“Do you turn into a big cat like a lion or a tiger?” Ryleigh said, captivated by the information being revealed. “You mention cats. You’re fast, strong, and, well, you have blond hair. You also move with a grace that I always thought came from your SEAL training. Oh, that would be awesome, will you show me?” she squealed with excitement.
“Damn, honey, you always surprise me; never saying what I expect,” Declan said. “But sorry to burst your bubble, I’m not a cat. I think if you thought about it long and hard enough, you will be able to figure it out; or at least get in the right realm. But you have to understand that you were never supposed to know. My community is small. We keep to ourselves help where we can. Many of us join the military because of our need to serve and protect. But also, to alleviate our more animalistic natures. Battle provides an outlet for our animals, while still keeping us human. Taking down the enemy helps control the animals within us, giving them an outlet. The structure also provides solid lines. But, honey, I can’t say this enough; this knowledge isn’t to be spread. Do you understand?”
Gulping Ryleigh managed a, “Yes.” She was still in shock. Her Dad turned into an animal. He could change his body and form; change his species. Was that, even right? No, he was an entirely different species. It didn’t make sense, but it intrigued her just the same. Her brain was telling her it wasn’t possible, but that was because of what she was taught and her assumptions were blown wide open. Then there was what he said. Battle provided their animals with an outlet. Was the man she loved a killer? Was he not what she always thought a good and decent man? She couldn’t believe that.
Lifting off his perch on the desk he approached her slowly; cautiously like he was apprehensive of her reactions. She couldn’t really blame him because when his hands made contact with her arms she almost flinched. He wasn’t what she always thought he was, but was he still a good man?
“I see the battle in your eyes, honey, and, yes, I am the man you have always thought I was,” Declan assured her. “I am the man who’s only wish is to keep you safe and cherished. I would never hurt you or cause you harm in any way, please believe that. I have never hurt anyone in shifted or human form that didn’t deserve it, and only then while serving my country. All the stuff you told me doesn’t change how I feel about you or how I will always feel about you, and I hope you feel the same about me. It actually cements it more.”
Ryleigh desperately wanted to believe him, but there were so many questions. He must have sensed she needed a bit of break because he released her arms and walked over to the bar in the corner of his office that she had gotten for him the first time she was able to access her trust at eighteen. It was in the shape of a globe, but done in all silver and gold. Now looking at it, Ryleigh realized how gaudy it looked in his office. He was a simple man and his preferences reflected that; dark woods, leather, and neutral colors. What had surprised her was when he gave the flashy thing a prime position in his office; like he cherished it and always would. Fixing himself a scotch on the rocks, he lifted the glass towards her offering to make her a drink as well without words. She shook her head and said, “Water, please.” She needed something to get the cotton out of her mouth.
When he handed her the bottle of water, he walked over to the brown leather couch in the corner of the room. The thing had seen better days, but she knew he loved it. Ryleigh knew because she had offered to get him a new one many times and he would say, “Just because something is old and a little scarred it doesn’t mean that you get rid of it. It just means that it is well used and soft in all the right places.” She often thought that he was talking about himself but she could never figure out why. He was in his prime and it never made sense. Now, when she needed it most, the ratty old couch offered her the comfort and familiarity that she needed. Patting the cushion next to him, Ryleigh complied and took her place. It reminded her of the old times; talking for hours, just like this.
Chapter 4
“I need to finish telling you about how I found you,” he said, offering her his hand, palm up. Ryleigh gladly accepted, placing hers in his and squeezing it. They were the same hands that she had held often, strong and callused but also warm and comforting. She had a feeling she was going to need his strength for what was to come.
“You are right about some things, honey, but not all,” he continued. “I received information while on a mission that someone was trying to create designer babies; babies that could turn into animals. I couldn’t tell my superiors or anyone else about this information, but I could tell them about you, an abused child. I also couldn’t tell them how I got the information because that would raise the question and someone would want those answers. That was why I was unable to get the backing I needed to get you out. Rumors of an abused child weren’t exactly on the Navy’s list of priorities and until I had more I could only bring in my most trusted men; Shifters.”
Ryleigh flinched. She didn’t like it, but it was true. The Navy had bigger and worse targets.
“I gathered all the information I could, but everything was just rumor or supposition. The more I dug, the more I found out. I couldn’t risk this information getting out, and I couldn’t let you stay there,” Declan explained. “If humans had the ability to create children with animal DNA and you even showed an ounce of being a Shifter, that information needed to be buried. I had to find out and put a stop to it. The only good thing was that the people who paid to create you liked to showboat. They told anyone and everyone in their circle about what they were doing. The even better thing was that not many believed them. The rumors would trickle back to me and I formed a plan to get you out.”
“When I found, you I was only able to take a small team that solely consisted of Shifters. Everybody had to swear to secrecy. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any paper trail and the computers at the facility you were held had a kill switch,” he said. “Someone tripped it. For years, I have been trying to piece together information, but since you never showed any signs of shifting or of an animal nature I had to assume that those people were just talking out of their asses; that you might have a small part of my race but it would never touch your life.”
