by Sara Fields
“I bet it has. Why don’t you and I go into the specimen hold and I can introduce you to the creatures we’re studying. I imagine you have your doubts about the truth of what Amy has told you so far, so let’s get that out of the way first,” he suggested.
Of course, he was right. Even though I’d seen all this circumstantial evidence to suggest that paranormal life existed and was worth protecting in secret, it still didn’t feel quite real or tangible in any way. It felt like a story and the fastest way to make it a reality would be to see it myself.
“How did they find you?” I asked as he led me down the bay of sequencers to the back, where there was a large metal door. He swiped his own keycard and it slid open. The two of us walked inside. We were greeted with another pair of doors. After walking through those, we were met with a third set before we walked down a long hallway. Finally, we passed through a fourth set of doors before the hallway opened up into a much larger room, only instead of scientific equipment, this was lined with large glass cells.
I froze. Inside each one of them was a person.
“These are the shifters you’re going to be studying, Dr. Lowe,” Livingston said.
“Call me Dawn,” I answered.
I looked around and they didn’t appear as dangerous as Amy had led me to believe. In fact, many of them looked far too human.
“Come, let me introduce you to Rebecca. She’s the most docile of the bunch and the only one that I’m comfortable with going into her cell. As long as she isn’t threatened, her ability to keep her instincts at bay is second to none amongst her kind,” he added.
I followed him down the row of individual enclosures. They were all standalone glass cages, situated next to each other with at least three feet in between each one. It was clear that the glass was reinforced, perhaps bulletproof or strong enough to contain a bomb, but I wasn’t certain. As we walked through the cells, I assessed the creatures kept inside and I began to notice a few things that definitely weren’t human. The males were quite a bit larger than normal human men would be. The females were slender and sized similarly to human women, but they appeared strong in their own right. All of their irises were flecked with yellow, perhaps an indication of their human-wolf hybrid status. Some of them met my eyes with open hostility, others with indifference, and only a few looked back at me with curiosity.
The whole thing was quite disconcerting.
The very last cell in the block held a petite woman. Her eyes were brown and unlike the others, only slightly flecked with yellow. Long chocolate brown hair hung in waves down to her waist. She looked at me suspiciously, studying my face as I did hers. Livingston scanned his card outside her cell and the glass door slid open. We walked inside and the door slid closed behind the two of us.
I couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy at being trapped inside a cell with a beast.
“Rebecca, it’s good to see you again,” he offered, and she smiled, if a bit coldly. She turned her head toward me, and her eyes narrowed slightly as she evaluated my presence more closely. Then she sniffed the air and her eyes opened a bit wider. Her expression grew inquisitive after that. I couldn’t sense any hostility.
“Dr. Livingston,” she greeted, all while keeping her eyes locked on me.
“This is Dr. Dawn Lowe. She’s come to work with me. If you’re willing, I’d love for you to show her what you’re capable of,” he said gently. He didn’t demand anything or make a move in her direction. Instead, he just simply made a suggestion to her as if he was talking to a friend instead of a prisoner deep in a secret government prison.
“I would, but I want to do it with her here with me. Alone,” Rebecca replied, staring right into my eyes. She didn’t shift her gaze to Livingston, not even for a second. Instead, she remained focused entirely on me. I had to repress the shiver of nervous fear that threatened to race down my spine.
“Why is that?” he pressed cautiously.
“Because I think Dawn and I are going to be great friends,” she answered evasively. To her credit, I sensed no aggression. If anything, she was curious or maybe even cautiously friendly. Nothing in her demeanor suggested that she wanted to attack me, but I did feel like she wanted to tell me something and that she didn’t want Livingston to hear what she had to say. I wanted to know what that was.
I just hoped that in this instance, curiosity didn’t kill the cat.
“Dawn?” he asked me, and I turned to look back at him.
“It’s fine. Why don’t you return to your experiments? I’ll talk with Rebecca for a little while and then I’ll come find you so that we can finish our little chat.”
There was an armed guard walking by at that moment with a massive gun that looked a lot like a flamethrower, so even if it did prove dangerous, I had faith that he’d rescue me before Rebecca ripped out my throat. At least, I hoped he would.
“Are you sure? The shift can be quite shocking when you see it for the first time,” he said carefully. His face tightened with concern.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” I smiled. He sighed, nodded, and scanned his card again before exiting the enclosure. Rebecca and I watched as he left the room, the surrounding silence oppressive in its intensity.
When he was out of sight, I sighed and sat down in a wooden chair that was by the card table in the corner. Rebecca sat across from me, the movements of her body graceful and still cautious.
“Now that he’s gone, he won’t be able to hear what we say,” she said softly, sitting back in her chair. She cocked her head to the side, sniffing the air once more.
“Why do you want to talk to me alone?” I asked as nonthreateningly as I could.
“Your scent is very unique. I’ve only smelled something like it once before and it’s further confirmation of what I already knew was happening,” she answered.
“What is happening?”
