Rise of the Warrior Queen (Kaia and Silver) novel Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

SILVER’S POV

We sat in silence for a while, the stories I’d just heard and the photo of the little boy still haunting the back of my mind.

I leaned back slightly, watching the way Dr. Grayson stared at nothing in particular. His eyes were distant, his thoughts clearly still with the memories.

A thought crossed my mind, and I contemplated it for a moment.

I hesitated, taking another look at him, then broke the silence.

“The boy,” I said quietly. “The one from the pack house…”

“Who is he?” I asked.

Dr. Grayson looked away, his jaw tightening. “Silver… maybe that’s not a road we need to go down right now.”

That was all the confirmation I needed–that there was something he didn’t want to say.

I sighed, feeling frustrated, but I decided to give it another try. “Come on, Doc. You need to understand where

I’m coming from here. The boy called me Leander. More than once. And here I am with no single memory of

who I really am. Don’t you think that calls for concern?”

Dr. Grayson’s eyes flicked to mine. There was a shadow in them now. Not fear, exactly. Not guilt either.

Something more complicated. He seemed cautious and guarded.

“He said,” I continued, “that someone told him Leander would come back. That I would come back. Doesn’t

that sound a little suspicious to you?”

I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees and meeting his gaze.

“I need to know what’s going on here, Doc. Please.”

Dr. Grayson looked down, exhaled, and rubbed his palms slowly together like he was trying to work

something loose from deep inside himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was slow and low.

“His name is Eli,” he said. “Eli Brandt. He’s the son of one of our pack members, His father works with border

patrol.”

I waited, but that wasn’t the part I needed to know. That was surface–level. That was what you told outsiders

when they started asking questions you didn’t want to answer.

“Then why did you react the way you did when you saw him?” I asked.

Dr. Grayson didn’t reply right away. He looked down at his hands again, and I could see the fight in him–not

with me, but with himself. The debate of whether to speak or not.

He finally answered, softly.

“Because Eli isn’t like other children. He’s… different.”

He paused, then continued.

“I delivered him.”

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

My brows lifted slightly.

“It was a complicated birth,” he said. “One of the worst we’ve ever had in the clinic. His mother, Adelyn che was already struggling with her health near the end of her pregnancy, but we didn’t expect things to go the way they did.”

He swallowed hard. “The baby–Eli–wasn’t coming out. He was stuck, his position all wrong. We tried everything. We had to make a call, and we didn’t have the time or resources to do a proper C–section at that point. It was all so sudden. No one expected it to happen, so we weren’t fully prepared. We had to use a

cranial vacuum device.”

I frowned. “A what?”

“It’s a tool that attaches to the baby’s head using suction,” he explained. “It helps guide them out during delivery. It’s… it’s risky, especially if complications are already severe. But we didn’t have another option. She was bleeding badly. Her vitals were crashing. It was either that or we lose them both–both mother and child.”

He paused. His voice dropped even lower.

“We lost her, Silver. The mother didn’t make it. She bled out before we could stabilize her. But somehow- somehow–Eli survived. Barely.”

I felt something tighten in my chest. “That’s… awful.”

Dr. Grayson nodded. “It was one of the worst nights of my life. Second only to the night I lost my only son. And I’ve had some dark ones.”

I stayed quiet as he went on.

“We weren’t sure what kind of long–term effects the trauma might have had on Eli. The pressure from the vacuum… the lack of oxygen during those critical moments… nobody could predict how it would shape his mind or development.”

“But something did happen,” I said.

Dr. Grayson gave a small, grim nod. “People started noticing things when he got older. It was small at first- he’d stare into corners and talk to things no one else could see. He’d mention people that weren’t there, things that hadn’t happened yet. We tried writing it off as childhood imagination. Maybe imaginary friends.”

“But it kept happening?” I asked with furrowed brows.

“Yes. And it got harder to ignore.” His fingers drummed his knee now, restless. “He started saying things that made people uncomfortable. Once, he told his father not to take the mountain route on patrol. Begged him not to. There was no reason not to–weather was clear, route was safe. But there was a rockslide that same day. His father had switched routes last minute, just to calm the kid down.”

I blinked. “You’re saying he predicted it?”

Dr. Grayson shrugged helplessly. “No one knows. Maybe it was a coincidence. But that wasn’t the only time.”

“What do people think?”

He gave a weak chuckle. “What do you think? Some think he’s gifted. Others think he’s cursed His stepmother–Karla–claims he’s… touched. Says he walks between the living and the dead. M

just think

he’s unstable.”

“But you don’t,” I asked, looking at him carefully and gauging his reaction.

He looked at me then. Really looked.

“I think he sees more than we do. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve seen the way he looks at people. Like he

knows things he has no reason to know.”

I sat back, letting it all sink in.

He called me Leander.

Said someone told him I’d come back.

I didn’t know who Leander was. But the way the kid said it… like he believed it with every ounce of his being…

it made it hard to write off.

Dr. Grayson sighed.

“When Eli says strange things, people tend to ignore him,” he said. “They nod, they smile, and they move on. But deep down… they know something’s off.”

I looked down at my hands. “Do you think he’s…?” I didn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word that was sitting right on my tongue. It just didn’t feel right, no matter what. Not about a kid.

But still, Dr. Grayson seemed to understand.

He paused for a long time before shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think he’s crazy, if that’s what you’re asking. I just think he’s seeing something the rest of us aren’t ready to face.”

I nodded slowly, my mind spinning with everything I’d just heard.

If Eli saw something about me–something connected to this name, Leander–then maybe there were pieces of my story still out there, waiting. Pieces even Dr. Grayson didn’t know about.

And maybe the boy who everyone thought was strange… was the only one actually seeing clearly.

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