Ryleigh gaffed, “You assumed. Dad, I know you better than that. You never assume anything.” Ryleigh got up from the couch. The soft overused cushions tried to keep her where she was, but Ryleigh was determined. “You're still keeping things from me. This is my life. If you want to keep the Shifter thing to yourself, fine, but you need to tell me the things that affect me.”
Declan sighed, “It’s not that simple. I’m a Shifter, more specifically a Dragon shifter. I am the only one left of my kind. I never had you tested because I couldn’t trust anyone outside of the NAC teams and we didn’t have the resources to do this sort of testing. I also needed to keep you safe. You have to understand there hasn’t been a female shifter in over a hundred years. I couldn’t exactly come clean if I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Oh, my God. A dragon. Are you serious? No way!” Ryleigh was starting to get worked up again. Dragons weren’t real. They didn’t exist. Never existed. Why was he doing this to her?
“Male shifters can conceive shifter babies, Ryleigh, with humans,” Declan explained. “But only males can produce them, and even that is a random occurrence. It’s not a given. Female Shifters, when they existed, always created Shifter children. Do you understand where I am coming from?”
“Our race’s numbers have been declining over the years. Shifter births are becoming less and less probable.” He continued. “If there was a way to change that those females would be sought after aggressively. Not only that, but if humans knew of Shifters existence then they would want to exploit, analyze, and contain. That is human nature at its best,” Declan said sarcastically.
“It’s not a simple as saying, ‘hey, honey, I’m a Shifter, but it’s okay because it doesn’t really matter’,” he quipped. “Or, ‘Hey, honey, you might have some Shifter DNA, which would make you a target. But, hey, I promis
e to keep you safe.’ You have to understand I have been trying to find answers for years, but it’s like trying to find a needle in a fucking haystack,” Declan said exasperatedly.
“After finding you my leads were all dead ends. You have to understand that,” he said looking to Ryleigh, hoping that she understood his decisions. “I had to keep much of the information I found under wraps. I was still active duty, only retiring when I found you. Even with pulling in all the favors I had the military doesn’t move fast. You have to remember that the first six months we were together we stayed on base. I could only look so far without raising red flags.”
“The Abernathy’s locked everything down tight until you were about sixteen. Shit, honey, I really didn’t think that I would ever have to tell anyone all that I had learned,” Declan admitted. “By that time, you only thought they were after you for the money. You could make them countless dollars with your skills, but that wasn’t all. The group that they contracted in order to create you had very specific rules and the Abernathy’s didn’t follow them. That company destroyed them, taking all their money and influence and flushing it down the toilet. I was glad for it, but they wanted it back.”
Ryleigh didn’t want to remember that time either. Her incubators had paid to have her Dad killed under some notion that they would get her back. Little did they know that Declan had made other arrangements just in case. Ultimately, the vile people were caught and detained. Ryleigh would never come in contact with those people again. They died while incarcerated and she didn’t feel the least bit of remorse about it.
“So, you know now that I’m a Shifter and that there are others. You also know that you carry animal DNA. What else do you know Rye?” Declan asked. “You need to tell me where all this information came from. It’s bigger than both of us now and I need to be able to protect you and try to protect your team.”
Ryleigh sighed. Damn it, she believed him. He wasn’t trying to keep her in the dark for some nefarious reason. He just wanted to protect her. She could relate to that, but he was also right because this was bigger than just the two of them.
Ryleigh decided that it was her turn to reveal what her operatives found. “The mission we were on was to find a teenager that had been kidnapped while on a school trip. When we finally tracked her down it was to a facility owned by a company called The Pandora Group. Besides, the knowledge that a company would commit such a crime, nothing stood out. My team went in and got the girl.” She explained.
With a squeeze to her dad’s hand, Ryleigh got up from the couch. It was now her turn to pace. Like father, like daughter. “What they found when they got there was disturbing. The girl was being kept in some kind of medical facility; strapped to a table and sedated.” She continued. “The facility was well guarded and staffed. Nothing added up. We were prepared for a kidnap and ransom, but this was anything but. My team created a diversion and was able to get in relatively undetected. One of my operatives didn’t like what they saw, so they decided to deviate from a simple search and rescue to an intel gathering mission. She planted a virus in their server and downloaded as much information as she could.”
“When we started combing through the data there were videos included…” Ryleigh paused, “and those brought back memories. I remember the doctors and scientists calling me an animal when I was younger. I also remember them desperately trying to free my so-called animal. I thought they were nuts at the time, but for some reason I forgot all that. Hearing them do the same to the girl brought it all back.”
“The data provided some information,” Ryleigh explained. “Pandora released a cotangent that would only affect people with a particular DNA structure, at least that was what they thought at the time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. Shifters, as you called yourself, became sick and would seek out medical attention. Since the contaminant was only released in certain areas, Pandora paid medical personnel to contact them if and when someone came in with symptoms. They would then be instructed to take specimens. Specifically, blood, tissue, and semen from those affected people.”
She continued. “Further investigation proved that the medical personnel had been paid vast sums of money to keep quiet. We aren’t sure how many people or Shifters were affected or tested. The records that we obtained weren’t that particular. We just know the timeframe, location, and payouts. But since those payouts were random, some getting more, some getting less, but never the same amount, we can’t determine an actual number.
