Chapter 27: Increasing Vigilance
300words
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I finally asked as we worked side by side, preparing a new batch of the herbal remedy. "About the Hayes family?"
"I wasn't certain," he admitted. "Hayes isn't an uncommon name. And you seemed genuinely ignorant about werewolves when we first met."
"I was. I am," I insisted. "Whatever my birth family might have done, it has nothing to do with me."
Liam looked at me thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But blood has meaning among our kind, Charlotte. Heritage matters."
"Charlie," I corrected automatically. "And I'm not defined by blood I didn't know I carried."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "No, I don't believe you are."
It was the closest thing to a personal compliment he'd ever given me, and I felt an unexpected warmth spread through my chest.
The next few days passed in a blur of research and increasing paranoia. True to his word, Liam never let me travel to or from the forest alone. Sometimes he accompanied me himself; other times, Jackson or another pack member named Maya served as my escort.
I continued refining the treatment for Jackson, making significant progress. The latest version reduced his pre-transformation symptoms by nearly seventy percent, according to his own assessment.
"It's amazing," Jackson told me one afternoon as we tested his reflexes after administering the new formula. "I actually slept through the night for the first time in months."
"That's great news," I said, genuinely pleased. "If this trend continues, we might be able to make the next full moon transformation even easier."
