by Sadie Moss
Doctor Shepherd scrambled up, breathing hard. He wasn’t wearing his white doctor’s coat, just a simple dark jacket and slacks. His shadowy image flickered and wavered again as he raised the gun, stepping forward and pulling another syringe from his jacket pocket.
It hardly stung when he pressed it into my neck. It hardly felt like anything.
Then I was spiraling, sinking into a black hole of nothingness. The wolf that had risen to the surface slipped away, my bones breaking and reforming in slow motion as I curled up on the floor, naked and helpless.
Doctor Shepherd and his strange, wavering twin image crouched over me, tapping their guns to their chins.
“I didn’t want to do this, Alexis,” he murmured. “I hope you didn’t make me damage you. We’ll have to work on your compliance.”
He stashed the gun in his waistband, grabbed the still rocking flashlight, then returned to me. Cool arms slipped under my shoulders and knees, and then I was being lifted.
The tiny part of my brain that still understood any of this screamed for me to fight. To kick, punch, elbow my way out of his hold.
But my arms hung limp, dangling beside my body as Doctor Shepherd grunted, adjusting me in his arms. He pressed his hand to a spot near one of the shelves, and an odd hydraulic hiss filled the room. When he turned to the bare wall… a section of it was missing. There was nothing but a gaping open space where it had once been.
Fight, Alexis. Fight!
A surge of dread rose up in me at the sight of that opening, and I shuddered in the doctor’s arms, trying to force my muscles into action. His grip on me tightened, cradling my body to him in an almost protective gesture.
“I’ve got you, kiddo. Don’t you worry.”
Then he stepped into the blackness beyond before the wall slid into place behind us.
And I knew no more.
Chapter Twelve
I sat on the examination table in a hospital gown, the surface cool beneath my skin. My fingers drummed a soft beat against the edge of the table as I leaned forward, gazing at Doctor Shepherd hopefully.
Last week, I had turned fourteen. And when I’d blown my birthday candles out on the cake-that-wasn’t-cake because I couldn’t have cake, I had made a wish to celebrate my fifteenth birthday outside these walls. Maybe then it would be more than just my mom and a few nurses at my party. Maybe then I could have real cake, with gooey frosting and too much sugar.
“Am I getting better, Doctor Shepherd?” I asked, biting my bottom lip. “I feel better. I feel stronger.”
“You’ve been doing well, kiddo.” Doctor Shepherd rubbed absently at the tattoo on his wrist as he glanced over the stacked papers in my file. “Very, very well. We’re a long way from out of the woods yet, but I have to tell you, you’re the most promising patient we’ve ever treated. I think we’ve got a real shot at getting what we want this time.”
Pride and determination swelled in my chest.
The most promising patient.
A real shot.
I could do it. I would do whatever he told me to, follow whatever directives he gave. Because I could hear it in his voice—he really did think I was special.
That this would work.
“Thanks, Doctor.” I grinned broadly, swinging my bare feet back and forth.
“No, Alexis. Thank you.” Doctor Shepherd glanced up at me, his brown hair cut short and carefully styled as always, his red eyes gleaming like fire.
Wait.
What?
No… That’s not right.
I blinked, fear creeping over my skin like frost.
“Doctor Shepherd,” I whispered. “Your eyes… What’s wrong with your—”
I blinked again, and I was eighteen.
The exam room looked the same as always. The cool surface of the table beneath me made me shiver, and goose bumps broke out under the thin medical gown I wore. My chest had been bothering me for a few weeks—strange pains that woke me up at night, making it hard to breathe, as if some massive thing were sitting on top of me, crushing me.
“What is it, kiddo? What’s bothering you?” Doctor Shepherd’s voice was soothing as he moved the stethoscope over my back, listening to me breathe.
A sigh fell from my lips. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m losing ground. My recovery was going so well for so long, but now I can’t even keep up with my physical therapy. It feels like… like my body is shutting down.”
