“Shouldn’t we be dealingwith someone that actually, you know, volunteered?”
Cocking my head, I assess the bound and gagged man bucking against his restraints in a metal folding chair in the woods behind the warehouse. It’s the same guy that tried to laser my face off the other day, and by the obvious disdain being lobbed my way, current events haven’t warmed him up to me in the slightest.
“Think about it; he hates you,” Sebastian announces with a broad smile that answers nothing.
“Oh, well, now that you cleared that up,” I trail off, scanning the tree line.
We’re way too exposed out here and it has me on edge. I get that we can’t have him potentially shift inside of the warehouse and destroy the machinery that escaped the explosions, knowing they’d never get lucky a second time, but I don’t like it. Sure, it has the potential to work in our favor if by some miracle this actually works, but it can also blow up in our faces. If itdoesn’twork, then we might also have to kill the witnesses lurking in the shadows, and this late at night? There’s bound to be plenty.
Our entire plan of not having a plan is relying on this being an effective smokescreen. That can only happen if we have men clamoring to get their hands on this drug, for rumors to spread in whispers around the mountain that there’s a way to escape Acheron’s influence on top of being able to shift without the need of a mate. Bonus points if it makes them less ‘axe murdery’ and more ‘sure, we’ll go to war with the biggest pack on the mountain for you. What else is there to do around here, anyway?’
Pipe dream, but still; it’d be a convenient solution.
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “It’ll be obvious if it changes how he feels about you.”
Bo catches my eye, looking nearly as excited at the prospect as Sebastian is. “If he pulls a one-eighty and starts fawning over you, we’ll know that your blood has a mate effect, even if there’s no claiming bite. Then we get to kill him.”
––––––––
“Makes sense to me.”The poor son of a bitch starts thrashing in earnest, releasing a muffled litany of curses until his face grows red. Giving him my back, I turn my focus to my other sort-of-but-not-really-dads. “Even if he does shift, this is still a one-off though, right?”
Leo and Merrick exchange a loaded glance that does nothing to set my nerves at ease. Finally, the latter slowly states, “Honestly, we don’t have a damn clue what it’s going to do. The hydrogen sulfide was what we’d always been told was the key to getting their wolves to the surface. But your mates were bound and determined that we leave it out of this batch, so besides the addition of your blood, we just went a little heavier on the other ingredients.”
Leo shrugs. “Might not do a damn thing, or hell, maybe it’ll make him immune toyoulike a vaccine.”
“Well, that isn’t disconcerting at all,”Aurelia quips, and I mentally flip her off.
They’re trying their best, be nice. The only knowledge they had is what Ash fed them, part of which was clearly bullshit to fuel his agenda. Sure, they might have developed a core understanding of the basics after their hands-on experience all of these years, but that’s hardly a substitute for a legitimate science course. The fact that they managed to engineer it at all under these conditions is praise worthy, not anything to complain about.
Pulling on the vestiges of my confidence, I nod. “Trial by fire then; my favorite.”
If he breaks out of that chair, he’s probably going to head right for us. Are you good with stepping in before I get my neck chewed on if he slips past the others?
Her surprise can be felt as if it were my own, and I need to physically shake my head to dispel the feeling.“If you’d like.”
With a heavy exhale, I pray the sentiment isn’t going to come back to bite me in the ass.I have to admit that you’re better suited for this part than I am; faster reflexes.
Kaige’s hand settles on the small of my back as we watch Bo help hold the man still enough for Sebastian to pierce the vein on his inner arm. A collective breath is held amongst our small gathering, every second that ticks by dragging into hours. And all the while, I keep my attention rapt on the loathing glare of our human-adjacent guinea pig as he gives up his thrashing in favor of drawing in heaving breaths through the cloth gag.
After an agonizingly long stretch trapped in a stressful stasis, Reid sighs. “Okay, maybe we dial back the amount instea-” he’s cut off by a sharp snap and muffled scream.
Heart skipping a beat before restarting in double time, I watch as his bones break seemingly of their own volition and his back arches as much as the bindings allow, trapped in a silent scream. Little by little his body breaks apart in jerking, unnatural motions. For a brief moment, a knot forms in my stomach as all of my memories of the lycans resurface. Before they become crippling, they trickle away, a soothing reminder left behind that that’s all they are; memories. I survived them not once, but twice.
“You’re not scared ofthem, you associate lycans with the traumatic events that happened those days.”
Concentrating on my breathing, I keep my gaze trained on the way the rope snaps with his swelling form. But as he tumbles face first to the ground, wrists still bound behind his back, he shrinks in on himself. Between the shredding of his clothes, tawny fur spreads over his skin until eventually, all that’s left in his place is an insanely pissed off wolf whipping around to shed the loose ropes from around his feet.
“It worked.” Cinjin’s awed voice is followed by him wrapping an arm around my collar from behind.
Kaige frees his pinned hand, stealing mine instead and lifting it to his lips with an incredulous chuckle. “Of course it did.”
Unable to tear my gaze away from the seemingly normal wolf that’s finally managed to untangle himself, I argue, “Pretty sure we should wait to see if he’s rabid or whatever other side effects there may be before we start celebrating.”
Hunter’s tone is as harsh as ever despite the fact that he’s agreeing with me. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to see how he acts around Sabrina before we break out the champagne, and test if we can manipulate his energy. Kaige?”
––––––––
Beside me, Kaige tensesand offers a terse, “Nope.”
