Unease filled the room. If the humans engineered Shifter illnesses, they had yet another big issue to address.
“He felt like a failure, and his letters became darker after that,” Senior stated. “Deciding I didn’t have another choice, I contacted my Dad after reading the letters. He told me that several other Shifter juveniles had come down with the same type of illness around the same time as Seamus. All the parents and Elders believed that the kids had been doing drugs or partying too much, like teenagers do. They hypothesized that these new drugs did not mesh with their shifters half, causing the illness. Whether it was naivety or embarrassment, the illness was not talked about again.”
Jacks knew how Senior’s brother felt. Shifters were raised to believe that they were invincible; being sick showed weakness and no Shifter wanted that. It determined your place within the Clan and so many other things. Stronger animals in the wild often targeted a weak animal and the Shifters, although human, weren’t much different. His brother would have suffered bullying to the furthest degree, add in the violation, and he felt for what the boy had been through.
“Damn, Senior, I remember that time. Several young males had fallen to that sickness. My brother Ben being one of them,” Kayden announced. “He was always a bit wild, but my clan said that he was even more so right before he passed; saying crazy stuff, having hallucinations, and drinking a lot. My clan also did not look into it any further, calling it youthful folly or some shit. Ben might have been wild, but he wasn’t reckless and he didn’t do drugs. Our mother cured us of ever wanting to try them.”
Kayden continued. “Now that I think about it, the whole thing was kind of strange. We had these mysterious illnesses and deaths all in about a three-month period and then it all just stopped. The different clans weren’t as connected back then as they are now. I wonder how many young men were honestly affected?”
Ryleigh could tell her Dad needed a break, so she decided it was time to interject, “As you know personally, Shifters are very hard to kill. Not only do you heal at alarming rates, but also you all have distinctive traits related to your animals. Dragons, such as Seamus and my Dad, have very thick skins and run at a higher temperature. But one common trait is that you all metabolize things such as alcohol or drugs at an alarming rate. You could chug a bottle of whiskey and not even feel buzzed. I, on the other hand, would be in a hospital with alcohol poisoning. One of our goals going forward is to trace and identify what was used and why it affected Shifters. We also need to figure out how they knew it would work. We need to determine if all the cases are connected and if there really was a recreational drug out there that would affect so many young men, causing them and their families to seek human health care professionals when it went against their very nature. That can’t happen without your help and the help of the clans.”
This was no new revelation to the men in the room. Jacks knew they had all had a crazy night or two without any consequence. It would take a case of hard liquor for any of them to even get a buzz. He even knew of some Shifters that had been tested for drug tolerance while in the military, they too had little to no effect. Only extremely potent animal tranquilizers seemed to cause a reaction and even then, it was short-lived. But the biggest question was why the Elders would dismiss these events. They were supposed to confer with each other, so all the clans stayed informed. Why was this pushed under the rug? It just didn’t make sense. Jacks hoped they didn’t have to look into their own clans for possible traitors. He also knew that The Holly Group wouldn’t be able to get the information they needed, even with Ryleigh’s genetic link to Senior.
Ryleigh continued. “Our research has indicated that the men in question did not dose themselves. A cotangent explicitly linked to Shifters was unleashed in specific areas. Health professionals were advised to watch for specific symptoms and then perform specific tests. The young men received an injection with a slow acting serum that eventually caused their deaths. We have documents that outlined this experiment and they link back to Pandora directly.”
Surfer Dude Badass exploded, slamming his fist on the table, “Where the hell did you get your information and again, why the fuck are we just hearing about this now?” The man was practically foaming at the mouth. “You have no idea what you are talking about. I was with my best friend Jake when he died. He just laid down and died peacefully. I was there damn it! And we didn’t do any fucking drugs!” Liam shouted. “I went to the same clinic, had the same fever, and no one took samples from me or gave me any injections. The nurse there told my dad to take me home and give me fluids; nothing more. I was out of there hours before Jake. It took three days before that fucking fever broke. My dad accused me of being defective along with other accusations, for fucks sakes.”
“Was there anything odd about what the nurse said or did while you were there?” Ryleigh inquired.
“Hell, I don’t know, I was so out of it,” Liam recalled. “My dad was pissed, though, because she made us leave through the back door. He felt like a second-class citizen; said we would never go back to that place again. Julie, the nurse, had always been friendly to us before, but after she wouldn’t even look us in the eye. I did see her at Jake’s funeral. His mom had insisted that he be buried the human way with a complete funeral; not that of the Shifters. Julie was crying, but I never saw her again after that.” Liam pointed out.
“Do you have her full name? Anything else. Maybe her age?” Ryleigh probed Liam for any information. “Family members could be useful as well. If we could get in touch with her, we might be able to get more information on what went down. Right now, we are just putting pieces of the puzzle together. All the dots are not lining up at this point, but she may be able to connect a few more.” Ryleigh speculated. “But I have to say it looks like you got lucky. That nurse might have saved your life.”
