Page 60 of Crave

Me: Extra garlicky ones.

Mom: Don’t sass your mother.

Mom: I also have a lead on a company fast-tracking a taser calibrated specifically for shifter.

Me: Do they come in pink?

Mom: I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.

“I don’t trust London Blake.”

Dallas let his head thump back against the seat. Traffic had slowed to a crawl. “Brody doesn’t want to make that call yet. I told him to have River hack into her phone, find out everywhere she’s been in the past forty-eight hours, but he’s not sold on the idea that even if everything we got off the thumb drive is bogus, she could have infected you at the handoff two days ago without getting sick herself. Plus, the Council tested you how many times? Your blood counts came back normal.”

“We have no reason to trust her. It was her pack that was trafficking humans out of Austin, her pack that was coordinating with the vampires from the start.”

“If you’re right, it means she’s been playing Brody this entire time, pretending she wants to bring the covens down.”

“When she’s really their mole.”

A call came in from The Spoke. Dallas took it on hands free. “Yeah. Hey, Javier. What’s going on?”

My phone chimed.

Naomi: Ran your blood. Vitamin deficiency. You still heading to Dallas’s? I can be there in fifteen.

Me: To cook me a big juicy steak?

Naomi: LOL! Think big shot in the tush. But it should resolve your symptoms immediately.

Naomi: There’s something else I want to talk to you about, too.

Outside, we were just passing the park. A giant fifteen-foot tree decorated by the local schools had been set up by the gazebo. Beside it, volunteers from the high school band were organizing the annual pet costume contest and picture taking with Santa.

Dallas swore, ending the call. “That was Javier. A bunch of college guys came in from partying all day out at the lake. There was a fight out in the parking lot. One of them fell. Hit their head. Cops are on scene.”

We turned the corner, his house coming into view. He’d gone all out with the decorations this year. Multicolored lights were strung along the edge of the roof, the columns along the porch wrapped in strands of plain white twinkly lights that glittered like stars. It was the first December that I could remember when he’d made the effort.

“Naomi just texted. She’s on her way over.”

Dallas listened wordlessly while I explained about the vitamin deficiency, then checked his phone. Swore. “I should really go in for a bit. Handle this. Should only be an hour or two.” Our eyes met. “Promise me you’ll stay on the couch watching reality TV. I’ll bring home takeout and we can light the fireplace.”

“And put on A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“It’s a date.”

After making sure Godiva and I made it up the porch steps, he backed down the drive, the ruby red glow of his taillights disappearing at the end of the block.

The cat-safe Christmas tree Dallas had put up in the large bay window up front by the street was decorated with fat old-fashioned lights and glittery plastic balls. I leaned back against the front door and inhaled, taking in the scent of blue spruce, gingerbread cookies and werewolf. In the kitchen, I let Godiva out of her carrier, set out her bowl of water and some dry food, and poured myself a cold glass of milk. A cardboard box from Blair’s sat out on the counter. Inside were an assortment of the Christmas cookies our team of elves had been decorating all week, gingerbread men with red-frosted Santa hats and smiling gingerwolves. Taking a gingerwolf, I nibbled thoughtfully on its tail, something London had said back at the park nagging at me.

We know males carry a higher viral count than females and that everyone’s numbers spike each month at the full moon. This biologic agent stops the lycan virus from over-replicating. Basically, it suppresses viral load so that a shifter under the influence of the drug would be temporarily unable to shift, unable to heal, unable to properly defend themselves in a fight.

And if we took that thinking one step further, unable to infect others.

Why would the vampires develop a drug that suppressed the lycan virus? Sure, there were potential advantages if it was deployed during a fight, but was it that much better than silver or wolfsbane? Potentially it was longer lasting, but it also came at an exorbitant cost.

I took another bite of cookie, pulse picking up.

A drug like this wouldn’t benefit vampires. A drug like this, one that targeted the lycan virus and reduced viral load, would benefit the hundreds of werewolves who went feral every full moon, most of them male. It would benefit the families who suffered while watching their loved ones lost to feral insanity, powerless to help. It would have helped Ethan, who’d suffered for years with silver addiction, the only known therapy once one’s wolf began to gain control of the human mind. It would help August, one of the marginalized few who suffered with an autoimmune sickness brought on by lycanthropy that medical science had no way to treat. This biologic agent had cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Why would the vampires ever make the effort? The answer was simple.