“I’ll cancel your sessions with Erin until we get you back on track. And I’ll adjust your meds again.” His cool hand fell on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We’re not giving up on you, Alexis; we’re all invested in you. We’ll get you through this.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Drawing a deep breath, I turned toward his hand, but my breath caught in my throat. The tattoo on his wrist was seeping blood, the black ink splitting his skin open in deep gashes. His grip on my shoulder tightened, crushing tendons and bones as blood dripped down his wrist, moving against gravity to spread up and over the back of his hand like a red glove.
“Doctor Shepherd,” I whimpered, eyes widening in horror. “You’re bleeding. You’re hurting me—”
I blinked.
Twenty-one-year-old me sat on the exam table, tugging on a loose thread in the too-familiar hospital gown. I chewed my lip, trying to shove aside the hopeless feeling that’d plagued me ever since my collapse a few weeks ago. Every time I’d gotten frustrated in the past, I had bounced back with the help of my mom, the nurses, and the staff at the Strand complex. If they all believed in me so much, I should believe in myself too, right?
So why was it so much harder this time?
“How do you find the balance?” My pleading gaze landed on Doctor Shepherd where he perched on his rolling stool, filling out yet another chart. “Between faith and science?”
He looked up at me, smiling, then rose from his stool and walked to the crib that sat along one wall. “I don’t need to, kiddo. At some point, the two intersect. And that’s where miracles happen.”
His long-fingered hands reached into the crib, drawing out a tiny, mewling baby. Her arms and legs bore chubby little rolls of fat that spoke of health and vitality, and tufts of light brown hair covered her head. She let out a piercing wail as Doctor Shepherd lifted her in his arms, and a rush of fear more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced crashed through me, stealing my breath and icing my veins.
“Doctor Shepherd…” I whispered, terrified tears spilling from my eyes as my heart beat against my ribs like a drum. “No… Please… Not my baby.”
The tall man turned to me, cocking his head. His red eyes burned into me, and his blood-covered hand cradled the back of my child’s perfect head.
“Oh, kiddo.” He shook his head with false pity. “She’s not your baby. She belongs to Strand.”
I blinked.
The action was slow and painful, a drag of heavy eyelids over scratchy orbs. Blurry light assaulted me, and I let my lids slide shut again, a rough groan falling from my lips.
A noise came from my left—a tapping sound, like someone typing on a keyboard. It paused at the sound of my moan, and an eerie silence filled the space, so much worse than the rhythmic tapping.
The pain in my chest was back. Just like during those episodes when I was eighteen, I felt like something huge was sitting on my chest, crushing the life out of me. I whimpered again, and my chest ached trying to draw in enough breath to make that sound.
A barrage of nonsensical images flashed through my mind.
Days, hours, weeks at Strand.
Visits with the woman who told me she was my mother; consultations with Doctor Shepherd.
Being strapped to a gurney, rocking helplessly back and forth with the motion of the ambulance, strapped down by the woman who had raised me.
This felt like that had. But that couldn’t be right, could it?
I was no longer at Strand. My ‘mother’—the woman named McGowan—was dead. I had killed her.
Forcing my eyes open to escape the images churning behind my closed lids, I grimaced at the too-bright light. For a moment, it consumed my vision, making my head throb with pain. Then the intensity slowly faded as my eyes began to adjust. I stared up at the white ceiling, dotted with several recessed lights, trying to catch my breath.
“What…?” I croaked.
“You’ll feel better in a little while.”
The voice was calm and smooth, delivered with a perfect bedside manner, and my stomach clenched violently at the sound. Disregarding the pulsing pain in my temples, I whipped my head to the left to see Doctor Shepherd. He sat at a small desk against the wall, a laptop set up in front of him. He’d been typing up notes, it looked like. The room itself was simple and small, a fairly basic exam room—except for the images scrawled over the walls. The triangle design with the spiral patterns appeared several times, mixed in with other strange, ornate symbols.
Jesus. What is this place?
