"There." Finar pulled the blanket over the seven-year-old redhead, placing the tray of food on her lap as she sat up in bed, propped up with a load of pillows.

"I'm not hungry." Lyra pushed the tray away.

"You need to eat." Finar pulled up a chair, sitting next to her bedside, lifting a spoonful of soup to her lips. "It'll help you get better, so open wide."

"You'd better head back down Ry." Blythe glanced at the Alpha Prince. "Your mother won't be pleased if you catch something."

The black-haired boy scowled. "Whatever." He grumbled, begrudgingly walking out of the room as Lyra ate some of her lunch.

"You should head down too, kid." Blythe glanced over at Thorn. "Alpha King Leopold wants to meet all the kids in this orphanage."

"I stay with Lyra." Thorn folded his arms.

"Sheesh." Blythe ran a hand through his black hair. "Just go downstairs, child. Don't make me ask twice."

"It'll be fine, Thorn." Lyra smiled weakly, holding out her white teddy bear. "You can take care of Lorna downstairs. She'll get ill if she stays with me."

"Blythe." Finar turned to him. "Do me a favour and pop back to Blagmoor and grab my full medical kit. It should be in my office in the large white case."

"You really think it's that serious?"

"Something's off." He said, watching as the black-haired man disappeared into the shadow of the door.

"Is Ly going to be OK?!" Thorn was at her side in an instant, staring at the brunette.

"She'll be fine." Finar rested a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me."

"But you just said it was serious!"

A hand lifted the boy by his collar. "Just do as he says, brat." Blythe sighed, dumping a large white case on the ground at Finar's feet.

"I think she's going to be sick." Thorn's eyes were fixed on Lyra as her face turned green.

Finar grabbed the bucket from the ground, holding it in front of the girl just in time for her lunch to made a sudden reappearance. "I'll need to set her up an IV so we can get some fluids into her. If she's not looking any better by evening, then we'll probably have to drop her off at the hospital." He said, handing the bucket over to Blythe.

Blythe pinched his nose, glancing at the bucket in disgust. "Oy, brat..." His eyes narrowed on the strange purplish gloop mixed in with Lyra's half-digested lunch. "Dispose of this. Now. Then stay downstairs until one of us comes and gets you."

Strangely enough, Thorn obeyed without a single complaint.

He'd felt it after all.

The sudden change in the atmosphere of the room.

Blythe shut the door behind him. "Finar, pull the blanket off her legs."

"What are you thinking?" Brown eyes narrowed as he pulled back the blue blanket.

Blythe pushed up her pyjama bottoms, yanking the socks of her feet, closing his eyes when he spotted the dark purple map of blood vessels weaving their way up her legs. "This isn't an infection." He said, meeting the shocked gaze of the brunette. "She's been poisoned."

***

"We've drained as much of the infected blood as we can..." Blythe said, holding up the bags of thick purple liquid. "Now we just have to hope the antidote we gave her will clear the rest of it up."

"Are you sure we gave her the right antidote?" Finar glanced at the fading purple veins.

"Trust me." Blythe sighed. "I know that poison very well."

"Who the hell would want to poison a little girl, though?"

"Rogues."

"How the hell would they even get their hands on one of the Poisons of the Apocalypse?!" Finar went to the window. "And why would they waste it on a girl like her?"

"It was probably that group known as Extalia." Blythe said, sitting down on the bottom bunk bed on the other side of the room. "The Rogues that rival the Rogue Queen's group: Libertium... and they were probably using the kid as a test run to see if the poison worked properly – there are a lot of fakes out there too."

"Tch." Finar shook his head. "I'll never understand Rogues."

"I know." He said, wandering over to the door. "The kid will be fine for a few minutes, so why don't we go and check in with Leo..."

"He'd have told us if he'd found the last boy with Alpha Eyes." Finar wandered out of the room, closing the door gently behind him just as a pair of red eyes snapped open.

"Danger." Lyra whispered, staring at the forest that was suddenly surrounding her. "Thorn's in danger." She said, knowing instantly that she was looking through Thorn's eyes as she stared at the group of Rogues standing around the boy. Red lightning sparked around her while she clambered onto shaky legs, her hands pulling out the needles buried in her skin as she made her way over to the window, pausing only to grab the knife she always kept under her bed. "I'm coming, Thorn." She mumbled between deep breaths. "Don't worry."

That was why, when Finar and Blythe came back to the room a short while later, Lyra was gone, and the window was wide open.

"Uh oh." Finar muttered, staring at the empty twisted sheets.

Blythe's eyebrows twitched. "You can't leave brats alone for five minutes, can you?!"

"We need to go after her." The brunette sighed. "She's in no state to be running about... In fact, it could reverse all the work we just did..."

"I'll grab Zen." Blythe grumbled. "You start tracking the brat." He said, hurrying back down the stairs as Finar leapt out of the window.

"She should be bleeding..." He mumbled, more to himself than anyone else.

