Page 114 of Savage Hunt

Had he returned to plot my demise?

He closed the door as his eyes seared into me, making every inch of my skin burn. “I did bite her.”

Julia glanced between the two of us. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.” Fane shortened the distance between us and leaned against the headboard. “I don’t remember it, but I can feel it.” He pointed to the swirling tattoo on my throat, a fresh mark surrounding it. “I gave her that. No one else could have.”

“And I was there,” I said. “I felt it happen.”

Fane folded his arms. “What’s this about, Julia?”

She tapped her bottom lip, deep in thought. “I’ve been examining the blood sample you gave me a few weeks ago, Tate, and I discovered something strange last night.”

I tried my hardest not to panic, but my ears were already ringing. “She knows about the Infernal Sol,” I said into Fane’s mind.

“That’s not it.”

As usual, a thrill zipped down my spine at hearing his gruff voice in my head.

“Cut to the chase.” Fane’s muscles bulged as his shoulders strained against the black t-shirt. “What did you find?”

“Her blood reacted to devil’s weed and wolfsbane.”

Fane pushed off from the headboard. “That’s not possible.”

“Well, it happened.” Julia pulled a vial of blue liquid out of her pocket and passed it to Fane. “Smell it. It’s hers.”

The demon shifter popped the cork, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the contents.

“Does someone want to tell me what the hell that means?” I asked, my pulse hammering.

Julia rested her hands in her lap as her penetrating stare drilled holes into me. “Only a born wolf’s blood would have reacted like that.”

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

My head shook as Julia’s words replayed in my ears a dozen times. I must have heard her wrong. Only a born wolf’s blood would have reacted like that.

“I was born human. Not shifter.”

“My senses say you’re a bitten shifter, but this test, which is a hundred percent accurate, says otherwise.” She arched an eyebrow. “You don’t know your birth parents, correct?”

The thought of the people who abandoned me to this cruel world brought a sour taste to my tongue. “No, but I would have known if I was a freaking shifter.” I flicked my hand toward Fane. “He bit me.”

“One or more of your parents had to be a wolf.” Julia stood from the chair and paced the room. “Fane’s bite triggered the gene.”

Blood pounded in my ears, hammering against my skull, and I stood so fast the room spun. “I was human.”

Large, rough hands gripped my shoulders to steady me. “Maybe you weren’t.” Fane searched me, trying to peel back my flesh and bones to find the truth written in my soul.

“You turned me. This bond came from your bite.”

“Fane’s bite definitely tied you two together and created a bond.” Julia tapped her chin, deep in thought as she made another lap around the room. “He brought the shifter forth, but something is still blocking the magic. That’s why you can’t change.”

Black spots speckled the edges of my vision as my ears rang. I’d grown up as a weak, vulnerable human in foster care and on the streets when I could have had super strength and fucking teeth and claws to protect myself from all of the horrible nightmares that swallowed me.

All the times the nice places tossed me out for being strange flooded to the forefront of my chaotic thoughts. Had they sensed I wasn’t human?

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