I came awake suddenly, my eyes flying open. I looked around.
Damn! I was strapped down on the table again.
I listened carefully, not hearing anyone in the room. Slowly turning my head, I saw that the monitors on the desk were on now, numbers scrolling quickly down the screens. I wasn’t close enough to see what they said, so I ignored them.
There were tubes coming out of my arms. I wasn’t sure if this was a give-a-toxin or take-blood situation. I didn’t feel any different, but then I wasn’t sure what he was trying to prove.
When he came over to take a single vial of blood, he smirked at me. Looks like he was giving me something that he thinks will impact me then.
“I see you are finally awake.”
I thought back. I wasn’t sure what had knocked me unconscious, but knowing this man, he probably gave me a sedative or something. I blinked.
His voice sharpened. “Holden, I am doing what is best for everyone. You have this hidden talent that you are not even aware of. Well, you must unconsciously know it or else you wouldn’t have gone into the field you are in. Still, I am curious what else you might have gained from the lycanthropes.”
“You are crazy.” My throat hurt, and my voice was a rasp. I wondered how long I had been screaming. “Lycanthropes, Edward? Werewolves? Those are things of fantasy books. Werewolves are not real.”
He gave me a strange look before walking over to a window on an inside wall. When he lifted the shade, it showed a man squatting in a corner in the glass cage. The man had his head hanging down, his long stringy brown hair covering his face. His arms were wrapped around his very naked body.
Edward hit a button, activating an intercom. “Change, Mercer. Let’s show Holden what is walking in the world with us humans. Let’s show her that werewolves are real.”
He hit another button from the panel on the wall. I watched in horror as the man arched his back, his head flinging back to hit the wall behind him, his mouth opening in a silent scream. And then it wasn’t silent, but was a high-pitched scream that changed to a howl as the man sprouted fur and his face elongated into a muzzle. Claws popped from his fingertips and he hunched down, his bones cracking as his body changed into a gray and brown wolf.
Tears leaking from my eyes, I watched, giving the man… wolf…. my attention and respect. The wolf’s yellow eyes swung to me and we shared a look. Somehow, I knew he would help me if we had the opportunity. This man was…. Not Pack. No, he didn’t want to be Pack. Still, he was like Shane. He was an Alpha.
My eyes widened in realization. Shane was an Alpha? I was thinking like a wolf! What was Edward giving me? My eyes flew to the bag attached to the IV.
“Ah, you realized that you are not as human as you thought you were, did you?” Edward moved back into my line of sight. I had forgotten he was there for a moment, with the horror of Mercer’s forced shift. “Well, you weren’t human before this, but I am testing if Mercer’s blood will help you to shift.”
He puttered around, almost talking to himself. “Some books say that Lycanthropy is a virus, easily caught. Others say it is something in the blood or saliva. I know because of those pups that it can breed true.”
I gasped. What pups? Mine? Was this the lab my pups had escaped from? The one that had tortured Lexi, Betta, and Soren?
Bad man, Bad man, Bad man.
The chant that Lexi had screamed suddenly made sense. Edward was the one, the one who hurt my pups.
Lexi! I screamed in my mind.
Holden? A quiet, young girl’s voice came back.
Lexi? Startled, I pushed out again.
Holden! Wait a minute…. The voice faded and then came back. Mama Holden, Uncle Shane is on his way to you. Wait for him. Tell her, Uncle Shane!
Holden? This time the voice was male. It came with a feeling of safety and home.
What is going on, Shane? How can I… I shook my head, before stopping and looking around frantically for Edward. He was at the glass cage, watching Mercer change back to human, the change agonizingly slow.
Hold on, love. We are coming. His voice in my head sounded soothing, confident. I wondered if this was all a hallucination, talking to Lexi and Shane in my mind. It couldn’t be real. But in case it was….
Shane, there is another wolf caught here. Edward is torturing him, making him change from man to wolf and back slowly. He called him Mercer.
Anger flowed into my mind. We will get him out when we come for you… And then he was gone, the silence filling my mind with loneliness.
I looked back at Edward. He was staring at me, his hand on another switch.
“What were you doing, Holden? Have you developed the Pack bonds already? It is too soon. You are not wolf enough. So, what were you doing?” His voice ended in almost a scream.
“Hallucinating.” I coughed. My throat was so dry. “I just watched a person change to a wolf and back. That cannot be true.”
Edward studied me. I was telling the truth, just not the whole truth. But he shouldn’t be able to tell. Unless…. My eyes widened again. “Have you tried to infect yourself, Edward? Just like you are doing with me?”
He snorted, standing up tall. “Of course, silly hybrid. Mercer’s blood is potent. He is older than he looks. It hasn’t worked, though. Yes, I hear murmurs of words sometimes when I am around the lycanthropes. I am a little stronger, but that could be from my training. I don’t think I can be infected, unfortunately, the way those silly fantasy authors state. But no worries. I will figure it out and become a hybrid.”
He walked towards me, watching intently. “But you, Holden, are not human to start with. You already, somehow, have lycanthrope genes. Perhaps even was born a hybrid. I should be able to kick-start you and your wolf genes. Perhaps in studying you, I can find out how to change myself.”
“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to be a wolf, Edward?” I could hardly breathe, my anxiety spiking.
“Why? Well, because I would then be a superhuman. Unstoppable. Except I wouldn’t hide like the Packs do now. No, people would listen to me. And then there is the money. There are organizations out there who would pay me millions to figure this out, Holden. Even more if I could give them a live human-wolf hybrid that could breed more like her.” His eyes glinted evilly at me.
“How do you know they won’t just capture you and use you like you are using me and Mercer? How do you know they won’t treat all of us like monsters?”
“Because I will hold all the cards. They won’t know how to change more people. They want a super-military group. They want power. Without me, they will not get it.” Edward raised an eyebrow at me.
“And Thomas? Was your brother in your way?” My voice caught, remembering how moralistic my husband had been. He would not have gone along with this plan.
“Thomas has always been an uptight prig. Once he realized what I wanted with your blood, that it was not about your lack of fertility…” He paused, thinking. “Well, your lack of fertility with him was a factor. You were different enough from him I don’t think you could breed with him. Perhaps some humans, but I suspect you can only get pregnant from breeding with a lycanthrope. Like Mercer.”
I struggled against my bonds. Edward was crazier than I had originally thought.
“I am not having sex with a man I don’t even know, Edward!”
He laughed; the sound humorless. “You will do whatever I say you will do, Holden. I can make you want to mate with him. Once I force you into heat, you will want the closest male to you. Any lycanthrope male.”
Shane! I screamed in my mind.