Catching my eye, Doctor Shepherd rose from his stool. I gasped, my entire soul recoiling from him, and tried to throw myself away from him.
But the weight pressing on my chest hadn’t been in my imagination. I was strapped down—arms, legs, torso, and pelvis bound firmly to the table beneath me by thick metal chains. The cool, unforgiving metal pressed against my chest so hard the links dug into my skin, and the chains on my arms and legs circled my limbs entirely, nearly cutting off my circulation before connecting to the table.
A harsh cry fell from my lips, and even in my foggy state, I tried to shift. My bones rippled and my muscles tore beneath my skin, but there was nowhere for them to go. The wolf inside me was so much bigger than my human form that I had to expand for the shift to take place—but with the heavy metal chains crisscrossing me, there was no fucking room.
Mid-shift, my body reversed course, knitting bones and muscles back together painfully.
I grunted, chest heaving uselessly against the tight metal restraints, my head thrashing back and forth as agony burned through me. This sudden reversal felt like the first time I’d shifted, the pain just as acute.
Finally, my muscles stopped rippling. Cold sweat covered my naked body, and I drew breath in short, painful gasps.
“I should’ve warned you, you also won’t be able to shift while you’re restrained like this. And if you keep trying, it’ll exhaust you and delay your recovery from the tranquilizers I administered.”
His tone was one I recognized. The mildly chastising tone a doctor might take with a patient who had overestimated their strength and pushed too hard during recovery.
Only I hadn’t pushed too hard. I’d been injected with tranquilizers and chained to a table. By him.
“F…uck… you,” I slurred, blinding rage helping me shake off the lingering effects of the sedatives.
Doctor Shepherd drew back, looking almost surprised to hear me talk back. Then he shook his head, stepping closer until he stood right at the edge of the table, looking down at me.
“You always did have so much fire inside you, kiddo. I often wondered if that’s why you were the one who survived. Sheer stubborn willpower. Or is it something about you? About your base DNA?”
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, and every ragged inhale felt like it crushed my chest. My body heaved against the chains, but I couldn’t budge.
“Alexis. Stop.” Doctor Shepherd sighed. “You’re going to hurt yourself, and I don’t want to sedate you again. I didn’t want to do it in the first place, but now that I know…”
He trailed off, his gaze flitting down my body. My focus followed his, and I looked down at my prone form, laid out on the flat surface of the table. Small strips of cloth were draped over my breasts and pelvis, and purple bruises were already blossoming where the chains wrapped around my bare skin. Metal straps crossed my upper thighs, my hips, and my torso above and below my breasts, but my midsection was conspicuously absent any restraints.
He knows.
Dragging my gaze back up to Doctor Shepherd’s face, I forced words past my rapidly closing throat. “Where am I? What did you do to me?”
“We’re in an… addition I had built into the complex. As much as I appreciate the hard work of my staff, I wanted a place where I could conduct my own tests. A private office, if you will. It’s well hidden, and well-protected.”
He smiled, his blue, slightly bloodshot eyes warming.
“And I haven’t done anything to you, Alexis. Aside from the tranquilizers, anyway, and those only knocked you out for a couple hours. Just standard tests. You’ve been out of my care for so long, I wanted to make sure you’d been taking care of yourself. And you have, haven’t you?”
“You sick… fucking… bastard.”
Tears burned my eyes, and my muscles strained with the urge to curl into a ball, to hide my precious, exposed abdomen from him.
But it was too late. Whatever tests he’d run had told him everything.
“I knew it would be you,” he whispered, an almost reverential look crossing his face. “I knew it. And your wolf? Gods, she’s incredible.”
“Unstrap me,” I grated, “and I’ll show you just how incredible she is.”
Teeth snapping. Blood pouring. Just give me one chance, you sick fucker.
He shook his head, chuckling. “Of course I’m not going to do that, Alexis.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Is that the wolf in you, or just youthful impulsiveness? That impulse to act before you think? To challenge everything that scares you to a fight?”