“Yeah, I can give you all the information I know, but if we find her I want to be the one to question her,” Liam asserted. “If she saved my life, I want to know why she didn’t do the same for Jake. He was the good one. Everyone liked him. Why would she save me and not him? It just doesn’t make sense. He did well in school, helped old ladies cross the street, and was the quintessential Boy Scout. Why would anyone want to hurt him? He would have never hurt anyone. He was kind; didn’t have the same urges as most of us did. He wanted to be a teacher for fuck sakes.” Liam concluded.
Ryleigh watched as her Dad got up with the guise of going to get a cup of coffee but stopping and placing his hand on the angry man’s shoulder, “Son, we will give you the opportunity to ask those questions if we can locate this woman. You have my word.” Then he just continued on to the side table like nothing happened. But Ryleigh knew he cared about these men as much as he cared about her and hated to see any of them hurt.
“Thanks, Senior, this is all just a little bit too much to take in,” Liam responded.
All Ryleigh could do was rip the hypothetical band-aid off a quickly as possible, she didn’t wait for her Dad to return to his seat or even give Surfer Dude a minute to process. “Now as I said, I share DNA with Dad’s brother, Seamus, but we also ran other tests using your DNA after Dad told me about Shifters and their existence.”
The room exploded and once again Ryleigh was sucked into the abyss of Alpha dominance, this time harder than before. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and making eye contact was out of the question. She knew what she just said was a massive violation to the men gathered. She had tried to prepare for the results of the blow, but nothing could have prepared her for this. If she thought the last time was bad, this was beyond horrendous.
Fuck, Jacks was pissed, but watching Ryleigh he knew he needed to reel it in. Alphas had the ability to exert their dominance and feelings on others, and Ryleigh was getting hit six-fold. If he didn’t calm the guys down, they could do permanent damage.
“Fuck. Listen, assholes. We might not like what she has to say, but look what you are doing to her. Pay fucking attention,” demand
ed Jacks.
His argument seemed to work because he saw several of his brother pales when they took in Ryleigh’s shell-shocked expression. Liam and Carter got up and started shaking their arms out a way to relieve stress. Kayden was deep breathing and Milo had his eyes closed. Senior, he couldn’t look at him right now, but Jacks knew that he was in the back of the room. The man should have stopped this before it had gotten this far. Jacks couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t.
Chapter 13
With her first full breath, Ryleigh blurted out, “I promise you that only the founding five members of the Holly Group have this information and they will not share it with anyone.”
She knew that she was expecting a lot. These men had no reason to trust her or the women of The Holly Group. She had hoped that they would trust her Dad enough to hear her out, though.
No longer the gentleman asking polite questions, Milo grunted, “What the fuck do you mean you ran my DNA. I didn’t give you consent. You have no right to take or run my DNA against my will,” Milo fumed.
Ryleigh noticed all of the men nodding in agreement.
“Who the hell do you think you are that you could take that choice away from me or any of the guys sitting here? Most of us would have fucking volunteered. You didn’t even give us the option.” Milo snapped.
Senior didn’t stop this time to assure one of his men. Instead he walked straight to his seat, moving it closer to Ryleigh, and then planting himself firmly at her side. He fumed back equally, not liking the tone Milo was taking, “You gave consent when you signed your employment contract with NAC. We have access to and are allowed anything from your person or lives to solve a case. If you have a problem with that now maybe you should reconsider your employment here. Seems to be a running theme with you today, Milo. You think I should look into that?”
Milo exclaimed, “That is fucking bullshit, and you know it, Senior! My DNA is not your property. What you did is wrong and if you don’t have the balls to admit that then maybe I don’t want to continue my involvement with NAC. After all, isn’t one of our founding principles to not violate human or Shifter rights? What the fuck do you think your daughter and her team have just done? Why the fuck was their feelings and considerations put before ours? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel fucking violated. I’m not even going to address your other comment, I have proved my loyalty to NAC in a hundred ways and I resent the implication.”
Ryleigh tried to sooth the tempers that were flaring. No way did she want a repeat of a few minutes ago. “Milo, I agree that this is a massive invasion.”
“Listen, it was my choice, not Ryleigh’s or The Holly Groups, to run your DNA,” Senior admitted. “She asked and I consented. We needed to figure out where these women came from and if they are related to any unknown, possibly captive, Shifters or us.”
Senior continued. “You need to look beyond the fucking violation and look at the bigger picture. We have a doctor and a group of assholes out there that were able to get their hands-on semen, skin, and god knows what else, from Shifters and they created these so-called designer babies. How and when did they get it; through the sick Shifters or did it come from somewhere else? This is bigger than the people in this room. I will gladly take your heat for consenting to the testing.”
“My group has all been tested,” said Ryleigh. “We carry Shifter genes and we needed to determine if any of those came from any of you or your familial lines. It’s not like there is a database out there with this information and we felt it was better to proceed without delay.”
“So, did you find any matches?” Jacks asked.
He couldn’t help but think and even cross his fingers for good luck. God, please don’t let this woman be related to me in some freaking way. Getting a boner for a family member was not cool, Jacks thought to himself. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the possible incestuous thoughts he was having. However, he couldn’t help but wonder, maybe that was why his bear was reacting so strongly to her. She could be a sister or cousin or something. That would surely cure his erratic cock. But he still couldn’t help but pray, Goddess, please don’t be related to me.
