Chapter 522

Olivia

The sun peeked through the branches overhead as I pulled up to Layla’s little house, which was situated in the woods toward the center of her pack’s territory.

Despite Layla’s status as the Luna of her pack, her home was a cute and cozy cottage; surely another home that Dan might ridicule for being small and insignificant, but I had always adored it since I had met her.

Putting the car in park, I blew out a breath, steeling myself. This wasn’t really a social call—I needed information that could potentially help Freya, and Layla was one of the few people I trusted to have that knowledge.

Gathering my tote bag stuffed with research materials and the twins out of their car seats, I headed up the gravel path to her porch. The door swung open before I could even knock, and Layla appeared, bouncing a squealing baby boy on her hip.

“Olivia! I could feel you coming up the trail.” She smiled warmly, shifting the baby to usher me inside. As I walked past her, she reached out and pinched the twins’ cheeks, causing them to coo and giggle excitedly.

“Say hi to your brother Alex!” I cooed, letting the twins reach for their ‘brother’—not a sibling by blood, but it was all the same to us. In our strange, hodge-podge little family, blood meant very little.

The twins cooed and giggled over Alex, who clung nervously to his mother’s breast. Layla and I exchanged looks and laughed; but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.

I wished that Nathan could be here, and I knew that Nathan wished the same, but it just wasn’t possible. If he was seen traveling outside of pack territory with me, or if he was seen with me at all, then it would raise suspicions.

And right now, we needed to maintain the illusion of being separated from one another with everyone except our closest friends.

“I just put on a fresh pot of herbal tea. Want some?” Layla asked, interrupting my wistful thoughts.

“Please, that would be lovely,” I replied, offering her a smile.

With a grin, Layla lowered Alex into the playpen that was set up in the living room. While she busied herself in the small kitchen, I crouched down to place the twins down along with him. Alex gurgled happily, flapping a chubby fist in my direction.

I gently caught his hand, pressing a kiss to his soft little palm.

“Hey there, little guy,” I said softly. He gurgled up at me in response, his big eyes staring widely up at me like two little saucers.

It was then, though, that it hit me; my own son would have been in his third trimester by now. If he had made it to term, little Alex would have had a biological half-brother. My little Alvin would have become friends with Alex, had he not…

No, I thought to myself, shaking my head as if to dispel the thoughts. I couldn’t let myself cry over this. Not today, at least. Not in front of Layla. Especially not when I had been doing better lately, and the tears had been fewer and further between.()

“Here you go.” Layla’s gentle voice made me look up, snapping me out of my reverie once again. She set a steaming mug of tea on the coffee table before easing down onto the floor with me and the children, her slender legs crossed in front of her.

“Thank you,” I said, gratefully taking the tea. I took a sip, and it tasted sweet despite burning my tongue. The burning helped to quell my tears, though.

“So what’s going on, Olivia?” Layla asked. “I could sense the weight you were carrying from miles away.” She peered at me over her mug of tea, her large blue eyes blinking at me knowingly.

Slowly, I outlined the whole situation with Clarissa and Freya while we sipped our teas. Layla’s eyebrows climbed higher with every detail until I finished with my fears about Freya stuck in a feral wolf form.

“By the gods…” she breathed, raking a hand through her long blonde hair. “So she’s stuck in her wolf form… And you want me to help?”

I nodded, albeit a bit stiffly. “I was wondering if you might have some information in your pack’s archives. Surely this has been studied before; cured, even. I can’t just leave Freya out there to be killed by surrounding packs if she becomes a problem.”

Layla listened intently, pursing her lips as she thought for a moment. Then, nodding, she stood. “Of course. I’ll do whatever I can to help,” she said. “Let me consult the archives.”

With that, Layla slipped out of the room. She was gone for some time, and to steady my nerves, I busied myself with playing with the children.

Alex was growing more and more accustomed to the twins’ rambunctious nature, and it seemed as though Elliot had taken it upon himself to shove wooden block after wooden block into Alex’s hands.

Meanwhile, Aurora was crawling around the playpen, cooing happily as she picked up various toys and attempted shoving them into her mouth.

I couldn’t help but laugh; teething was coming soon and it was sure to be a nightmare, but right now, they were simply at the stage of happily biting whatever they could rather than crying out in pain.

After several long minutes, Layla returned holding a leather-bound book. She had it open in her hands as she entered, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Here,” she said, tapping one of the pages and holding it out to me. “I think I may have found something that could help Freya. But I’m not sure.”

Standing and walking over to her, I peered at the faded text, which was decorated with elaborately-inked illustrations. “What is it?” I asked, glancing up at Layla.

“It’s essentially a banishing ritual to force a feral wolf to revert to human form,” Layla said as her fingertip traced over a passage from the book.

I quirked an eyebrow. “That would be ideal,” I said. “If we can just get her back into her human form, I’m sure she’ll see reason again.”

Layla nodded, but her expression was nothing if not solemn. “The problem is… the ritual strips away their wolf spirit entirely,” she said quietly.

“Entirely?”

She nodded again. “No more shifting, no more enhanced senses or strength. She would be completely human. Wolfless.”

My heart plummeted at the implications. “She’d lose her wolf forever?” I whispered.

Layla’s blue eyes were shining with unshed tears; in a society such as ours, being wolfless was… not ideal, to say the least. I knew that fact firsthand.

“I’m afraid so,” she finally said. “It’s an extreme measure, but may be the only way if her wolf side has become too feral and unstable to regain control.”

Gnawing on my lower lip, I looked over the ritual written in the book again, a war waging inside of me. Condemning Freya to being wolfless felt cruel, more of a punishment than helping her.

But what other choice was there if her life was at stake?