“The alpha has finally returned for us and he’s going to be coming for the betas and his mate. Once he scents his omega, he’s going to take her as his,” she responded.
“And who is this omega?”
“Oh, Dawn, that omega is you.”
Chapter Two
Dawn
I was taken aback for a long second.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. When she didn’t answer right away, I continued and tried to explain myself, sure that what she was saying didn’t make any sense.
“I’m just a biologist who the government decided was useful to the research they’re conducting here. I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t even been here an hour yet. My job is to simply figure out why the shifters’ behavior has changed,” I probed. Her lip curled up in a suggestive smirk.
“The betas are restless. I’m restless too. I’m a lower beta with less of a genomic percentage of wolf than the others, so I haven’t felt it as strongly as they have, but it’s still there. I can feel the presence of an alpha out there and now that I know you exist, that just confirms it twofold,” she replied rather assuredly.
“How can you be so sure?”
“All of the betas are connected. There’s an energy we feed off of in the trees, in the water, in the very air we breathe. It binds us together as one and when our alpha rises, we answer. He calls for us and he calls for his mate. We hear that call no matter what.”
I felt uneasy. I didn’t know what to think of this information. Thrust into a world that I didn’t understand, I sat back and just stared at her.
“I want to see what makes you a shifter. Will you show me?” I finally asked.
“Of course. Just,” she hesitated, “don’t scream.” After that, she started to strip, and I kept silent.
Quickly and efficiently, she pulled the gray t-shirt over her head and then pushed her leggings down her waist. Reaching behind her back, she unclasped her bra and then slipped her panties over her hips. She undressed completely in front of me and I averted my eyes in order to preserve her modesty.
“Don’t look away,” she demanded.<
br />
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“No. It’s normal when you are part of the pack,” she replied. “If we don’t get naked before we shift, our clothes end up in tatters and then we just have to get new ones all the time. Here, sometimes that takes days so we’re all rather comfortable with our nakedness, but there’s no reason to destroy our clothes when it’s not really necessary.”
This was certainly new to me though. I hadn’t really been around any woman this naked since the girl’s locker rooms back in high school. It felt incredibly odd to be thrust into a situation like this.
Her slender form was taut with finely toned muscles. Pert breasts gave way to a firm stomach and shapely hips. She had a physique that most women would kill to have.
“I’m going to shift now,” she said softly. “Don’t be afraid.”
I tried to prepare myself.
Her nails were the first thing to change, lengthening at a frightening speed into thick sharp claws. Then her back began to round and I heard the sickening sound of her vertebrae popping and cracking, changing shape and forcing her arms toward the floor. Next, her ribs fractured and rounded into more of a barrel shape and her head flew back as a scream gradually transformed into a howl. Dark brown hair sprouted all over her skin and I quickly realized that it was very thick fur. Her fingers snapped and shortened, and her hands morphed into paws that clawed at the floor beneath them.
The most haunting thing about it aside from the sound of breaking bones was when her nose started to lengthen into a snout. Her eyes changed from golden flecked brown to fully yellow as a tail sprouted from the base of her spine.
The whole change occurred in less than ten seconds. Just moments before, a naked human woman had stood before me and now a massive beast had taken her place.
Amy had been right. Rebecca’s wolf form was at least double if not triple the size of a normal wolf and if she followed the general rules of nature, she was undoubtedly smaller than the male counterpart of her species. I stood up slowly and took a tentative step toward her before pausing. She stood at eye level with my chest. I wasn’t sure if she’d attack me in this form. One strategic bite could kill me in seconds.
I didn’t feel quite so confident anymore in the guard outside the cage as I stared into the yellow eyes of such a massive animal.
She nodded though and I was reminded of her human origins.
I took another step and reached for her, tracing my fingers along her snout and then in between her eyes. After that, I walked down the length of her body, running my palm down the base of her spine and then down her tail.
“You are incredible,” I observed, and she snorted in what I imagined was a sound of amusement. Her fur was coarse and thick, yet astonishingly smooth and elegant. The brown of her fur matched the brown of her hair, but it was also pigmented with patches of blacks and gray. It was a beautiful coat.
She turned and stared into my eyes.
“Do you hear me, omega?”
Unexpectedly, Rebecca’s voice rang out in my head, but her lips didn’t move. She didn’t howl or even make a noise, but I still heard her all the same. It was more than a little unnerving.
“I can,” I answered, and her cheeks rose up in what I could only imagine a wolf smiling would look like. Her eyes warmed toward me and the coldness I had initially felt from her fell away completely.
“So, it’s true then, you are the omega. If you weren’t, there would be no way I could communicate with you in this form.” She sat back on her haunches and her tail wagged back and forth slowly. For a moment, she reminded me of something distinctly feline even though she was very different from a cat.
“What does being an omega even mean?”
“The omega,” she corrected. “It means that the alpha has risen. Every few hundred years, the alpha rises to lead us and to spread the seed of our kind. Without our alpha, our species would die out. There hasn’t been an alpha in existence since the early 1600s.”
