by Paige Tyler
“That’s not strange at all,” Layla said. “But since you don’t have any basis for comparison, you’re going to have to trust me when I say what I’m about to tell you.”
Minka lifted her head to meet Layla’s gaze. “Okay.”
Layla leaned close, as if she was about to reveal a big secret. Minka leaned closer, too. “What you’re experiencing is very normal, especially for a shifter.”
“But I’m a hybrid.”
“Which is just another way of saying a man-made shifter,” Layla said. “Shifters like you and I have better eyesight, better hearing, and a better sense of smell than humans. Well, the same goes for sexual arousal. It’s stronger and more intense for us.”
Minka was relieved to hear what she was feeling was normal for a hybrid. She probably would have been attracted to Angelo regardless of what those doctors had done to her. It simply made that attraction stronger.
“So it isn’t strange that I feel like this about a man I just met?” she asked. “I’ve known Angelo for only a few days.”
Layla smiled. “That’s something else about us. When we meet the right person, we fall for him really fast.”
The right person. As in the man Minka was meant to be with. It seemed unbelievable that he would be an American soldier, but what else explained why she was so comfortable with him? She couldn’t deny that she could see herself being with Angelo permanently. But he was in the army and would almost certainly leave soon. The thought not only hurt somewhere in her chest, but also made the beast restless.
“Is there someone special in your life?” Minka asked, changing the subject.
Layla’s smiled faltered. “There is, but I’m not sure he feels the same way.”
Minka was about to ask Layla what made her think so, but a knock on the open door interrupted her. She looked up to see a big man with a wild mane of dark blond hair and a scruffy jaw coming into the room. Even if Minka didn’t know he was a hybrid by his scent, she almost would have certainly been able to figure it out by the way he carried himself. Like a caged animal—a very big caged animal.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he closed the door.
Layla smiled. “You’re right on time.” She glanced at Minka. “Minka Pajari, meet Tanner Howland.”
Tanner stepped forward and held out his hand, his movements slow and careful, as if he was afraid he would scare her. But while his appearance might have been wild, one look in his eyes told her that he wouldn’t hurt a soul.
“Do you want some coffee before we get started?” Layla asked him.
He shook his head as he lowered himself into one of the chairs opposite the couch. “I had a cup before I came over.”
Layla picked up her notepad from the table and rested it on her knee, pen poised in her right hand. Taking that as a signal they were about to get started, Minka sat up straighter and eyed her expectantly. But before Layla could say anything, someone knocked on the door, then opened it and poked their head in.
Minka stiffened when she saw it was Ivy. After overhearing the argument Angelo and Ivy had had in the hallway yesterday, she hadn’t expected to see the other shifter again. Had Layla convinced her sister to join them? Minka gave Layla a sidelong glance, but the psychologist looked as surprised to see Ivy as she was.
“Ivy,” Layla said. “I didn’t know you were joining us.”
Ivy glanced at Minka, then turned back to Layla. “It was kind of a last-minute thing. I’d like to sit in if you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.” Layla gave Minka a reassuring nod, then gestured to the other chair. “Come in and sit down.”
Minka didn’t know the two sisters, but she sensed there was a rift between them. Tanner must have thought so too, because he suddenly looked like he’d have rather been anywhere else than in the room with them.
When Ivy was seated, Layla said, “Let’s get started, then.” She looked at Minka. “You already know Tanner is a hybrid like you, right, Minka?”
“Yes.” Minka frowned. “However, I am curious about why he wasn’t made from Ivy’s DNA like I am.”
When Angelo had told her about Tanner, she’d assumed he was made from Ivy’s DNA too, but he didn’t smell anything like Ivy or Layla—or even her. She didn’t think the question was an odd one, but from the shocked expressions on everyone’s face, Minka wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have asked.
“What do you mean, you were made with Ivy’s DNA?” Layla said carefully, like she was using words Minka didn’t understand. “Ivy, what is she talking about?”
Minka looked from one sister to the other. Ivy stared down at her hands clasped in her lap but didn’t answer.
“I thought Layla knew, Ivy,” Minka said softly. When Angelo told her not to tell anyone, she hadn’t realized that included Ivy’s sister. And now she’d given Ivy another reason to hate her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you hadn’t told her. I thought…”
Ivy shook her head. “It’s okay, Minka. You couldn’t have known. I should have told Layla before this.”
“Ivy, you’re not making sense,” Layla said. “How did someone get your DNA, and what does it have to do with Minka?”
Tanner cleared his throat. “Maybe I should leave.”
“Stay. Please,” Ivy said. “I’ve been keeping this secret for too long. There are people I should have trusted with this information a long time ago, and you’re one of them.”
Tanner looked unsure but settled back in his chair.
Minka waited for Ivy to continue, but she didn’t say anything. Minka could see the turmoil in her eyes, though—like there was some kind of battle going on inside her, one that involved facing memories Ivy would probably have rather forgotten. Minka could relate.
