ARIA POV
I jerked awake with a scream stuck in my throat. Where was I? What happened to the wolves? To my mother?
"Easy," Kael's voice came from beside me. "You're safe now."
My eyes darted around. I was lying on a bed in a small shack. The bite on my arm was covered in clean bandages, not the bloody shirt strip from before. Outside, rain beat against the windows.
"My mother—" I started.
"Wasn't really there," Kael said, his face grim. "You were hallucinating from blood loss and fever."
I sat up too quickly. The room spun. "But I saw her! And my father—the wolves—"
"All in your head." Kael gently pushed me back down. "The wolf bite had poison in it. Forgotten Pack wolves coat their teeth with a plant that causes dreams."
"So none of it was real?" My heart sank. For a moment, I'd believed my mother was alive.
"The attack was real," Kael said. "I really did find you. But once I got you here, you started seeing things that weren't there."
