Chapter 0464


    Hannah


    "Hannah... Hannah, wake up..."


    As if trudging my entire body through ayer of mud, I slowly returned to consciousness. And the first thing I became aware of as I returned to that consciousness was the overwhelming urge to vomit, quickly followed by the sensation of a headache that was pounding hard enough that it felt as if each throb might finally crack my skull from the inside.


    Then, I cracked one eye open and immediately groaned and shut it again as the light from a nearbymp blinded me with the force of a thousand suns.


    "Oh, thank goodness. She''s awake. Hannah, are you alright?" Viona fanned my face gently with a magazine. "You''re gonna be fine..."


    "Ugh... I''m gonna..." I felt hot bile rise in my throat, the urge to vomit no longer avoidable. Sensing this, my friend quickly turned me so I was on my side and rubbed my back while I retched into a small trash can.


    When I was finally finished emptying the contents of my stomach, Viona paled and handed the can to the housekeeper, who hurried away to dispose of it.


    Now that that was out of the way, I managed to open my eyes fully and sit up a little. I found myself in the living room,ying on therge sectional couch. Noah was sitting up on the other end of the sofa, hanging his head while Drake patted him on the back. He looked just as awful as I felt. And worried.


    "Hannah-" Noah began to rise to move to me, but Drake shoved him back down.


    "Oh no, lover boy," Drake chided. "She''s fine. Don''t try to get up. I''m not cleaning more of your puke up off the carpet."


    Noah looked fit to be tied, but I managed a small smile and sent a stroke of reassurance through the bond, causing him to rx just a little.


    Viona handed me a ss of water. I gulped it down greedily and wiped my mouth with the back of my


    hand.


    "What the hell happened?" I muttered, rubbing my other hand across my sweat-soaked forehead. Thest thing I remembered was having a bit too much to drink and dancing around the living room.


    Had we really had that much to drink, though? Enough to make us throw up and gopletely unconscious?


    "Scopmine poisoning."


    The sound of Doctor Patel''s voice made me whip my head up, causing the room to spin around me. My eyes widened upon seeing the doctor standing by the firece. As my eyes focused, I realized that he looked a bit haggard, still in his pajamas as if he''d just been sleeping and had rushed here.


    "We thought it would be best if we called your doctor right away," Viona said, although there was a hint of distaste in her voice. She knew about Doctor Patel''s ''frailty'' ims and didn''t like him one bit, but I couldn''t me her for thinking of calling him instead of an ambnce.


    After all, it might not have been the best thing for our public image if the two Alphas who were breaking the norm bybining packs and retaining their titles had been carted into the emergency room with alcohol poisoning. Or... whatever the doctor had said it was.


    "Scop..." I was too busy staring down at the IV in my arm, which I hadn''t even noticed before during my haze, to finish the word.


    "Scopmine poisoning," Doctor Patel repeated, walking over to me and dropping to a crouch. He pulled his stethoscope out of a nearby medical supply bag and listened to my heartbeat. "A drugmonly used for treating nausea."


    I cleared my sore throat, recalling my vomiting spell all too well. "Ironic, considering the fact that I just puked up my guts." I paused and nced over at Noah. "But neither of us take medication for that."


    Doctor Patel sighed and looped his stethoscope around his neck. "I don''t suspect that you do. Have you eaten or drank anything strangetely?"


    My friends and I exchanged wary nces. "The wine was the only thing that Noah and I had that the others didn''t tonight," I said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the bottle. Viona strode over and picked it up, studying thebel closely. "You''re sure it''s scopmine that did all that?" Viona asked. "A simple antinausea drug?"


    The doctor nodded. "It''s also known as ''Devil''s Breath'' on the street," he exined. "In high doses, it can lead to low blood pressure, unconsciousness, confusion, amnesia, and even death."


    Drake dragged a hand through his hair. "I''ve heard of this stuff. There was a big scare in the eighties; ''some people believed that powdered Devil''s Breath could alter the state of someone''s mind in the right dose, allowing them to be more... pliant. Confused. That so much as a trace amount of it on a business card or in a drink could allow attackers or kidnappers to take advantage of people."


    "He''s right. But I suspect that the amount you likely have in your blood may be intended to do much more than that," Doctor Patel said quietly, lowering his gaze. "At minimum, whoever did this intended to alter your minds. At worst..."N?velDrama.Org owns all content.


    His voice trailed off.


    Death.


    My eyes widened, and I turned to Noah, who was sitting up ramrod straight by now. "You''re absolutely certain?" I asked, looking at the doctor. "Without a doubt?"


    "Your results for your blood test came back just this morning, Alpha Hannah," Doctor Patel said softly." Remember when I said your blood pressure was low? This is why. There were trace amounts of scopmine in your system. And I believe there would be much higher levels in your blood tonight, were we to test it. But the signs are obvious enough that I don''t believe that''s necessary."


    I felt as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room.


    Noah and I looked at each other again, both stunned into silence. The wine... If Marcus reallyced the bottle he had given us with the drug, then why? What would his purpose be? Marcus despised me, that much I knew-but he clearly intended for both of us to drink it, not just me.


    Why poison his own son with a drug that could cause unconsciousness, amnesia, and even death?


    "But it was factory sealed," Noah said, shaking his head with disbelief. "And it was a gift from my father. He might be an asshole, but he''d never poison anyone. Maybe someoneced it at the factory or something."


    Doctor Patel''s face went as white as a sheet at the mention of Noah''s father. Rising from where he crouched in front of me, he took the empty bottle from Viona and studied it carefully-including the handwritten note.


    "I... I''ll be damned..." he muttered, almost as if he couldn''t believe it.


    "What is it?" I asked, sitting up a little.


    The doctor was the one who looked like he might be sick now. He shook his head and set the bottle aside with trembling hands. The room was silent, save for the sound of his soft murmurs as he clutched his hair and began to pace. "No, no, no... He never said he was going to try to kill you..."


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