CHAPTER 6 OF BOOK 2

'Oh my Goddess,' I gasped to myself. Even before I sprinted over to the Wolf, before I froze from so many mixed emotions, I knew it was Isaac. I could smell him, I could sense that it was him. Like the feeling you get when someone comes into the room behind you- your ears pick up on the air change and the hairs on your neck perk up. That's what this was like, but instead of running through who it could possibly be in your head, going over names and faces so fast you don't realize you could just turn around and look, I didn't even have time to blink before I instinctively knew it was my own blood.

'Isaac!' I called out to him, hoping to see his head lift and turn to mine, his blue eyes staring at me like I was crazy. But they didn't.

Tiberius turned his nose to the sky and howled powerfully, the soundwaves bouncing off of the snow and carrying a message back to the mansion miles away while I ran to my kin. Faintly I heard a pair of quick footfalls stop near me, but I paid them no mind while I quickly eyed Isaac for any movement, pushing against his neck with my snout but whimpering when his head simply rolled back into the same limp position. The blood around him was clotted and rolled into tiny snowballs, creating a horribly vivid picturesque image that drew your eyes in no matter where you looked.

'Isaac?' I barked at him. Starting at his nostrils, I searching for any evidence of steam from his exhales, then rested the side of my head against his chest to find and indication of a heartbeat.

'Here, let me see,' Tiberius said softly, coming up beside me and taking my place on Isaac's chest.

'He's still warm! He can't be dead!' I yelped to him. Growing frantic, I put both front paws on Isaac's shoulder and hopped up and down while feeling an immense need to cry. Just then though, I thought about my mother and how, if Isaac was here, maybe she was too. In the back of my mind, though, I knew she wasn't anywhere close-I would've been able to sense and smell her by now from our long standing bond, and there wasn't anything here but our own skin, the Moose, and Isaac. Gail came to Tiberius' side and did as Tiberius told him, 'holding' this and 'listening for' that.

'Haley, Nikita!' I cried out, realizing Haley had been by my side this entire time.

'Hey, they'll get him breathing again, and other Wolves are coming! Have faith, Ellie. Your brother's strong,' Haley mindlinked me.

I turned and stared at her incredulously.

'Are you kidding? He doesn't even have a heartbeat Haley!' Turning towards my mate who had shifted back into a human, both hands pushing down onto Isaac's chest in unison while his knees and feet were sunken into the snow, I gazed into his eyes my Wolf ones silently.

Shaking his head slowly, his face said it all.

Isaac was dead.

"Wait! I have a pulse!" Gail screamed out, also in human form.

Us and the crowd Tiberius called poured out of the woods and towards the house on all fours, Isaac on a bright red snow-sled being pulled with a rope by 2 of the guards like a dog sled. After Gail had finally found a pulse and heard Isaac's faint heartbeat, he and Tiberius loaded him onto the sled when the others arrived and wrapped blankets around his canine body. Leaving the cow there, Ti and Gail shifted back quickly and we ran in a line for the house, Guards up front, then the four of us, and lastly other members who came also, Kara and her mother not being one of them thankfully while her father was.

Staying beside Tiberius with Haley and Gail directly behind us, the two males pulling the sled went straight through the opened back door that Alesha was holding and into the living room as the rest of us trotted in after. Taking one of the robes that Brenda was passing out to all of us, Ti shifted and put his on, opening another and covering my body as I shifted so that I wasn't being shown naked. Always a romantic. Gail did the same thing to Haley as I rushed over to Isaac.

"Why hadn't he shifted yet? Where's the doctor?" I asked frantically as the room filled with commotion and dripping bodies.

Tiberius yelled for the doctor and came to my side.

"Some Wolves don't shift when they're hurt, it's normal for some. It's okay, just come on love-let's find out what's wrong with him," he whispered to me. Nodding and standing back, he picked Isaac up and handed him to an small old man with white hair who had just came in, apparently the doctor, looked back at me with an encouraging smile, and disappeared with the man.

Shivering, Haley wrapped her arms around my body from the side and pulled me toward the fireplace where Alesha handed me a mug of hot cider. Thanking her, we both sat down onto the couch, and waited.

It seemed like days by the time we could go into the room to see him, but as I walked in and saw Tiberius' face as he stood over Isaac, I realized something was very wrong.

