Page 84 of Property of Crypt Keeper
He tapped something on the tablet.
“Certain bloodlines stabilize mutations. Others suppress them. Some strengthen existing supernatural traits. Some…” His eyes gleamed. “…make the impossible viable.”
My stomach dropped because I knew exactly what he was referring to: Zara.
The Doctor’s gaze shifted slightly, like he was reading the thought in the air before it fully formed. “The female was not supposed to survive. Did you know that?”
I stopped breathing. Everything inside me stopped. Rafael watched closely. Too closely.
“What female?” I asked, though I knew the answer. My voice was flat. Too flat.
The Doctor smiled. “Come now.”
The collar burned as my throat worked around a growl.
“Say her name,” I demanded.
The Doctor’s head tilted. “Zara?”
My wolf went insane. Lashing wildly, I hit the restraints with everything I had. Silver burned. Wards detonated. The angled table I was strapped to rocked. Pain ripped through every nerve, but I didn’t care. I’d have torn off my own arms to get to him.
Rafael moved fast, pressing something against my neck. Another injection.
Motherfucker.
Fire flooded my veins. My body weakened, but the rage stayed, burning bright.
The Doctor watched all of it with that same quiet curiosity.
“Remarkable protective response,” he finally observed with a touch of awe.
“She’s a child,” I snarled.
“She is proof.” He sounded almost excited.
“Of what?”
“That female Rougarous are possible.”
The room tilted on its axis. Not from the drugs. From the words.
The Doctor stepped closer again.
“Male Rougarous are rare, which I’m sure you’re well aware. Females were considered biologically impossible. Your line changed that.”
“My line?” What the fuck was he talking about?
The Doctor grinned like I’d finally asked the right question. “Your mother’s blood fascinated me long before you were old enough to shift.”
The world narrowed. My mother. My dead mother. The one who never knew.
The one who raised me until another man came along, and she walked away from her own child for him. No, not just a man. My little brother recently discovered his father had been something much darker than a man in a motorcycle club. Regardless, death had taken her and left my father to finish the job alone.
“What did you do to her?”
“Not a thing,” he assured me, and somehow that was worse. “She was observed. Her records acquired. Her bloodline traced. Quietly. Respectfully, even.”
“Respectfully,” I repeated incredulously, my tongue beginning to feel thick. It was getting harder to hold my head up, and I could feel the edge of the metal collar pressing into my neck.