“I don’t need a goddamn psych evaluation, you asshole!” I yelled, the words thin and raspy, tearing at my throat. “Stop acting like you know me!”
If I expected him to shrink back at my words, I was sorely disappointed. Instead of appearing the least bit chastened, he leaned forward, a feverish light glowing in his pale blue eyes as he stroked my cheek.
“But I do know you. Better than anyone. I raised you—I created you. Thanks be to the gods.”
I blinked up at him, too shocked and repulsed to even struggle against his touch. “What… gods?”
“The gods who provided this gift to me, Alexis.” His face broke into a smile. “The serum they provided—the Source—was the faith, and my knowledge was the science. And together, they created a miracle. I’ve spent so many years experimenting with the Source, using modern medicine to help the human body survive the change. I adjusted dosages, medications, regimens, but it was never right. Never perfect. Until you.”
The Source wasn’t something Doctor Shepherd had created? Was it truly a supernatural substance? Or just something science couldn’t explain yet?
“Where did it come from?” I rasped. “Where did you get it?”
I couldn’t see how I might get out of here alive, how I could possibly bring the information back to Val and Elijah and the rest of the Lost Pack.
But I had to know.
“I found it. The gods showed it to me, and I claimed it.” He straightened, his intense gaze still locked on me. “But that was only part of the puzzle. I had to learn how to use it effectively. Not everyone could’ve done that, which is why I know I was meant to find it. I brought Terrence on board, showed him the miracle I’d discovered, and he agreed to help me. The two of us had resources and knowledge others lacked.” A grimace twisted his bland features. “And until recently, we both had the stomach for it.”
A hot blade of fear pierced my gut.
Terrence Cole, the previous CEO of the Strand Corporation, had died recently. Had his death been because he no longer approved of Doctor Shepherd’s sick experiments?
Sadness reflected in the tall man’s eyes, and he shook his head.
“I wish he could’ve lived to see this; to know that all those years of failed trials and experiments were worth it in the end. Because now I have you. My alpha queen. The mother of shifters.”
Chapter Thirteen
I stared up at Doctor Shepherd as my lungs struggled to draw in air.
The most terrifying part was that except for the glint of manic fervor in his eyes, he still looked and sounded just like the doctor I had known all those years in Strand—calm, thoughtful, intelligent. It was easy enough to see how he’d fooled me for so long, how he continued to fool the rest of the world.
His fingers still brushed my face, and I jerked my head away, breaking the contact.
He stepped back, sighing. “I see you’re not ready to accept this for the gift it is yet. But you will. I promise you, you’ll come around.”
I laughed harshly, my chest aching at the movement. My voice wheezed as I spoke. “What, like Nils? You think I’ll become a believer like him? Maybe get a matching tattoo?”
Sharp blue eyes met mine, and the bland pleasantness on Doctor Shepherd’s face vanished. “Nils was one of my best men, and a friend. I won’t have you speak of the dead that way.”
There were a dozen things I wanted to say to that. I wanted to curse Nils’s name, tell Doctor Shepherd his friend had fought like a little bitch, mock him for having to hire mercenaries as friends. But none of those things would help my situation. The mad doctor wouldn’t kill me, I was sure of that. But there were plenty of things he could do that would make me wish I were dead.
I couldn’t bring myself to apologize either, so instead I just lay there, staring up at Doctor Shepherd with bleary, puffy eyes. The room still seemed too bright, his voice too loud.
We locked eyes in silence for several moments, and finally, he dropped his head. “Let me show you, Alexis. Let me show you what a miracle you are.”
Before I could ask what he meant by that, he stepped away and tugged over a rolling medical cart. Something that looked like a small TV sat atop it, several cords protruding from the device.
My gaze shot to his face, fear roiling in my stomach. I’d heard the horror stories from other shifters, tales of what they’d experienced at the hands of Strand doctors. By comparison, my time in the Austin complex had been a luxury. Full of lies and deceit, maybe, but free of physical torture.