"If she pulled a couple of needles out of her arm, then yeah. She should be." A white-haired man strolled to his side, inhaling deeply. "But all I can smell is drying blood. Nothing's that fresh."

"It's the only lead we've got, besides the trail she's left behind." Finar said, hurrying into the woods without a second thought, blissfully unaware about the battle going on ahead...

Well, at least until the sound of metal crashing against metal reached him.

Red lightning arced across the small clearing, a small red flash darting around, her eyes glowing red as black horns formed on the sides of her head in swirls of black mist.

"So the mother has wings, but the daughter has horns..." The blonde woman standing in the middle of the field grinned. "How odd." Her hand closed around Lyra's throat in the next second, yanking her to a halt. "That poison was the real deal, you know." She said. "You should be dead by now... but I suppose I can finish the job right here and now."

"No, you won't."

White arrows of lightning burst out from the forest, slamming into the woman, sending her skidding backwards. Strands of shadows wrapped around Lyra, pulling her into another set of arms, this time belonging to a familiar black-haired Alpha.

"Sheesh." Blythe grumbled. "Stop making us run around after you, brat."

"Check her legs." Finar ordered, holding his sword at the ready as Zen sprinted towards the twelve-year-old blonde.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" He said, swearing under his breath in the next second when he spotted the dark purple veins mapping their way up her legs. "Idiot!"

"What...?" Lyra mumbled, blinking slowly as the purple blood vessels crept up her face.

"If you'd stayed put you would've been fine."

"Get her back to the house!" Finar yelled, fending off blows from the other Rogues as Zen protected the boy from the woman's furious assault.

"There's no point, Fin." Blythe sat back against the nearest tree, cradling Lyra in his arms. "It's reached her heart... She'll be dead in a matter of minutes."

Thorn froze. "What...?"

"You heard him." The woman smirked. "Your friend is dying, and there's nothing you can do to save her."

"No." He shook his small head. "You're lying!"

"Shut up and accept that fact, kiddo." She grinned, pushing the white-haired Alpha to one side. "In fact, you might as well blame yourself. She was lured out here by that strange connection you have..."

"It's your fault for poisoning her in the first place!" His hands clenched into fists. "And the only way you can atone for that is with your life."

"Awww..." The woman crooned. "And how is a little twelve-year-old going to do that?"

Wolfish red eyes glowed. "Kill yourself."

"So you're the last boy with the Alpha Eyes..." She said, examining him curiously. "I hate to break it to you, but those Alpha Eyes of yours are a hell of a lot weaker on Rogues – you know... seeing as how we aren't part of the Pack."

"Alpha Eyes?!" Finar whispered, turning his gaze on the white-haired Alpha. "Get him out of there, Zen!"

The woman blinked, staring at the dagger in her hand. "What?" She whispered, watching as her hand moved of her own accord until she grabbed a hold of it with her one remaining hand. "Impossible..." She yanked the knife out of her hand, cutting into her own arm, breaking free of Thorn's control. "What are you?!"

"You know..." He laughed. "I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that you're the one who hurt Lyra, and for that you're gonna pay."

"Come on, kid." Zen grabbed his arm, yanking him away. "She's about to freak out, and that's not something you want to see."

A knife pierced through the boy's calf. "Too late."

"Thorn..." Lyra's weak voice drifted through the air, weak arms pushing her to her feet. "Stop hurting him..."

"Whoa..." Blythe stood, reaching for her, but his hand swiftly recoiled when purple flames burst from her pale skin.

"You're the prime example of why this world needs to start over." Lyra spoke, her voice deepening – radiating power as she closed her eyes. Purple hair streamed to the side in the gentle wind, her hand clenching a white bow as Lyra reopened a set of glowing purple eyes.

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ILLENIS HERE

Yay!

Long chapter!

Hope you all enjoyed that, even if it was a flashback.

I'm currently considering doing another werewolf series based around the previous generation of Alphas, but I haven't decided on anything for definite yet.

I think I'll probably (probably being the key word, so don't kill me if I don't end up doing it, because I do have a lot of series on the go) definitely do Blythe's book, because he (in the book's present day) is currently still searching for his mate - though I believe he's the only one out of the older generation who's still mateless.

Oh, and as for treating poisons I'm fairly sure they don't drain blood since it would normally be throughout the body - not just in one place. The only reason they drained the blood is because the poison I concocted (in the book, of course) increases the viscosity (thickness) and changes the colour of the blood, and this 'infected' blood gathers in the feet and stays there, which makes it harder for the normal uninfected blood to flow through and carry oxygen to the muscles - which is why Thorn had to help her walk to the toilet, and also why it needed to be removed since if large enough quantities built up AKA if the infected blood reached her heart then she'd die because not enough oxygen could reach her brain and other working muscles etc.

Well... I guess A level physics and biology paid off...

My explaination is probably not medically correct, but if I'm honest... At least I put some thought into it...

See you next time.

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