Finally, Ivy took a deep breath. “Remember when Landon and I went on that mission in Washington State last year?” Layla nodded and Ivy continued. “Well, we were there to do recon on a man named Stutmeir. He’d kidnapped several doctors and scientists, and we thought he was making a bioweapon. But instead, he was turning humans into hybrids.
“I don’t want to get into the details of how it happened, but I was captured. They held me prisoner and experimented on me, taking DNA and tissue samples from every part of my body in the most painful, humiliating, and horrible ways they could come up with. They thought that if they used DNA from a shifter instead of an animal, they could create the perfect hybrid.”
Layla’s eyes glistened with tears. “Where was Landon when this was happening?”
“Trying to rescue me,” Ivy said. “I didn’t know that, though. I thought he was dead, and I wanted to die, too. But Stutmeir wouldn’t kill me. In the end, Landon, Clayne, Kendra, Angelo, and some of the guys from Landon’s former Special Forces team got me out. But not before the doctors escaped with my DNA.”
A tear trickled down Layla’s cheek. Minka wanted to cry, too—for the torture Ivy had gone through then and the torture her sister was going through at that moment.
Ivy stood and walked over to stand in front of the window. “Landon and I spent months scouring the world looking for the two doctors, but all we found were the horribly twisted bodies of people they’d experimented on using my DNA. When the trail went cold a little while ago, I hoped they’d stopped the experiments because they hadn’t worked.” She took a breath. “But then, Minka showed up.”
Minka felt the tears that had threatened earlier burn her eyes. She blinked, hoping no one would see.
But Ivy turned and looked straight at her. “I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting, Minka. It was just that every time I looked at you, I remembered all the things I’d been trying so hard to forget. Even more than that though, I’m sorry for being the cause of all the pain and suffering you went through.”
Minka did a double take. She could understand Ivy wanting to forget being tortured—she did as well. But she didn’t understand why Ivy was apologizing for what had happened to her.
“You aren’t responsible for what those d
octors did to me, Ivy,” she said.
“Yes, I am. If I hadn’t gotten captured and they hadn’t gotten my DNA, you wouldn’t have been turned into…”
Ivy choked on a sob, the words trailing off as tears rolled down her face. Minka stood and crossed the room to put her arm around Ivy even as Layla did the same.
“You didn’t turn me into a hybrid,” Minka said softly. “Klaus and Renard did that. They would have experimented on me whether they had your DNA or not. And if they hadn’t used it, I’d probably be dead like the other people they experimented on. But for whatever reason, your DNA worked on me, making me strong enough to survive and escape. If it weren’t for you, I would never have met Angelo.” She smiled. “Your DNA saved me, and for that, I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
Ivy wiped the tears from her cheeks, her dark eyes filled with awe as she looked at Minka. “I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you’re an amazing person.”
Minka didn’t know what to say to a compliment like that, so she just hugged Ivy again.
On the other side of the room, Tanner cleared his throat. “So, should I come over and join the group hug or what?”
Minka laughed along with Ivy and Layla. Tanner eyed them in confusion, which made Minka laugh even harder. But then, her mother always had said that men never understood women.
With Layla guiding the conversation, Minka, Ivy, and Tanner spent the next two hours talking about what happened to them while they had been held captive. At first, Minka hadn’t been convinced it was a good idea reliving all of that, but it turned out to be very cathartic. Minka hadn’t realized she’d been carrying such a heavy weight on her shoulders until she told them about how she’d been mistreated. Minka had no way to know for sure, but she suspected it was the same for Ivy.
“Now you know why I was so against you working at the DCO,” Ivy told Layla. “Every time I thought about it, I imagined you getting kidnapped and tortured like I had been. It was hard to be happy for you with thoughts like that. I’m sorry.”
Layla leaned over and squeezed her sister’s hand. “It’s okay. But you don’t have to worry about anything like that happening to me because I’m not a field agent and I promise I never will be.”
Tanner seemed to benefit from talking about what the doctors had done to him, too. Even though he had been turned into a hybrid months before Minka, in a whole different part of the world and with a different source of DNA, he experienced the same rage she did. But it seemed like he’d learned how to contain it. Minka hoped he would be able to teach her how to do it, too.
“How did you finally learn to control the beast?” Minka asked when he’d finished.
“At first, I depended on Zarina a lot—probably the same way you depend on Angelo,” Tanner said. “Her voice, her scent, her presence—they were the only things that could keep me from losing it, and the only things that could bring me back if I did. Now, other techniques work for me, too. I could teach them to you, if you want?”
She nodded. “I’d like that. I want to get rid of the beast once and for all.”
Tanner exchanged looks with Layla before turning his blue eyes back on her. “The beast won’t ever go away, not completely. It’s part of you now. But you can coexist with it and learn to keep it in the background except for those rare occasions when you need it to come out.”
Minka’s heart sank. She thought she’d be free of the beast entirely eventually—and she couldn’t imagine why she’d ever want it to come out.
“Can you teach me how to do that now?” she asked Tanner.
Layla switched places with Tanner, letting him sit beside Minka.
“Can you feel the beast right now?” he asked.
“Yes,” Minka said. “It’s always there, waiting to come out.”
