Page 12 of Redeemed Wolf

My throat clenched, and thankfully, he didn’t expect me to answer. He was busy swiping his card, inputting his code—he tilted his body to block my view. He was right to be untrusting. Then he leaned forward to put his right eye in front of the lens.

The door opened with a click, the light over the door flashing green.

“Shall we?” he said, his too-white smile making him look a little predatory himself. He held his hand out, gesturing for me to go first, and I stepped through the door ahead of him, even as my instincts screamed not to turn my back on him. The back of my neck prickled, hair standing on end.

The light was dimmer here and had a reddish hue to it. I blinked a few times, trying to adjust to it, but it was hard for me to focus. Everything was blurry around the edges. The air stank of piss and shit and adrenaline, and that weight around my chest pressedhard, making it nearly impossible to draw a full breath. I clenched my fists, feeling the dangerous prick of my claws against my palms.Do not draw blood, not here, I scolded myself firmly.

I jumped when the door slammed shut behind us, and the lock gave an ominous click. I looked over my shoulder and past where Eric was standing, to see that there was thankfully no code or card needed on this side to get out. Thank the gods for fire codes.

“It’s cold in here,” I said, my breath puffing out in a faint white cloud.

“We’ve had to get a bit ingenious,” he replied, pulling a pair of thin gloves from his pocket and putting them on. “It’s about taking advantage of their weaknesses, both their human and their animal halves. We keep the subjects nearly naked, so that their human halves struggle to keep warm, and undernourished to keep them weak. It takes them more energy to shift to their animals, so when they are deprived of calories for an extended length of time, they’re trapped as humans.”

“Okay, and then what’s with the weird red light?” I asked, pointing up.

“Wolves see best in yellow and blue spectrums, but red…” He let me fill in the blank. That must’ve been why I was having trouble focusing on the details.

“Huh, that’s a neat trick.”

He frowned at my lackluster reaction, but I couldn’t dredge up any more excitement than that, not with this creeping sickness spreading through my insides, turning my stomach. “So… can I see one?” I asked, leading the conversation, hoping he would follow.

His face remained a still pond, not a ripple to be seen as he brushed past me and carried on down the hall. “Let’s see how you do with a few tasks first, shall we? Some of that grunt work you volunteered yourself for.” He flashed a smile at me over his shoulder, a tad condescending, and I laughed along with him, even as bitter self-loathing coated my tongue like bile.

I didn’t like who I was becoming here. I missed my sarcastic, jaded self, always quick with a teasing insult. Here, everyone around me just kept shoveling shit, piling it on top of me, and I had to open wide and swallow it all, then say, “Please, may I have some more?” I felt weak, submissive, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t either of those things. I was a badass Alpha wolf, and these humans were only alive because I granted it to them.

“Down that hallway are the holding cells,” Eric was saying, and I eagerly glanced down the hall—looking for what, I couldn’t say, because the hall was empty, the doors all locked, labeled only with numbers as far as I could tell.

As we continued on, my attention was drawn to the bright white light bathing the hall ahead of us. It was warmer here too, the muted sound of exhaust fans in the background. We came to a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, and on the other side, a stainless-steel counter lined with expensive-looking equipment. I recognized the microscopes and perhaps some fridges, but that was where my knowledge ended.

“What is all this?” I asked.

Eric set his hand on my shoulder in an almost fatherly gesture, the heat and weight of his touch nearly too much to handle in my keyed-up state. I had to fight not to shrug him off. “This… iswhere the magic happens,” he said in a reverent purr, close to my ear. “First, we collect samples of blood and tissue from our test subjects. We have one team working specifically on trying to tease apart the strands of DNA, using Dr. Gray’s research as a starting point.” Sliding his hand from my shoulder to my back, he pressed me forward, guiding me down the length of the window, pointing to various white-coated scientists. “We have found that instead of the usual double helix, with base pairs, as seen in human DNA, shifter DNA contains a third chain, creating a stable triplex formation. My theory is that these strands of DNA actually separate into two different DNA strands depending on which form is dominant at the time, but once the samples are removed from the body, ensuring there is no dominant form, it reverts to the combined triplex.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, scanning the room for anything I could use. “Sorry, Doc, you might as well be speaking Greek to me.”

He laughed heartily. “I like your blunt honesty, Silas. It’s refreshing.” He slapped my back once before stepping ahead, where he pointed to bring my attention to the other side of the lab. “Well, see if you can keep up with me on this. My other lab team is working on splicing shifter DNA with that of humans.”

I stilled, taking in what he was implying. “What, like manmade shifters?”

His grin widened, and he nodded. “That is exactly right, Silas. What do you think of that?”

“Why would you want—” I’d begun to answer, when the lab’s glass door slid open, letting out a scent that was almost familiar—slightly sweet, but with an acrid undertone, like burnt sugar—and it set my teeth on edge. I clenched my jaw with a clack of teeth and allowed my gaze to travel to the man who set foot out of the lab.

I knew those hazel eyes, more gray than green, the straight bridge of his nose, the full lips, but his jaw had squared offwith age since the picture I had of him was taken. The stats ran through my mind as if I were reading them straight out of the file. Carter Parr, 22 years old now, born to Jesse Parr. Brother to Amelia, Isaac… and Jude. I could see the resemblance to Jude when I looked, but it was superficial. As an omega, he wasn’t built as broadly, his features more delicate. He was several inches shorter than I was.

Carter’s eyes met mine, just a brief snag before he looked away, and that pressure I’d been feeling in my chest increased tenfold. It was like taking a hit to the sternum from a sledgehammer, forcing the air from my lungs in a whoosh, and my wolf… wentferal. He was all slavering jaws and gnashing teeth, and I froze, worried the snarl might’ve been out loud.

It was a good thing Eric had turned to see where my attention had shifted, or he might’ve seen the way my face crumpled in agony. Instead, he smiled. “Carter, did you need something?”

“Yeah, I have those test results you wanted to see.” He passed a tablet to Eric, which he pulled off a glove to flip through on the touch screen.

They were talking, but their words meant nothing to me. I was too busy trying to catch my breath. Carter was here, and he wasn’t locked up. He looked healthy, his complexion glowing, well-fed, cared for. This was the furthest from what we’d imagined for him. He was walking around free, wearing a lab coat, and… working with Dr. Taylor?!

None of this made sense!

My wolf yipped and growled inside me.What the hell is your problem?I snapped at him, but he was beyond reasoning with. Maybe he sensed that Carter had betrayed us all. For a single panicked second, I worried Carter would turn to Eric and announce that I was a wolf. That would be the end, I would be dead. But the thing was… when he’d looked at me, there was no recognition from him at all. It was like he didn’t even recognizeme as a fellow shifter. And when I breathed him in, pushing past that burnt acrid tang coming off him, I didn’t sense his wolf anywhere inside him. He was just… empty. Hollow.

For all intents and purposes, Carter was human.

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