Page 52 of Blade's Battle
Tess patted Anna’s knee. “You’re getting hung up on the blood-bonding part before you even know if you want him. Give it time. See what happens.”
“He doesn’thavetime. He’s going feral. Which is why I have to get back to my lab and find a solution.”
“A solution to going feral?”
“He’s already in the process, so at this point it would be more about stopping the process or reversing it, not preventing it.”
“That’s incredible, but I have to be honest. If you’d been here to stop Damien from going feral, I probably wouldn’t have gotten back my ability to shift.”
“What? You have your ability to shift back? How? And how does going feral have anything to do with that?”
“We blood-bonded.”
“I thought you were just living together.”
“Nope. We blood-bonded, though not in a manner I’d recommend.”
From Tess’s expression, Anna guessed there was a story there, but the fact that Tess could shift again demanded her immediate attention. The virus had left Tess unable to shift and blood-bonding shouldn’t have changed that. Anna needed more data.
“How did the blood-bonding affect Damien?”
“He’s the same as before. I guess we both got lucky. I got enough of Damien’s shifter genes to save me and he didn’t get any of mine.”
“That’s not how it works. There is a two-way exchange of genetic code during the blood-bond. Half of the shifter’s bridge is rewritten with the code of the other shifter. It’s the very reason I shouldn’t blood-bond Blade. I have no shifter genes to give him. Blood-bonding me would leave his bridge permanently compromised and exceedingly weak.”
It wasareason not to blood-bond him, but notthereason. Blade had said he didn’t care if he lost his abilities as a strong shifter. Anna believed him, but that wasn’t what she was worried about. What if he became sick like Kurt and had no immunity to fight off the sickness as a result of a blood-bonding? Even if he never became sick, hunters could get him, the damn WSSO could get him. The possibilities of how she could lose him were endless. She couldn’t go through that heartache again.
“Damien should have been compromised if the virus had destroyed your genes, Tess, essentially making you human with no genes to transfer.”
“I can’t explain it. All I know is that if he hadn’t gone feral, I would have walked away from him and his pack without my ability to shift. I was afraid that blood-bonding me would kill him. There came a point. . . well, he went feral, and I had to try. Anyway, after we blood-bonded, my abilities returned, though it took time, and they’re not what they were before the virus. Damien is as strong as ever. Before blood-bonding, I couldn’t shift no matter what I did. My hearing, vision, ability to heal. . . All of it was no better than a human’s.” Tess turned red. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. I have no problem being human in a shifter world.”
“There aren’t many who would say that. Myself included.”
“We’re all similar in the ways that count. And we all have good and bad among us.”
“You definitely have a point there. WSSO. Drake.” Tess held both hands up as if she were weighing the two. “Both cut from the same cloth.”
“Precisely.” Anna contemplated what Tess had said. None of it made any sense. Blood-bonding should not have returned Tess’s ability to shift.
“Are your shifter abilities the same as before the virus?”
“I can’t shift nearly as fast as I used to.” Tess paused, closed her eyes, and drew a long deep breath. “I’m still working on staying positive. Don’t get me wrong. As long as I can shift, regardless of how painful, I’ll take it. But I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to do even that. It’s been getting harder and harder to shift.”
“What does Damien think?”
“He doesn’t know.”
Anna’s eyes widened.
“Don’t look at me like that. He’s got a lot on his plate with the WSSO and Drake.”
“You’re scared,” Anna said, recalling what it was like always trying to keep a positive outlook and maintain a smile every time she had entered Kurt’s room. Anna had held onto hope until the very end; it was all she could do.
“I skipped the Running of the Moon last month, which everyone in the pack attends. I lied to him, Anna, and I feel awful about it. I said I wasn’t feeling well, but I was scared of shifting again. The last time seemed even slower than the time before. It feels as if I’m losing my ability to shift all over again. I need to talk with him before this comes between us, but—”
Anna squeezed Tess’s hand. All those months in the dark without anything to do or anyone to talk to, Anna had often thought she’d go mad. Then Tess had arrived and had spent hours sitting on the ground in the dark cave, outside the bars. Tess had kept Anna company, talking about her relationship with Damien and her fears of making him less, of taking down the pack’s alpha with her blood.
