He shrugged and started digging again. “I’ll run it again just to be sure.”
“Thanks.”
“By the way, when you ran my blood work back when Colton first brought me in, did you see anything to indicate that the enzymes in my bite or the secretions in my blood had the potential to kill?”
Ping. He dropped another larger glass piece into the container.
“Well...Trapp mentioned you can shift into any animal, and if that’s possible, then yes.” He shrugged. “Even if you only do a partial shift, if your psyche chose something with a poisonous bite, then I can see how you could kill.”
“What about if I meet a mate and I’m bitten? Is there a chance I could have poison in my DNA? Are there any animals that are poisonous if eaten?”
He pushed back from her, picked up his tweezers and the bowl, and walked across the room to the sink where he sat them down. “Let me think about that.”
He pulled open the separator that some of his patients used to change clothes behind and gestured for her to get behind it. “You need to shift to close the wounds.”
She stepped around the curtain and started undressing. She heard him clicking away on his computer as she tossed her shirt and bra over the screen before stepping out of her shoes and ditching her jeans and panties.
“Giant Namibian bullfrog,” he called out.
She peeked around the screen. “Excuse me?”
“Poisonous secretions in the skin of that type of bullfrog can cause kidney failure and death if not cooked right.” He pointed to the screen and kept scrolling as she pulled off her socks. “However…”
She peeked back around. “Yeah?”
“Wood absorbs the poison.” He gestured toward the computer. “According to this, when chefs cook the bullfrogs, they line the bottom of the pots with wood to absorb the secreted poison.”
“And people eat them?” She shivered at the thought while making a gagging sound.
“Not only do they eat them, they are considered a delicacy.”
“With that DNA in your system, you could potentially be deadly. You’d kill the human and their animal.”
She concentrated on a little white fluffy cat as she shifted, letting the magic take over. Her bones cracked and pushed and pulled into place, fur sprouted from her arms, and her fangs pushed through her gums. She looked down at her paws expecting to see white fur and was aggravated when she saw the brown and orange paws of the Siberian tiger again.
She stepped out on all fours from behind the curtain and glanced around the room. The doctor was still sitting in front of the computer, but his chair was turned and looking at her.
“That’s a fine, scary animal, Lizzie.”
She purred and walked closer, rubbing up against his leg. She used her head and nudged his hand, lifting it to the keyboard.
“You still want me to keep searching?”
She purred again and kept walking around the room. Within seconds, her skin was healed, and she felt like a hundred percent.
“All better I see,” Evan called out as he walked into the room.
She hissed at him, giving him a good look at her deadly incisors before sauntering back behind the curtain and letting the shift overcome her again, putting her back into her human state.
She ran her fingertips across the new tiny pink scars on her arms before looking at her shoulder. If she kept up this line of work, her body was going to be one big pink mess of scars. She reached for her panties and started getting dressed again. When she was done, she stepped around the partition, moving to stand behind the doctor. She placed her palm on his shoulder as he continued to click away at the computer.
“Keep looking for me, Doc. It’s kind of important. And let me know what you get after rechecking the DNA.” She laid the picture of Jennifer down next to his computer. “Can you have one of the guys make a copy of this and have it delivered back to Jennifer’s mother tonight at the trailer park? I’ve got some assholes to find and bite.” She chomped at the air and grinned.
“Sure.” He stopped typing and glanced up at her. “I’ll call you if I find anything out.”
“What is he looking for?” Evan asked as he followed her out of the room.
“He’s doing some research for me. Where’s my car?”