by Diana Seere
“I realize now,” Sam said softly, “that you should’ve been told, no matter the consequences. But I just didn’t see how to do it without breaking the contract I had with LupiNex. This secret—shifters—is bigger than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
Because Molly had seen Tomas and Gregor, she would have. “That was for me to decide.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just…” The doctor looked out the window, her expression wistful. “I became obsessed with learning more. I got lost in my research. My life began and ended at the lab. I dreamed about it. I stopped seeing my friends. I began sleeping here—”
“You should’ve told her,” Jess said.
Sam kept her gaze on Molly. “For the first year, I only knew you as Donor Twenty-Eight. But I was so curious. Like I said, I was obsessed. It was easy to visit the lab on the day you came in and find out who you were. When I realized you worked here in the building, with shifters, I felt terrible about hiding the truth. I still do. That’s why I was always there personally when you came in.”
“So why didn’t you tell me then?” Molly demanded.
“I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” Sam said. “But let me explain. Please. Once I realized just how powerful your blood might be, I was afraid. For your sake. And so was Gavin, although I never, ever told him I knew who you were. I never told anyone. We were so close to developing the serum, to unlocking your mysteries. Once we did that, you would be totally safe. Nobody would need you and your blood because we would have a digital sequence of your DNA. We could synthesize it without you. The only way we could make up for lying to you was to solve the mystery.”
Molly clasped her hands together to stop the shaking. “But why didn’t you tell me then? Give me a hint I was in some danger?”
“It really did seem safer for you not to know,” Sam said, “especially since you’re not a shifter yourself. So far as I knew, you believed you and everyone around you was human.”
Molly squeezed her hands together more tightly. “What do you mean, I believed I was human?”
Sam went on without addressing the question. “The subterfuge, pretending to be just one more clinic for the Boston Blood Bank, did seem the best approach for your own safety. I still believe that. If we had you coming into LupiNex from the Platinum Club every six weeks to give blood, people would have gotten suspicious. If you’d worked anywhere else, it wouldn’t have mattered as much. But the Plat… Well, those who know about shifters know that the club is a front for their world.”
Molly held up a finger. “Hold on. Back up. What did you mean about me only thinking I’m human?” Her heart seemed to be pumping more blood than usual. Her ribs felt tight.
“I’m sure she was only talking about how we had no idea there were shifters all over the place,” Jess said. “I didn’t believe Lilah the first time she told me. I had to see it for myself.” Her face turned bright red, and she sank deeper into the couch cushions.
Molly stared at Sam, who was frowning. “Is that what you meant?”
The office was quiet for a long moment. “No,” Sam said finally. “That’s not what I meant. Molly, your blood is special because you are special. In a way that is not, we discovered, entirely human.”
Lilah stood up suddenly. The air seemed to crackle around them. “She’s part shifter, isn’t she?” she gasped, eyes wide. And then, voice dropping, “And so am I.”
“What?” Jess shook her head. “We don’t know why you can shift, but it’s not because you’re part shifter. We know that because I’m your sister and I can’t do half the things you can.”
“Genetics are a funny thing,” Sam said softly. “Not all traits appear in all family members. Siblings are similar but not identical. Surely you’ve noticed, as sisters, that you are as different as you are alike.”
“So you’re saying we are part shifter?” Lilah asked. “And so is Molly?”
One by one, Sam looked each of them in the eye. “Yes.”
One thousand needles poking his nerves marched up and down the meridians of Edward’s limbs, then the needles were ablaze, on fire, burning.
Whisky did nothing to calm him.
What would to a normal person sound like distant rumbling between steel and stone, was an avalanche of proprioceptive and vestibular horror to Edward. No wonder he hated cities so much.
The vibrations were apocalyptic to him. And yet, if he shifted, they would be so much worse.
“You’re falling apart, Edward,” Asher said in a tone that managed to be both caring and annoyed.
“He’s always been more sensitive,” Sophia said, defending him. All the emotion in their words felt like electric shocks in his blood, poking at intervals, relentless.
Gavin shot concerned glances his way as he paced in the lounge, walking to and fro so methodically Edward wondered if this was a well-established pattern. Did Gavin come to the Novo when he was in distress? Derry acted like he owned the place, and a familiar cloud of déjà vu hovered over the group.
Edward was the outsider here.
Even Asher knew the Novo Club.