"What-what is it? Is he okay?" I walked over to his now human body, light blue blankets pulled up to his belly button, and his chest bare. His chest rose and fell easily, the corners of his mouth relaxed. The only thing different about him was the small black dots randomly scattered on his arms and upper chest, all the size of a poke from the tip of a sharpie, and the dark purple veins extending in every direction from his closed right eye, each one branching-out then fading when it's 2 inches long. His left eye was completely normal though, and I immediately thought of the Cow.

"The moose we saw earlier was sick with something we have no knowledge of yet. At first we thought it was Mad-Cow disease, then rabies, but it had no noticeable symptoms of those diseases. When we got here, the doctor looked through his medical books and suggested the sickness called 'Moose Disease'. Moose get it neurologically by eating plants with infected slugs and snails, and slowly degenerate to unsteadiness, uncoordination, peculiar attitudes with the head like circling it and swinging it around, occasional aggression, paralysis, and eventually death. That explains it all but the eye part, which is also what Isaac here has."

The white haired man came in silently as Tiberius talked and slipped on a pair of gloves, proceeding to open Isaac's right eye so I could take a look.

"There's no reason why Isaac would have this disease in the first place, and Wayne here ran just a few quick blood tests taken from Isaac's eyeball, and, well Wayne, you can explain it."

Smiling up at his Alpha and turning towards me, he motioned to my brother.

"What Mr. Burns has here isn't anything I've ever seen before, and I've been alive for 67 years. Every common, or even rare, disease found within 200 miles of here has tested negative, but I did find something peculiar. In his body were extremely high levels of Iron and hidden traces of Wolfsbane. We all know what Wolfsbane does to us-completely screws up our inner Wolves and thinking process, can knock us out, and even kill us at certain levels- but high levels of iron can cause many neurodegenerative diseases as well."

"Wow, that..I don't completely understand that Wayne. Can you please simplify if just a little?"

He smiled at me slightly. "It means that it's breaking down the little connectors in his brain, down to his very genetic code that makes him him. Someone or something has been using him, trying to figure something out, and they used a completely new disease to do so. They created a virus."

Shocked, my mouth fell open as my hand covered to my mouth. Oh my goddess..

Running my thumb over his scruffy cheek, a tear slipped down to my jaw and fell to the bedspread. Walking over to Tiberius and placing myself under his arm, taking comfort in his heartbeat and scent, I gazed down at Isaac.

"Will he ever wake up?" I whispered. Tiberius kissed the top of my head lovingly.

"There's really no saying, Luna. His pupils react to light normally and we know he's not brain-dead since he's breathing on his own, but I have no idea how this disease works. I'll keep studying the samples though I have until I find something new."

Nodding, I leaned down and kissed my relative on the cheekbone, drinking in his comforting face again for the first time in months.

'You'll be okay, Isaac. I'm here for you.'

And I walked out of the room with my mate.

Hellooo my Honey Bears!

I almost made this chapter a 'Part 1 of 2' thing, but I just thought "..Nooo, I don't want to do that to them" so I stayed up until 2 a.m. writing

I hope you all liked this chapter as much as me! We got some smarticle-stuff going on at the bottom (and I don't know why, but that kinda stuff fascinates me ♡)

So Isaac is back, but he has a completely new virus that *somebody* or *something* has made-

♦Do you think he'll live?

♦Where's her mother still?

Comment what you think the answers are below, and what you think of this chapter! Feedback is so encouraging ❤ Until next time!

~Lonely_haunter14

PS- Just a little information in case any of you were wondering;

Higher-up members of just a few of the many territories Tiberius rules over are visiting, not staying, such as Kara and her family. They include Alphas and a few Betas of different territories that are close with the Connall family. While they're away, their Betas take care of the pack, or if the Betas are gone then it's normal. They aren't staying for long, they came at all just because Elenore had returned, and usually only the maids, guards, Betas and Alpha are at the Mansion. That's why there's so many people are at the house all of a sudden

Moose disease is actually a real thing, as well as all of the symptoms! Haha, I did my research guys! I don't make everything up.

Also same for the high Iron count, about it messing with your neurons.(Having excess can also make you very tired often but that's beside the point lol)