Without the wolf, Varu lived longer than humans only because they had a greater constitution and healed much faster than their fellow hominids. However, those who’d never taken a wolf eventually succumbed to time. A Varu stripped of the Fenrir would be like a Varu who’d never had one at all.
“That doesn’t make any sense. If he’d returned to the state he was before he took the Sarvari, he would have been a corpse.”
Cassie shrugged. “I can only tell you what I saw.”
“Maybe you didn’t understand what you saw.” Jelani didn’t say it with cruelty, but Cassie still flinched.
“I’m not lying.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“And I’m not stupid.”
“But you were young. Maybe you’re remembering what you thought happened and not what actually happened.”
“I wasn’t that young. I had a wolf. I wasn’t a child.” She looked at Isaiah. “I’m not making this up or remembering it wrong.”
“I believe you.”
She blinked a few times as if caught off guard. “Thank you, Alpha.”
“Nash wasn’t dead very long before he received the ichor,” Isaiah said to Jelani.
“So?”
“That means when the ichor purges, he would have at least a few decades with Luca.”
Jelani opened and closed his mouth. “You can’t be serious.”
“If he has time to come to terms with who he is and why he belongs with us, then he may have time to forgive us.”
Jelani stood. “Isaiah… There’s no way to know this will work.”
“It’s worked in the past.” Isaiah glanced at Cassie. “There’s no reason to think it won’t work again.”
“A Sarvari isn’t the Anubis. Nash carries the ichor as a whole.”
“The Rakta killed the Anubis just like it did the Sarvari. It just took more.”
“And you’re trying to cure him, not kill him. Too little, and he’s immune, and we lose our chance to do this.”
“I don’t care. I have to try.”
Jelani scrubbed his forehead. “And how are you going to contain him long enough to test your theory?”
“I’m not going to contain him.”
The look on Jelani’s face conveyed just how insane he thought Isaiah had become.
“I’m going to tell him what Cassie has told us and ask his permission,” Isaiah said.
“And why by the teeth of my wolf would he cooperate?”
“Because he loves Luca. He knows the Anubis is dangerous, and the last thing he wants to do is hurt him.” If Isaiah were in Nash’s shoes, he would have gladly faced death for a few years to love someone as they needed to be loved.
As they deserved to be loved.
Nash would say yes because he was a good man.