Tanner nodded. “First, I want you to close your eyes and relax.” He waited until she did, then continued. “Now, imagine that you’re in a dark room, standing in front of a door. It can be any kind of door you want. Just make sure it’s something you can hold firmly in your mind.”
Minka pictured a solid wood door like the kind in Landon’s apartment.
“Do you see the door?” Tanner asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. On your side of the door, you have a handle that you can open or close. On the other side, there is no handle. That’s where the beast is. It can’t get through the door unless you open it.”
When Minka realized the door would lead to a room where the beast was held captive, she immediately changed the door to a set of metal bars, like the ones that had been on the cell she’d been held prisoner in. It seemed the best way to keep the beast contained.
As Tanner continued to talk in his calm, steady voice about keeping the door securely locked at all times, Minka could feel the metal bars between her and the beast solidify. She imagined the beast pushing at the bars, trying to escape, but the door wouldn’t open and the beast couldn’t come out.
“Now, I want you to open the door just a little,” Tanner said, “just enough for the beast to put one foot out.”
She frowned but didn’t open her eyes. “I’m not sure I should do that. What if it comes out all the way?”
“Then you’ll think of Angelo and the beast will go back in,” Tanner said. “Trust me, Minka. You can do this.”
She wasn’t as convinced. But in her mind, she pictured herself unlocking the door of the cage and opening it just enough for the beast to put one paw out. She immediately felt the beast’s presence moving through her and tightened her mental grip on the cage, refusing to let it out all the way.
“Does the beast have one foot out?” Tanner asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good. Now I’m going to teach you how to make your claws come out—and just your claws.”
Minka tensed but nodded. If she wanted to control the beast, she was going to have to learn to take charge of it. Ivy’s soft voice joined Tanner’s, and together, they taught her how to make the claws on her right hand come out. Then Tanner had her close the door on the beast, and the claws retracted.
She opened her eyes with a laugh. “That was amazing! The beast came out and I was able to make it go back into its cage.”
She could still feel it there, behind the metal bars, watching and waiting. But it didn’t try to get out.
She smiled at Tanner, then at Ivy and Layla. “Thank you so much. All of you.”
Tanner grinned. “You’re welcome. But you did all the work.”
She wasn’t sure about that. “Can we do it again?”
Layla laughed. “Maybe after lunch. You’ve been working with Tanner for almost two hours already. We can get together afterward, if everyone is okay with that?”
Minka couldn’t believe it was lunchtime already. But now that she thought about it, she was hungry. And when Ivy suggested meeting up with Angelo and Landon in the cafeteria, she eagerly agreed.
“You aren’t coming to lunch with us?” Minka asked Layla as the rest of them made their way to the door.
Layla shook her head. “I wish I could, but I have to go see someone. All this talk about secrets and the damage they do has reminded me that I’ve been keeping some secrets of my own I need to come clean about. I’ll see you guys after lunch.”
Minka was disappointed Layla wasn’t joining them, but she could tell it was important to the psychologist. She gave Layla a wave, then joined Ivy and Tanner. She couldn’t wait to see Angelo and tell him how well she had controlled the beast.
* * *
Jayson was doing one of his physical therapy workouts, sweating and grunting through his core and ab exercises when the doorbell rang. He fell back on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard. If he ignored whoever it was, maybe they’d go away.
The doorbell rang again.
“Jayson?” Layla called. “Are you home?”
Where the hell else would he be? He muttered a curse. Okay, that was uncalled for. Layla of all peop
le didn’t deserve it.
“I’ll be right there!” he called back.
He rolled to his knees, then slowly pushed himself to his feet. His back had been feeling pretty good today, at least until he’d started doing the core-strengthening exercises. Now there were sharp tingles running down both legs. That usually meant he was in for some pain later. Then again, he was always in some level of pain. Why should today be any different?
He grabbed the towel he’d put on the arm of the couch and wiped his face, then opened the door. Layla stood there looking seriously hot in a slim skirt, silk blouse, and pumps.
“Hey,” he said. “You get the rest of the day off or something?”
She smiled. “No. I just thought I’d stop by for lunch. Can’t a girl take a break during the day to spend time with her guy?”
Jayson might have been nodding his head as he stepped back to let her in, but inside, his mind was spinning at a hundred miles an hour. Layla got an hour and a half for lunch as one of the perks of a cushy government job, but her office wasn’t exactly a hop, skip, and a jump from his apartment. If she’d driven all that way, it was for a specific reason, and something told him it wasn’t gonna be good.
But he went through the motions of helping her make sandwiches as she chatted.
Jayson chewed his ham and cheese sandwich mechanically, but it was impossible not to notice she had something on her mind. It also wasn’t hard to figure out what it was. Layla had finally realized this thing going on between them was never going to work. She was moving upward at warp speed while he was lying around this damn apartment like lost luggage.
He swallowed hard, ignoring the stab of pain. It had been obvious from the beginning that a relationship with her was never going to work. Still, it hurt like hell.
Layla took a sip of iced tea, set down her glass, and took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you.”
