Page 20 of Flawed Fate
He takes the vials to the counter behind his desk where he keeps a portable analyzer. He loads the first sample, enters something on the keypad, and waits. The machine hums. He watches the screen with that look I know so well. The one wherethe rest of the world fades into the background until it might as well not exist.
Minutes pass. The machine beeps. He leans closer to the screen.
And he smiles. It’s a small, tight curve of his lips, but it’s something I hardly ever see. This is excitement. Real, genuine excitement, more than I’ve seen from him in forever.
“Iris.” He turns to me, and for the first time since I walked through the door, he’s actually seeing me. “Your cells are beginning to mutate.”
I blink. “What?”
“The infusion. The latest adjustment to the serum is working. Your cellular structure is shifting. It’s subtle. It’s early stage, but the markers are unmistakable.” He holds up the vial of my blood like it’s made of gold. “One more treatment. That’s all it should take. One more treatment, and we’ll achieve full integration.”
Full integration. The words I’ve been waiting to hear for years. Full integration means the shifter blood takes hold. It means my body starts to change. To heal.
It means I might be able to have children someday. It means the thing that’s been broken in me might finally get fixed.
I should be thrilled. I should be crying with relief because all those nights spent grinding my teeth through the pain were worth it.
Instead, my stomach drops as horror starts to bloom. “Another treatment,” I murmur. “Not now, though, right?”
“As soon as possible. If we wait too long, the cellular momentum stalls, and we’d have to start the integration phase from scratch. We need to move while your body is already in flux.”
“Dad, I just… the last infusion was only last night.” I hate how weak my voice sounds, but I hate the memories more. “I was soout of it I couldn’t even… I don’t think I can handle that again. Not this soon.”
He’s already turning back to the analyzer, checking the second vial. “The discomfort is temporary. You know that. You’ve done this before.”
“It wasn’t discomfort. It was—” I hear the whimper in my voice and know it’ll only make him shut me out, so I stop and try again, steadier this time. “It hurt. Worse than any of the other times. And you said the adjustment would make it easier, but it wasn’t easier. It was worse.”
“That’s because the serum is working.” He says it patiently, as if he’s talking to a toddler instead of his grown daughter, whom he’s supposed to care about and protect. “The pain correlates with cellular engagement. More pain means more integration. This is good news.”
Pain is good news?
“You’ll be fine,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. Already thinking about the next step, the next phase. “I’ll make some modifications to the delivery rate. We’ll manage it.”
I swallow hard and nod because that’s what I do. Dad says it’s fine, so it’s fine. Dad says the pain is worth it, so the pain is worth it. I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve never questioned it because why would I? He’s a genius. He knows what he’s doing.
How many times has Declan’s face flashed behind my eyes in the last hour? How many times have I heard his voice in my head asking me if I was okay? He crouched down to my level and brushed the hair back from my face and asked me if I was okay, and he meant it. He actually wanted to know.
I push the thought away. It’s not helping.
“The wolf they brought back,” I say instead, because the question has been clawing at me since they loaded Tara into the van. “The female. What’s going to happen to her?”
Dad barely looks up from his notes. “We have plans for him.”
I frown. “Her. The woman. Tara.”
“I’m not talking about the woman.” He sets his pen down and looks at me straight-on, and there’s something new in his expression now. Satisfaction. The look he gets when a piece falls into place. “The pack alpha. We brought him back with us. We have plans for him.”
A full-body tremor rolls through me. They have Declan.
It comes together all at once, and I have to wonder why it took this long to figure it out now that everything seems so obvious. I guess that’s how it always works. Something about hindsight being twenty-twenty.
The tranquilizer darts. The strike team. They weren’t just there to get me. They were there to take him.
This was never a rescue mission. It was a capture operation, and I was the bait. That’s why Dad left me. He knew they’d take me with them and give him a reason to invade their territory.
“He’s here?” My voice comes out wrong. Too sharp, too panicked. I try to pull it back. “In the facility?”
“Secured in a holding cell on the lower level. He’ll be sedated until we’re ready for him.” Dad picks up his pen again, already moving on. “Having a pack alpha in our custody is an extraordinary opportunity. The biological data alone will be invaluable. And given your results...”
