Page 11 of Rivers and Roads

My heart did something complicated at the thought of being able to bring Zane home, and I knew Kor could feel it in the pack bond. “I won’t fail.”

“You might,” he said. He turned his face toward mine. “You might fail. You might be captured and tortured. You might be killed. Or worse. I’m not going to let you walk into this mission thinking nothing can go wrong.”

I swallowed thickly and sat up, pulling one leg toward my chest. “I have never entered any battle thinking there would be anything after it. But it’s Zane, and I can’t go in believing I’m not coming out alive, either.”

“I know,” he said. His head bowed toward the ground, and I saw his chest rising and falling. “I’m shit-scared, Orion. If I lose you,” he stopped abruptly and when I heard his heart start to thrash, I reached up with claws and sank them into the back of his neck. It only took him a moment to calm, and his gratitude pulsed between us. “I can’t lose you.”

“I will do everything in my power to come back. Even if I’m missing a few pieces,” I added to show him I wasn’t afraid of the consequences, so long as I was still breathing. “I’m not ready to give up yet. Not before we see the end of this.”

He reached around and curled his fingers around my wrist, squeezing gently. “Danyal will be waiting for you later this afternoon. Get some sleep, because from what he’s told me so far, the change is going to hurt.”

Chapter

Six

ORION

Iwas slightly relieved that the only witness to my potential humiliation was going to be Danyal and his small team who had been working on the serum. I had been terrified at the idea that our next step was fucking with DNA, so I supposed it was my own fault I was walking into the situation blind.

Danyal seemed to sense my apprehension when I first arrived, though, so instead of having me strip down and submit to pokes and prods and tests, he brought over a chair and sat across from me with his hands loosely hanging between his spread thighs. “Do you have any questions?”

“About a thousand,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. I felt too hot and too cold, and the walls seemed closer than they had been when I first got to the lab. “I doubt you’ve got answers to them though.”

He smiled at me, but it was tense, and I knew most of this was because the life on the line right now was Zane’s. “If you want to ask them, I can do my best to tell you what I know.”

Letting out a puff of air, my gaze darted toward the door that was left open a crack. “He hated this, you know. Zane,” I said.

Danyal nodded, his lips in a firm, straight line. “I know. I know he did. And he’s going to be furious when he gets back and finds out that you of all people volunteered.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by those last words, but it wasn’t the time to ask. “If I had another choice,” I said, but I stopped because no doubt, Danyal had heard this from every single Wolf on the Council. “Just…I need to know what the chances are that this is really going to work.”

“I’ve tested it on six Betas,” Danyal told me very quietly. “I was hoping to have more time to see if there were any potential long-term effects. In fact, I told the General I didn’t agree with the timing at all, but he reminded me that it was this or let my brother go. And it might make me a monster, but I’m willing to sacrifice anything to bring him home.”

I couldn’t help my wince, my heart aching because I knew Kor wouldn’t have used emotional manipulation on Danyal lightly, but I also knew it wasn’t a lie. “I’m willing to accept whatever happens if it means bringing him back.”

“I’m not really sure what to say to that,” Danyal admitted, something a little tender, and maybe afraid, in his voice.

“Don’t say anything,” I told him. “It is what it is. Just…tell me how bad this is going to get.”

“I wish I knew,” he admitted. “I can tell you that it likely won’t kill you, just like it didn’t kill Misha—though he’d been under a gradual treatment for months. I can tell you it’s going to hurt, and I can tell you that the test subjects were able to revert completely back to Beta form without any lingering change.”

“Why didn’t Misha?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Several reasons, I think,” Danyal said and shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t think his father was trying to make his change temporary, and that has been my primary focus since starting this experiment. I also think it’s because he’s human. Our bodies are designed to take on different forms. We’re naturally shifters—human to wolf, if you want to ignore the technicalities of our species. It’s…well, physics, to put it simply. I don’t really have time to go into the intricate details. But that isn’t a guarantee that my changes worked. The longer you’re taking it, the more hold it might take on you.”

“So, I might end up…” I didn’t finish my sentence, because the idea of not being a Beta was so foreign, I wasn’t sure how the hell to feel at potentially losing my status. I had never believed Omegas were less worthy, or strong, or capable, but I was who I was. Wolves my age didn’t change. In our entire recorded history, it had never happened.

“It may be total, it may be partial. It may be nothing at all,” Danyal offered, spreading his hands. “The serum might work exactly as I designed it, and you’ll become the very picture of an Omega while retaining everything about your Beta training.”

“The others? How long did they last on the serum?”

“They were on three doses. It was all I was willing to risk at the time,” Danyal said from behind a sigh. “You’ll need to take one dose every twelve hours, which means by the time you get to DC, you’ll have already started four.”

“Will I,” I hesitated for a brief second, “go into a heat?”

Danyal’s eyebrows rose. “I want to say no, because you’re a male Wolf and even with Omega hormones, it would be rare. Misha was different because his biology was different. But… it is a possibility.”

I bit my lip and tried not to think about it. Any Wolf who wasn’t an Omega would be a hell-bound liar if they said they didn’t wonder what heat was like. To be taken over by need, want—desperate to be filled and knotted. I had gotten off to heat porn more than I was ever willing to confess to anyone, and while most Betas were only ever willing to admit to wanting a knot of their own, I had wanted to be filled by one.

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