“Why is that?”
“Betas are infertile, at least they are after several generations or they reach a certain age. Every wolf in this room with me is incapable of siring children.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You are special. Through mechanisms we do not understand, when an alpha rises, so does an omega, or in other words, his fated mate. Something in your DNA responds to him, maybe something epigenetically repressed that is activated once you’re in his presence or maybe it is through some other mechanism, but it really doesn’t matter. Your existence is direct evidence that our alpha has risen. I had felt him in my bones, but I was reluctant to believe it was real.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because I was living in Rome when the last alpha rose.”
I stilled. That would mean she was more than three hundred years old.
“I was born in the year 1645. I stopped being fertile in 1701.”
Holy shit. This was a scientific anomaly like nothing I had ever seen.
“The alpha is going to be coming for us and for you, once he realizes you’re here. He won’t tolerate the captivity of his betas and he will free us. It won’t be long. I can feel he isn’t far and that he will bring the power of the pack with him. He won’t come alone. They’ll destroy this facility in an effort to give the betas the freedom to follow their alpha, just like nature intended.”
“How have you survived this long?”
“We’re strong and we’re intelligent. The humans think they have us secure down here, but it is our nature to evaluate everything for a weakness. We have been biding our time until the alpha rises and that time is now. We only have to wait for him to arrive to help us take back our freedom.”
“How do you know the alpha is coming for you? And for me?”
“I can feel him coming for us. I can also feel his anger but most of all, I can feel his hunger to find his mate. You’d best prepare yourself, omega, because when he comes for you, he’s never going to let you go.”
* * *
When I returned to Livingston, I didn’t tell him what Rebecca had told me, just that she had explained what her kind were and that she had wanted to get to know me on a woman to woman level. He’d taken my word at face value and then, in his excitement to have me here, proceeded to show me the rest of the lab and the resources I had at my disposal. I found myself only partially listening, my mind too wrapped up in what Rebecca and I had discussed. Finally, when he sensed my detachment, he looked at his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock and I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. My stomach chose that moment to voice its displeasure and growled loudly in protest. Livingston chuckled and his eyes sparkled with amusement at hearing it.
“Look at the time! I’m sure you’re exhausted and pretty hungry. I’ll show you to your room, and let me tell you, this place has the most fantastic room service. Pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s so incredibly good!” he exclaimed. “It’s not far, follow me.”
True to his word, he brought me to a small apartment that was only a few minutes’ walk away from the lab. There, he showed me the room service menu and pointed out his favorites, which happened to the berry-glazed French toast and the chefs specially made cinnamon pancakes. I grinned, remembering just how much of a sweet tooth my former mentor had. Apparently, some things never change.
“It’s good to see you again, Dawn. I’m looking forward to working with you, just like old times,” he exclaimed elatedly.
“As am I,” I answered, smiling in return.
He didn’t stay much longer, only to point out essential information like what floors I didn’t have access to and the fact that the lab was shut down after midnight unless explicit permission was obtained first.
After Livingston retired to his own quarters, I picked up the phone and ordered the French toast he’d liked so much, only I added eggs and sausage to my order. I didn’t care that it was dinnertime. I was going to have breakfast because I
wanted to.
It had been a day and sometimes sugar made it all better. The only thing better would have been sex, but I hadn’t had that in years thanks to my work.
I didn’t know what I was going to do with the information I had learned just yet, but I would deal with it in the morning. Funny little thing about science, sometimes even the very best things in life got put on the backburner because the next grant was due, the next manuscript needed to be submitted, and more data was required for either one or even both at the exact same time. Science never slept, but I certainly was going to tonight.
* * *
I woke up early that morning exhausted. Blinking my weariness away, I stared at the digital clock on the nightstand. It read 5:00 a.m. It wasn’t time to get up yet. No way.
I closed my eyes and groaned as I wondered what had woken me up in the first place. I curled up into the soft mattress, pulling the covers up and over my shoulders as a shiver raced down my spine. Just as I began to drift back into dreamland, the bed shook beneath me, and my eyes shot open.
What the hell was that?
It happened again and I started to grow uneasy. Here I was, several floors underground, and the ground was quaking above and below my feet. Was this building reinforced against an earthquake? Did Montana even get those? Was the ceiling going to fall down and bury me alive?
I groaned. I wanted to go back to sleep, but my mind was racing too fast to even contemplate it.
I didn’t want to die for the sake of whatever research I’d been forced into. Feeling suddenly way more awake than I did before, I hopped out of bed and hurried to turn on the light. I rushed to get dressed, finding a pair of jeans, a tank top, and a long-sleeved button-up flannel shirt in forest green. Everything was a perfect fit. The government had my sizes apparently and had filled up a closet with clothes for me to my exact specifications. I didn’t know whether to be creeped out or impressed.
The entire building rattled again, and a hairline fracture raced across the ceiling above me. I gritted my teeth and stared up at it.
