Chapter 65: On the Other Side of the Lens

None of the faces matched the imposter.

Killian questioned them relentlessly, but it quickly became apparent that they knew nothing. The staff was clueless.

Killian was not going to accept that. He stepped closer to a trembling nurse, intending to press harder.

"Killian, enough," Daemus interrupted, his deep voice cutting through the tension. "Take all of that outside. She needs to rest."

Killian shot the Wolf Prince a freezing glare, but Daemus didn’t back down. With a sharp flick of his wrist, Killian ordered the security guards to herd the sobbing staff out of the room.

Once the door clicked shut, Daemus turned his attention to the original doctor, who was still kneeling nervously on the floor.

"Run the tests on her," Daemus ordered. "Maybe the fake doctor didn’t do them."

"Right away, Your Highness," the doctor said, scrambling to his feet and hurrying over to the monitors.

Daemus gently laid Blair back against the pillows and stepped back to give the man some space. He noticed the blood still seeping down the doctor’s neck.

"Shouldn’t you bandage that wound on your head or something?" Daemus asked, gesturing to the doctor’s collar.

"The patient comes first, Prince Daemus," the doctor replied steadfastly, pulling a fresh pair of gloves from a box on the wall.

He began his examination. A few minutes later, he turned back to the Wolf Prince.

"She has several broken ribs and a punctured lung," the doctor explained simply, checking the readouts on the machines. "She suffered a serious blow to the head, and her ankle is badly sprained. She is going to need a lot of care to recover properly."

"I will care for her myself," Daemus stated firmly, looking down at Blair’s pale face. "I owe her my life."

The doctor pulled a small silver penlight from his breast pocket. He leaned over the bed, gently lifting Blair’s eyelid to check her pupillary response.

He clicked the light on.

The doctor frowned, leaning in a fraction closer. "That’s odd," he murmured.

"What is it?" Daemus asked, stepping up to the side of the bed.

"Her contacts," the doctor explained, keeping the light focused on her eye. "They are scratching her cornea. It looks like they were removed and not put back in properly. And the lenses themselves look quite old. If left like this, it could seriously damage her eyes, if it hasn’t started to already."

With gentle precision, the doctor used his gloved fingers to pinch the edge of the brown lens and peeled it away from her eye.

The doctor blinked.

The penlight illuminated the iris underneath. The doctor’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, his breath catching in his throat.

"What?" Daemus asked, his voice laced with immediate worry as he stepped closer. "What is wrong with her? Is she going blind?"

The doctor didn’t answer. His feet seemed to betray his own brain. He stumbled backward, away from the hospital bed, his knees buckling slightly. He stared at Blair’s face as if he were looking at the grim reaper himself. The color drained from his face, leaving him deathly pale, and his hands began to shake.

"Hey!" Daemus barked, grabbing the doctor by the shoulders and giving him a hard shake. The man’s reaction was seriously freaking the Wolf Prince out. "Pull yourself together! What is going on?!"

"T-That..." the doctor stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as he pointed a trembling finger at the unconscious girl. "That is a beastwoman pretending to be human!"

Daemus froze.

"What?" Daemus breathed out, his grip loosening on the doctor’s shoulders.

The doctor managed to frantically scramble to his feet.

"Look at her eyes!" he whispered hysterically.

Daemus looked down.

He stared at the eye the doctor had just removed the lens from. The iris was a bright shade of pink.

Daemus’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He closed it. He opened it again. His brain had crashed. He stared at the pink iris, his brows furrowing together.

That eye color was impossible for a human.

Why? Daemus thought wildly, his mind spinning like a top. It made zero sense. Disguising oneself as a human in a world ruled by beasts was like covering yourself in barbecue sauce and jumping into a lion enclosure. Why would a superior creature deliberately pretend to be a lesser?

Is she a bored princess? Daemus wondered, frantically cycling through the known royal bloodlines. Did she just want to see how the other half lives?

But the math didn’t add up. Daemus knew every single royal face who current lived in the human world. He knew every major and minor faction. And out of all the thousands of beast species he knew who left the beast world... not a single one of them had pink eyes.

The doors suddenly flew open.

"Useless creatures," Killian muttered darkly, storming back into the room. He was visibly pissed off. "We are surrounded by incompetence. There is an imposter roaming the halls, a man they have never seen before, and not a single one of them bothered to ask him any questions?!"

Killian’s arrival sent a jolt down Daemus’s spine.

Before the terrified, shaking doctor could open his mouth to blab the secret to the Crown Prince, Daemus moved.

He stepped between Killian and the doctor.

"Doctor," Daemus said, his voice dropping into a low growl. "I think you should go get that wound on your head cared for before it gets any worse."

The doctor swallowed what he was going to say to the crowned prince, nodding frantically. "Y-Yes. Yes, Your Highness!"

"And when you are done," Daemus ordered, staring the man dead in the eyes, "you will return here and help her with her eyes."

"Yes!" the doctor squeaked. He bowed deeply and scrambled past Killian, nearly tripping over his own feet to flee the room.

Killian watched the man run, his purple eyes narrowing in irritation. He turned his gaze back to Daemus.

"What is wrong with her eyes?" Killian asked, raising a brow.

Daemus’s mind went blank. He stared at Killian, his brain screaming at him to find a lie.

"Dry eye," Daemus blurted out.

Killian blinked, clearly unimpressed. "Dry eye."

"Yeah," Daemus nodded stiffly. He quickly pivoted, desperate to change the subject. "Did you find the doctor?"

Killian shot him a cold glare. "Does it look like I found him?"

Killian turned his attention elsewhere. He frowned.

"Where are the new blood test results?" Killian demanded, looking around the floor.

"Oh," Daemus said casually. "I threw them away."

Killian’s eyes snapped up. "You what?!"

"Relax," Daemus waved a dismissive hand. "The new result was exactly the same as the first one. But ’their’ was spelled wrong this time, and I didn’t want you to lose your shit over another typo."

Killian stared at him, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

A retreating crow caught Daemus’s eyes through the window. It made him wonder...

What are the color of her eyes? Professor Feron had asked him.

At the time, Daemus had thought it was a test of his character, an accusation that he was a shallow beast. But...

Did Jack already know?