu paid for it with their lives.
“I’m not trying to keep Nash from changing into a cur,” Isaiah said.
“No, what you’re wanting is worse. You’re trying to purge pure ichor. This is the Anubis, Isaiah, not some half-rate VrK Sarvari or its creation.”
“I’m fully aware.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then school me on it. If you want to convince me, tell me all the ways you’ve done it. How close you’ve gotten, the reactions, everything.”
The coffee pot spat the last drops, and Isaiah poured two cups. He added cream and sugar to his but left Jelani’s black.
Isaiah sat in front of Jelani. “Here.” He pushed the cup to his friend. “It’s the premium fresh roast from that overpriced coffee shop you’re always bragging about.”
“You shouldn’t waste it on me.”
“It was a gift. I can share it with whomever I please.” One presented to him for his birthday a few months ago. But Jelani would know that. He’d been the one to give it to Isaiah.
He sipped his coffee while Jelani stared into the cup, looking both torn and afraid.
“We started with the aged Rakta to try to cure bite victims. It resulted in instant death. And we had so little of it we moved to freshly drawn.” He drank. “Since we knew they’d die, we didn’t want to waste what we needed to fight the Sarvari with.”
The elixir of life had proven a powerful toxin against those reborn from death.
“What happened?”
“At first, we thought it worked. The individual would calm but after a couple of days….” He wrapped his long fingers around the cup. “Instead of instantly dying, the bite rotted from the inside out. It was ugly, Isaiah, and they suffered.”
“Did you ever use fresh Rakta on the Sarvari?”
“Why would we? The only goal we had was to kill them to protect people.”
“Humans did.” Considering how many Greater Alphas died by human hands in their attempt to harvest the Rakta to use in battle, they’d used it a lot.
“As far as I know, same results. It just took longer, like it did with the curs. That’s why they kept….”
Killing the Greater Alphas.
Isaiah had been with his wolf for centuries, but he’d still been his father’s son. And like all the other children belonging to the pack and Clan leaders, he’d gone into hiding.
Jelani took a breath. “Your father went to their cities and talked to their kings and priests and explained why a cure for the bite wasn’t possible. They obviously didn’t listen.”
Because he and the other Greater Alphas never came home. No one had to tell Isaiah what had happened. They all felt the loss through their wolves.