Her pacing picked up. “These were all rural clinics or doctors’ offices. Most only kept paper records and some not at all. The only thing we know for certain is that there is a Doctor that was connected to it all. Once they obtain the specimens they were all forwarded to him. Dr. Albright Franklin was his name,” Ryleigh revealed.
She wanted to see some type of recognition of Franklin's name in her Dad’s eyes, but there was nothing. He was just waiting for her to finish.
“After finding that out, we found more information regarding the experiments.” She continued. “Apparently, myself and five other women were in the first batch of this breeding program. There are details but not names, dates, or locations. We were only able to conclude that one of the children was, in fact, me by the mention of my ‘incubators’.” Ryleigh never used the term parents when referring to the people that helped in her creation. They were not mom and dad to her, ever.
“He used the semen collected to impregnate unwilling or unknowing women,” she disclosed. “We know that the semen was from Shifters. What we don’t know is how he enhanced the embryos. The information that we have plus my own test results show that we carry more than one Shifter’s DNA, but we were also enhanced.”
“Offering the highest bidder, a designer baby is how Dr. Franklin funded his experiments. However, the Pandora group deemed my group, the first batch of experiments, failures. We held the DNA but not the ability to Shift. They dissembled the project, but Dr. Franklin continued.”
“Fuck, none of this was good,” Declan exclaimed. “What about males? Did these experiments produce any male children?”
“No, only females,” Ryleigh replied. “We were specifically engineered to be female. Males were to come later. They were supposed to become super soldiers trained from birth. Females were first, in order to gain money to fund the male project.”
“My God, this couldn’t get any worse,” said Declan.
“Anyways…” Ryleigh continued, “the project was closed down. Pandora stopped the program because the initial six were considered failures and the funding was stopped. Franklin went into private practice and all was supposed to be back to normal. Except it wasn’t, he never stopped.”
“That brings us to now, Dad. There is another girl, Cassie Larson. She was taken while on spring break.” Ryleigh explained. “Everything indicates that she is one of Franklin’s babies. However, she carries one strand of animal DNA, not like the original six who carry multiple strands. Dad, the original six are all part of The Holly Group,” Ryleigh revealed. “We have been able to track that much information. All the lines are pointing to Pandora starting their breeding program up again. Only this time using the children that Dr. Franklin created rather than random people.”
“You need to give me everything you have, Ryleigh,” Declan demanded, “and The Holly Group needs to step away from all of this. Especially if your core team is the original six. NAC is far better equipped to handle this type of threat. You need to go underground for a while. All of you,” He pleaded.
“Yeah, Dad, that’s not going to happen,” Ryleigh reacted. “We are in this up to our eyeballs. So far, we have kept the information tight and I trust my girls. It affects them, but I needed more answers. That’s why I came to you. It looks like I got them, huh.”
“So, not only are you my knight in shining armor, but you're also my dragon.” Ryleigh laughed. “It seems kind of appropriate in a weird way, but I think it is only fair that you show me the beast that you have been hiding a
ll these years.”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I can’t do that,” Declan remarked. “You knowing already puts you in danger, but my dragon is old and unstable. There is so much more that I need to tell you but that is going to have to wait until later. I need to call in my Team Leaders and get them on this. I need to figure out what the best course of action is from this point forward.”
“Are we good Ryleigh?” he pressed. “I don’t sense that you are scared, but I need to know. Does this change things between us?”
“No, Dad, I think I knew even before I came here that your answers wouldn’t change my feelings for you,” she admitted. “I felt betrayed and I couldn’t wrap my head around you keeping this from me, but not once did any of this change how I feel about you. You’re my Dad and you have been since that day and always will be, but no more secrets. I know that there is more I need to know, but right now we need to concentrate on Cassie Larson. Conversely, we also need to get into Dr. Franklin's house and get his hard drives. We need all the information we can get.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Declan. “But, honey, I meant what I said. You and The Holly Group need to stay out of this. Let NAC handle it from here on out. I will keep you in the loop.”
“I can’t agree to that, Dad,” Ryleigh responded. “The Holly Group has already stopped taking cases. We are committing ourselves to finding answers to the questions this intel has brought up. Dad, I need to test my girls against the known Shifter men on your teams. We have to know if there are any other matches before we continue with this.”
“Most of the women are distrustful because of their pasts.” She explained. “Finding a familial match could go either way with them and I want the opportunity to talk with them first before placing them together. You said yourself that you felt drawn to me. Wouldn’t your men feel the same thing? What if it is more? We have so many unanswered questions and no real answers. I just want to prepare for what I can. But I have to ask you one more thing. Why have you kept me from meeting any of the guys you have on the teams? It is something I still can’t wrap my brain around. We work in the same sector and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to determine their Shifter status any more than I was able to identify yours. I might have noticed certain attributes like their eyes but that would have taken long-term exposure. I just don’t understand why you felt the distance was necessary.”
Jackson: NAC & The Holly Group (Alpha Team Book 1) Page 3
