Chapter 54: Chapter 54

REYNA

^A WEEK LATER^

“He’s completely free of the poison now, my queen. You have nothing to worry about. As evidenced by his quick recovery, it’s clear that even if he still had the poison in his body, it wouldn’t harm him due to his immunity,” Alaric said to me.

We were in Cas’s big throne room when both men walked in with the new results of the test I’d insisted on. Despite his recovery, I couldn’t help feeling like he could drop at any time.

I just wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to wake up one day and find him dead all because I’d neglected—

Casvan, who had been watching us, arched his brow in the universal I told you so sign. I rolled my eyes at him.

The stubborn beast didn’t care if he was immune or not. He was just eager to get the all-clear from the doctors because I insisted we couldn’t have sex.

Which, to be honest, even the thought of scared me shitless. I’d missed him so damn much, I was burning for him.

If both Alaric and Dr. Benjamin (who, by the way, was still terrified of me) hadn’t told me repeatedly that Cas was out of danger, I wouldn’t have believed otherwise. However, this didn’t mean we couldn’t take precautions and have regular checkups just to be on the safe side in case anything changed.

“Does this mean there could be a cure for me and the other Roses, soon?” I asked hopefully.

I glanced at Dr. Benjamin, who was trying really hard not to look in my general direction because of Casvan. We’d decided to let him live, though Casvan had wanted to end him when he found out he was Dr. Elizabeth’s accomplice.

Ironically, it was me who had convinced him that the man could be useful since he was a great doctor and a scientist. And fortunately for the doctor, Alaric had backed me up, praising Ben for his brilliance.

“Sadly, no, my prin…queen. It will take years of research for me to replicate the poison used on you, much less find the cure. Also, the poison used on you is different from the one found in Vok and Drik’s bodies,” Dr. Benjamin said.

“How so?” My brows scrunched.

“The poison used on you was an altered version, made specifically for your…Casvan. When Dr. Elizabeth found out that you were seeing the beast…uh, forgive me, your majesty.”

Dr. Benjamin’s eyes widened as though he expected Cas to lunge and make a meal out of him. I tried not to grin when Cas arched his brow.

“I mean King Casvan,” he said. “She thought to use a different poison and kill him through you. As it turned out, he was immune, and as Dr. Alaric told me, there’s a probability of that being because he’s your, uh, fated mate.”

“So what makes me different from the others?” I wasn’t going to get angry over a dead evil woman.

“These other Roses were fed a little poison when they were still children. There was also magic involved. I really don’t know how it all worked. I was only allowed in the know recently. But there are a lot of books and records I saved before the castle back in Marlenia burned down.”

“Who the fuck came up with such a warped idea?” I asked, beyond disgusted.

Cas instantly started running his hands through my hair. He could probably hear my distress and anger through our bond.

“Actually, your great-grandmother Marlene and the first council did,” Dr. Benjamin replied hesitantly.

“After the plague killed men to the point of near extinction, human women were brutally raped and impregnated, used by creatures who were already existing alongside humans and were suddenly out in the open.”

“See, that’s what I don’t understand. I’ve heard so much about the plague, but no one told me what was the cause or how it all started,” I said.

It was a question that had been bugging me all my life.

Dr. Benjamin shrugged.

“I can answer that because it happened a couple of years before we landed on earth. There was a big organization of scientists who found out about the existence of the supernatural world.”

“These scientists decided it was a good idea to catch some of these creatures and experiment on them for the sake of increasing human life expectancy and developing a bunch of other things like immortality, etc.”

“The humans who were experimented on turned into this nightmare creature whose bodies emitted some kind of mist that was blue in color and contagious.”

“They broke free, infected the scientists, and that’s how the plagues came to be. The labs were burned down, but the damage was already done.”

“It spread through the cities, countries, and it still existed, though it was contained.”

“That’s fucking horrible. I can’t believe the lengths humanity would go to just to achieve immortality and greatness. Greed will forever be our downfall. I will say the scientists got what they deserved, but it didn’t only cost them their lives—humanity paid the price.”

