Page 48 of Wolf Unleashed
“Then release me.”
“I can’t. It’s because I love you that I can’t let you go. And I don’t wish to fight. You’re finally home. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” He guided her back to the bed and pressed her to sit.
Despite that genuine smile and fatherly way he gripped her shoulder, her father was a killer. Maybe he didn’t dirty his own hands, but he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of shifters.
“Youloveme? You don’t know the meaning of the word. You never did.”
He looked over his shoulder at the mercenary. “More brainwashing than I feared, Murphy.”
“It was expected, sir.”
“No one brainwashed me.”
“You don’t see it. That’s part of the brainwashing.”
“Oh, and you see something. You don’t even know me. Even when I was a child, you never took the time to know me.”
“You know nothing about what I’ve done for you, sweetie.”
“Don’t call me that!”
He chuckled. “At least they haven’t dampened your spirit.”
“Release me,” she demanded, knowing it was a fool’s request, but right now logic escaped her. Between the drug still clouding her mind and Maddox’s increasing agitation crossing the bond, she couldn’t focus.
“I was told you were forced to blood-bond. A wolf from a Colorado pack.”
“I wasn’t forced. And who told you that? Only a few shifters know, and none of them would be friendly with you.”
“I have connections, even in some of the very packs my organization watches.”
“You mean the packs your organization targets,” she said. “Or should I say slaughters? That Shifter Elimination Virus was quite effective.”
“SEV taught us a lot about the packs and their network.”
“I thought your goal was to eliminate them.”
“You see, I knew they were spreading lies to turn you and other humans against us. We don’t want to kill all shifters. Just those we can’t return.”
“Return where? They were born here. In the U.S. OnEarth, Father.”
“Yes, I understand that. A mistake of nature caused by the Origination Virus some one hundred fifty years ago. When I say return, I mean to their natural state. That of being human. SEV was designed to kill off the beasts inside shifters, to turn shifters human again. At least, that was our intent. But the virus was far from perfect. Though the initial trial kept your wolf caged all these years. I didn’t make a breakthrough until we came across a young woman’s work in genetics. A Dr. Anna Carson.” He sighed. “She, too, was lost to us. Brainwashed by one of the packs near Devil’s Peak. I hear she’s given birth to a shifter. Such a loss. But this is war and loss cannot be avoided.”
“Wait, go back. You said something about an initial trial. On me? Youexperimentedon me?”
“You never knew about it, did you? We covered it up nicely, though it took several months for you to recover. It was worth it, though. Finding the right chemicals to erase that part of your memory.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There never was a car accident, sweetie. Right after you turned twelve, you began to shift. We stopped it and kept you in a medically induced coma until we could figure out how to destroy your wolf without hurting you. When it became clear we couldn’t do it, we decided to force your wolf back and keep it caged, buying us time to come up with a permanent solution. You were only a child. I couldn’t keep you in a coma for years, and you deserved to lead the rest of your life without the trauma of that beast forcing a shift. So we erased your memories of that part of your life.”
Alyssa felt sick. She had shifted at puberty, as any healthy shifter should. And here she thought there had been something wrong with her or her wolf. It had been the work of her father.
“You had no right! I deserve to be who I am. Even if that means I’m a shifter!”
“They’ve brainwashed you into thinking like them.”
“Youjust admitted to brainwashing me. And then you hired some creepy tutor back in middle school to indoctrinate me into your warped way of thinking.”
