Page 4 of The Last Ultimatum: Part 2

She sniffed, then pulled away from me as she slowly nodded.

I observed her posture—shoulders sagged and slightly hunched forward, head down, eyes looking at the floor where her foot drew small circles in the carpet. I’d seen this sort of behavior in countless victims. And I knew before she opened her mouth that I was not going to like what she had to say.

“When I woke up I was in the back of a van, restrained. Two men were in the front. They never go out alone, always in pairs at the very least.”

“There were more of them then?”

“Dozens.”

“Go on,” Taylor encouraged.

“They took me to some sort of lab.”

“What did you say?” Grant asked.

“A lab. You know, like you see in the movies when they’re running tests on mice? Only it wasn’t mice, it was dingo shifters. They had a couple dozen of them. I was shoved into one of the cages too. Time seemed to stand still I guess. I lost all concept of time and day. They let us out at meal time but we weren’t supposed to talk to one another.”

“But you did?” I asked.

“Of course I did. I’m the daughter of Alphas, I know how to be discreet when gathering information.”

“I like this girl. Go on,” T said.

“They’re running tests on everyone. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but it was more than just a blood sample. And they have this one drug that forces you to shift. Those that came in while in their skin were given it to prove they were a dingo shifter, and those of us arriving in our fur were forced to shift to human form. It was all highly humiliating.”

“That does not make sense,” Taylor insisted.

“What doesn’t, babe? We all know these drugs exist.”

“Yeah, we know it, but most of the Collectors I know of have no clue that all witches are shifters. And if they don’t know about shifters, only their prized super-humans with extra powers, then why the hell would they be testing for this?”

“We’ve rescued a few shifters that aren’t witches,” Grant reminded her.

“Yeah, but the Collectors all thought that shifting into an animal was their superpower,” I explained as things slowly began to click into place. “T’s right. They’re selling the dingoes as extinct shifters, not super-humans. Why? All the others we’ve found in collections have been one-offs.”

“There are some Collectors who know about shifters, but I’ve only seen a few of them. This is out of character for an auction. Way out of the norm. And now this?”

“Sounds more reminiscent of the Raglan than Collectors,” Grant said with a snort.

Taylor and I shared and uncomfortable look.

“What?” Chelle asked. “What’s the Raglan? What’s he talking about? And why did you just look at her like that?”

“Like what?” Grant asked.

“Like they know something we don’t know.”

“We don’t know anything for sure, but what you’re describing is more like an old Raglan lab than a Collector holding cell pre-auction,” I told her.

“How would you know that?” Grant asked.

Taylor snorted. “Who do you think every single shifter weeversaved talks to? He probably knows the details of both better than we do and we’ve actually been in them.”

“But I’ve heard countless detailed accounts of both over and over through the eyes of those you rescued.”

Lachlan

Chapter 2

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