I shook my head, not wanting to dive into it. It was just going to make me angrier.

“Please continue,” I said to Dr. Benjamin.

“At the time, the only way they thought to protect themselves was to create poisonous women whose sweat, blood, and saliva were enough to kill any male—human or otherwise.

Their purpose was to spy, and that’s what they did. They acted as spies and were sent into other cities to get supplies and information, but these Roses weren’t really poisonous women.

They were women trained in martial arts and seduction, and they used literal poison to kill their victims when they let down their guards around them.”

“But that wasn’t what they wanted, so they kept experimenting, and a lot of children died because of the poisons. It was trial and error for so many years.

It wasn’t successful during the Marlene era or the next couple of decades, until ten years ago when they got a breakthrough by using both science and magic to perfect it,” Dr. Benjamin added.

“So they just kept up with it? Killing innocent lives,” I spat. I was sad and angry for all those people who died while my family and the people in power conducted their disgusting experiments.

Dr. Benjamin was wise not to say anything.

Casvan dragged me to straddle his legs while he tried to calm me down, his hands running over my arms soothingly. I knew he could feel how enraged I really was on behalf of all those girls, women, and men.

“What changed?” Casvan asked.

“The witches joined in the experiments, and somehow the poison held without killing the carrier. A girl named Lisa was the first success.”

“Lisa?” I shook my head incredulously.

“Lisa was my friend. We grew up together. She couldn’t have been a poison rose unless it happened two years ago. Otherwise, my mother wouldn’t have ever let her play with me, knowing Lisa was poisonous,” I argued with him. It just didn’t make sense.

Dr. Benjamin nodded.

“True, unless there’s a way to prevent the people from getting poisoned,” he said with a raised brow.

Realization struck. “Oh my God, the vaccine is administered to the people every four months. The vaccine Cassandra and the council said was protection against the blue mist!”

“Yes, exactly. The girls themselves don’t know that they are different from the other girls in Marlenia. They have no idea what is inside their bodies, so there have been a couple of accidents—people whom they’ve infected unknowingly.

Fortunately, none of the victims died in front of the Roses. So they have no knowledge of what they could do until recently,” he elaborated.

Suddenly, everything made so much sense. Poor Olivia didn’t know that she was the cause of that man’s death.

Now that I knew everything, I recalled how the other girls never trained with John and Sabrina. How they were always wearing gloves and clothes that covered them up, unless they were training.

And how they steered clear away from me and everyone else. She didn't want me to get infected. I was never meant to be a Rose, at least not like them. I also remembered how the girls only used to train among themselves, since they couldn’t poison each other.

They’d all had to find out the hard way that they were weapons created to kill men and women alike.

It saddened me that my family was involved in this horrible crime against them. No, not just involved, but they were the cause of everything bad in Marlenia.

My heart ached for Lisa and the others. The pain and suffering they must have gone through all these years, and I didn’t know.

I promised myself that I was going to keep trying until I found a way to help them. It was my way of paying the debt my family owed these women for snatching away their future.

“But wouldn’t the vaccine be a cure?”

“Unfortunately, no. The vaccine was created to improve immunity, defend against harmful pathogens—it’s to limit the casualties in cases of mild contact. It’s not a cure.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It means the vaccine could only work in case of mild contact, but when there’s an exchange of fluids involved, there’s no stopping the poison.”

“For being a great scientist, Dr. Elizabeth must be extremely stupid. I mean, how could she not find a cure? What if she was accidentally poisoned?” I was getting angry. My emotions were all over the place.

“Your Majesty?” Alaric called, looking at Casvan.

“Yes?” Cas said, arching his brow.

“It’s ready. We can go now.” My brows scrunched in confusion.

“What is going on, Cas? Why all the mystery?”

“Come, you’ll see.”

Cas stood up with me. We all followed Alaric to the healing compartment basement. It was somewhere I had never been before.