Page 34 of The Beast's Betrayed Mate
“Why not?”
“Did you bring matches?” he asked.
She gave him a look but couldn’t help a small smile. She sighed, staring at the data on the screen. Rows and rows of trial results. All of them failed.
All of them failed.
She furrowed her brow, sitting up.
“It leveled out with the wolf trials,” she said. “They got a concoction that was stable enough to reintroduce into the wolves’ system. But a wolf isn’tjustwolf.” She turned to him. “They’re human too. Right? Andthat’swhy they dared try it on humans. Because the drug wasn’t killing the wolf to begin with.”
“It was killing… the human side,” Peter filled in. “If either side dies then both die. So, they were trying to make sure that it was safe for the human because… it already was safe for the wolf.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And the human trials that they’ve been running since I got here have all failed but the human subjects haven’t died because they’ve used the same human subjects more than once.” She pointed to the screen where she had brought up the last batch of research she had sent to Jay just the night prior. “There,” she said, indicating a row of repeated numbers. “See? It’s the same ID number. The humans are surviving.”
“Right… What does that tell us?” he asked.
“That theywantthem to survive,” she said. “Can you imagine if there was something that could heal the human body as fast as the wound on your hand healed, only it didn’t turn them into wolves?”
He stared at her, and she nodded slowly.
That was it.
All she did every night was analyze the trial data she was handed. She cross-checked previous data, but she’d only ever had access to the current trial. Only the human subjects. Because they were what the focus was on right now, not any wolves that did or did not survive the earlier iteration of the drug.
“This would change the world,” she said.
“But…” he said slowly.
“But what?”
“Well, introducing wolf blood or DNA or whatever the drug is composed of into a human system… How would they be able to control it? Or keep humans from taking too much and turning wolf? Maybe they’d even go crazy, hopped up on a substance they shouldn’t… God, I’m already referring to humans as separate from me, aren’t I?” He stopped himself, running a hand over his face before he smiled. “Never mind,” he muttered.
“Weareseparate from you now,” she said, reaching out and placing her hand on his lower arm. The hair covering it was soft and she had to force her fingers from stroking it. He placed his hand over it, squeezing lightly again.
Better stop touching him, she told herself.
And she removed her hand, even though he almost held onto it.
She cleared her throat.
“It’s fine that you are, is what I meant to say,” she clarified.
“Thanks, I got that,” he smiled, and she thought, briefly, she could see the wolf within. Not as something different, but as something beginning to mesh. It was so strange that she blinked repeatedly before turning her eyes back on the screen.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I just… Was it always there?”
“What do you mean?”
“The wolf? I mean, yes, you were bitten, but perhaps you always had it inside of you too? Maybe it was just waiting for an excuse to break free. I feel like you’remore… I mean, like you were… back then,” she said.
“And how was I back then?” he asked.
But once more she remembered what drawing conclusions had led to before, and she raised one shoulder in a shrug. She wasn’t going to tell him how she saw him. He was only going to argue with her, belittle her, turn from her. It wasn’t a sensible impression to still cling to, she recognized, but the wound still went too deep for her to not have it as her touchstone when it came to him.
“Tell me,” he prompted.
