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Emma bowed her head. “Good to know, ma’am.”
Nik and Emma entered the situation room, which reminded him of a small theater. The oval table faced the large screen that was connected to computer. Jesper, the archivist, an almost albino omega, attended the meeting. Next to Rylee, he knew just about everything about the packs. Actually, rumors were Jesper knew far more than the alphas. Not that they knew the whereabouts of every known lycan, but damn close.
Rylee greeted them. She stood in front of the screen that took up most of the wall. “Welcome, Emma, to your first Team Greywolf mission. Both of you come in and introduce yourselves.” She signaled the warden who stood.
Nik sniffed at him. A beta with the scent of old foreign forests. “I’m Nicolay Sokolov and this is Emma York.”
He turned and bowed low to Nik. “I’m Warden Duko of Croatia.” He straightened and smiled at Emma. “I’m in charge of four lone werewolves.”
They took their seats.
“Only four in Croatia?” asked Emma.
“Most of the packs have moved into isolated forests in Russia or moved and joined European or American packs. Actually over the years, they’ve been pressured to do so.”
“Encouraged,” said Rylee, matter of fact.
Duko looked down at his hands. “Yes, ma’am.”
Nik enjoyed being part of Team Greywolf, but he too felt pressured by the all mighty Rylee. She was a force to reckon with. More powerful than any royal lycan and respected by the lycan council. “But you remained.”
“Yes. Only the stubborn remained. I’m sixty-years old and like my four charges, prefer living without a pack.” He frowned. “Now for our own good, Rylee and the European packs ordered all remaining lone werewolves to leave Croatia. So here we are.”
Dr. Howard Becker, their top scientist in the field of Luponomics, walked in. He bowed low to all since he was human and then sat.
Rylee turned to Duko. “Tell us how you learned about the dead men.”
He nodded. “I was surveying one of the forests for any new or undocumented werewolves. I noticed a sign that read, Danger Agricultural Pesticide Area. I thought I’d return later.” He shook his head. “But, I didn’t detect the scent of pesticide or any other type of chemical. I caught the scent of wolves, yet not real wolves and not our kind. Something different. Abhorrent. I shifted to wolf form and followed the scent. Armed men surrounded the dead deformed men. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought our kind had been caught in the middle of their change and then somehow killed. Yet, when we die from the change, it’s always in human form, not as a half-wolf half-human creature. I am embarrassed to say I threw up at such a horrific sight. After I recovered, I shifted to human form and grabbed a camera from my backpack. I took the pictures from a distance and then returned to base. Once I determined I had not been followed, I contacted you.”
Rylee narrowed her eyes. “And when you returned the next day, what did you find?”
“Their bodies burned beyond recognition.”
“And the armed men?” asked Nik.
“They were packing to leave. A white van arrived and they loaded two dead wolves into it. Real wolves.”
“That’s where they get their DNA,” said Dr. Becker.
Rylee lifted a brow. “Why not just take samples?”
Becker turned to her. “Likely, they kept them frozen, so they’d have access to them for further biochemical study.”
“And leave no evidence,” added Emma.
Nik frowned. “Why real wolves, when they have us, or for that matter, Lev’s magical bite?” Lev was known as Chernobyl Werewolf. His radioactive bite accidently turned his human wife into a werewolf. Fortunately, Rachel never underwent the change. They all thought it was an anomaly because she had Stallo’s gene. An exception to the rule. There were no other cases of a human turning lycan from a werewolf’s bite.
“That’s what I wondered.” Dr. Becker sighed. “However, they use specific groups of wild wolves for their experiments, not werewolf DNA.”
“Why not just buy wolves?” asked Emma.
“The packs in that area are genetically related to the strain of wolves with the Stallo gene, only they were never part of the original alpha wolves that underwent the change,” explained Dr. Becker. “I’ve mapped the DNA of known packs of the area near Stallo’s mountain.”
“You would think they would try werewolf DNA first,” said Emma.
Becker nodded. “I’m sure they did, but I think they found out that our gene shifts from wolf to human and never the other way around.”
Rylee sighed. “At least they didn’t get a hold of wolves who were once werewo