Ryleigh grimaced, “Yes, to answer your question, two other matches came up; both to the same male in your group. We haven’t had a chance to sit down with the man involved but plan to do so after the meeting.”
Milo boomed, “Fuck, no! I want to know right fucking now if these women are related to me. I don’t give a damn who is in the room.”
The rest of the guys parroted his response.
“Okay, listen. I don’t feel comfortable doing this as a group, but if you all consent then I will,” said Ryleigh.
“Oh, now she is going to ask for permission. How nice,” Milo jeered.
After all of the men approved without a moment of hesitation Ryleigh had no choice but to comply. “Okay, Kayden, you are related to one of my operatives, Zoey Parks, as well as Cassie Larson.”
The room erupted in a mass of profanity and yelling.
“What the fuck do you mean these women are related to me? I don’t have any children, and my Dad only had two sons,” Kayden roared in disbelief, standing from his chair. Shaking his hand and pointing at Senior, he said, “No one besides Uncle Sam has ever taken my blood, and that was a limited amount. Besides, that shit is supposed to be locked up like Fort Fucking Knox as agreed to by our contract. We have safeguards against this and only a few humans even know we exist. Our teams are all Shifters. Shit, even General Austin is a Shifter. No one wants this information getting out.”
Jacks couldn’t blame Kayden for his reaction. He didn’t like the idea of someone accessing his DNA either, but he could also see the other side. NAC and The Holly Group needed to figure out how Pandora got a hold of Shifter DNA, and if he could help he would.
“How in the hell did you get your hands on my DNA?” The more Kayden talked, the more enraged he got. “I was adamant when I signed onto NAC; no blood, hair, or skin samples were to be collected. You had to either obtain them from my records from the military or hacked them. Which is it?” Kayden demanded some sort of explanation. “If you think it came from my brother, I want to know how. I cremated Ben, which is the Shifter way of letting the spirit free. Dead and crispy jizz does not make babies. How the hell do you know these women are 100% related to me?”
“Kayden, I apologize, but you are wrong.” Ryleigh clarified. “NAC has your DNA profile along with every other Shifter in this room; as it is policy. If a mission goes wrong, they need to be able to eliminate their agents of any wrongdoing by DNA analysis if necessary. As for your brother, Ben had begun the process of enlisting. Once we had the information from the initial testing that you were related to both Zoey and Cassie, we were able to obtain his DNA profile from the Military. It was a genetic match. Cassie is your niece, but Zoey is your sister” Ryleigh explained.
Red-faced Kayden huffed, “I lost my brother. Now you are telling me that I have a sister and a niece that I have never met?” Kayden screamed. “What the fuck. You could have told me. I would have been here for either of them and how the hell did my Dad have a daughter without him knowing it? He wasn’t one of the boys everyone was talking about earlier. If what you are saying is true, he died without even knowing he had daughter, let alone a granddaughter. What gives you the right to keep this from me?”
This is unacceptable, you should have come to me first the minute you found any of this out. I would have protected Cassie. She sure as hell wouldn’t have been in fucking Mexico with a bunch of friends, unprotected.” Kayden came to the nauseating realization, “Oh, Fuck, they want her for a breeder,” he stated with a strangled sob. “They want my niece for a breeder. She is just a baby.”
Seniors booming voice interrupted Kayden, “Everybody out, now!”
When his men weren’t quick enough he stated, “Gentlemen, let’s give Ryleigh and Kayden a few minutes.”
Most of the men jumped from their seats, not wanting to expre
ss how they felt for seeing their comrade breakdown. The whole situation was uncomfortable. Jacks was going to stay behind to lend his support to his friend and Ryleigh, but Senior ushered him out along with the rest of the guys, but he watched her every step of the way out the door. She was looking down at her hands, and she looked defeated. Just as he was about through the door, she looked up and offered him a small smile. It would have to hold him over for a little while. He had a battle of his own to contend with, mainly his bear.
Chapter 14
Ryleigh felt sorry for Kayden. She never intended for this information to come out this way. She had planned on sitting down with him and explaining everything in a controlled environment where he could express himself without the others seeing. But that wasn’t what happened, and now she didn’t even know if she could pick up all the pieces that had fallen. When her Dad ordered all of the men out, she was grateful but also a bit saddened. She wanted Jacks to stay. Not her Dad, but Jacks. She knew deep down he could help her get through this. When she looked up and noticed him watching her over his shoulder as he made his way to the door, she couldn’t help the little smile that came. She really believed or hoped he was thinking the same thing.
Kayden couldn’t even look at Ryleigh. He just sat there with his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking with what she assumed were sobs because he didn’t make a sound. This strong Alpha was coming apart. Ryleigh felt horrible. She hadn’t wanted the information to come out the way it had.
“Kayden, we would have told you. Yes, Zoey knows you are her brother and she is looking for Cassie as we speak,” Ryleigh said to Kayden in an attempt to calm him. “As soon as I told her, she was gone.”
Kayden gazed into her eyes, looking a bit more at ease.
Jackson: NAC & The Holly Group (Alpha Team Book 1) Page 9