A shaky breath later and he unfolded himself into a sitting position on the chair, all his siblings watching. This was no performance, and Edward frankly didn’t care what they thought. His skin rumbled along his muscle and bones like a sheet flapping in the wind before a storm.
“I don’t give a damn if you have to call in the fucking National Guard, find Lilah!” Gavin roared into the phone, flinging it into the wall, where the screen snapped like a small animal’s neck.
The sound, oddly enough, helped to center Edward.
He blinked rapidly, lowering his legs, pressing his heels into the floor beneath his feet, knees slightly elevated as if the chair was made in a distant past, when people were smaller.
“Here,” Derry said kindly, handing Edward another drink. “Settle yourself.”
“I am settled,” he replied, breathing in slowly.
Derry’s blue eyes narrowed, framed by thick, dark brows, his look alert.
“You are as settled as I am serious,” Derry replied, but Edward ignored him, feeling for her.
Feeling for Molly.
Gavin froze suddenly, his hands gripping the back of the chair Edward sat in, muscles turning to stone. As his heartbeat slowed, Edward detected a vibration that made no sense. It grew, twinned with an impulse to go back to the elevator, to shift, to move through space and time, to go—
“Upstairs,” Gavin whispered.
His gaze met Edward’s, who in that moment felt her, sensed the tendril of connection through the steel beams reaching up to the sky, in the cords of the elevator’s pulley, along the digital circuits of the building’s systems.
He closed his eyes, saw Jess and Lilah and a woman he did not know.
“Jess?” Derry said in a low, gravelly voice, looking at Edward and Gavin.
He heard it too. Felt her.
Molly’s vibration turned into a heartbeat.
The Beat. Gavin and Derry started, heads shaking slightly.
Just as Morgan returned with a tray of food, Gavin marched to the elevator, activating it. Derry blinked rapidly, stunned.
“Where are you going?” Asher demanded. Sophia turned to look, midchew, devouring the food.
Edward unfurled his long legs and joined Gavin at the elevator, his hand on his brother’s shoulder, the gesture centering him, making him certain.
“They’re right here,” Edward said softly, with focus. The elevator door opened, and without a word, Gavin walked into the tiny box, pressing his hand against the metal plate.
Edward could feel the path to her.
Derry popped a piece of bread in his mouth and with a slow, burly grace, walked onto the elevator, his face tight with concentration, eyes troubled.
Asher slid through the closing doors at the last second, leaving Sophia in midprotest as the elevator snapped shut and began its ascent.
“They’ve been here all alon
g,” their eldest brother said, a huff following the words. From any other man’s mouth, that sound would be a snicker.
“They must be in the Platinum Club,” Asher declared, his certainty stronger than Edward’s misgivings. That did not feel right, but he said nothing, consumed by the effort to find her.
As the elevator doors opened on the twelfth floor, it became clear Asher was wrong.
“Mr. Stanton?” A bartender carrying a case of alcohol walked past them, looking at Gavin. His expression changed when he saw Asher. “And, uh, your brother.” He peered at Edward, not even trying to cover his shock, then Derry. “Brothers,” he corrected himself.
“Lilah,” Gavin snapped. “Where is she, Carl?”
“Lilah?” He seemed genuinely bewildered. “She’s not here. I haven’t seen her in—”
Alcohol. Medical alcohol, not recreational. The scent took over in Edward’s mind as he closed his eyes and attuned himself, trying to locate Molly.
“Lab,” he said under his breath. “They’re in a lab. With a doctor.”
“A lab? They’re in one of my labs?” Gavin touched his forehead, his lips parted, mouth open in shock. “Oh God.” He looked at Edward. “What are they doing there?”
Edward could not speak, the hum and pull of Molly so strong as the machine took them upward.
Asher answered instead.
“They’re making trouble, of course.” His mouth hooked to the left as his gaze shifted upward, watching the numbers as they raced to their destination. “What else?”
Chapter 20
“Now I’m going to tell you something that would cost me my job if I weren’t already resigning on my own,” Sam said. “I had no right to do the tests that I did. Because of that, I believed I had no choice but to keep it to myself, but now…” The doctor bowed her head and fell silent, her hands in a prayer position over her heart.
“Something other than telling us we’re part shifter?” Jess demanded.
“Gavin told me shifters could always smell shifter blood in another,” Lilah said. “And how would you know about me and Jess anyway since we’ve never given blood before?”
“My theory is that they can’t detect the recessive traits of a shifter,” Sam said, “only the dominant ones.”
Already freaked out at the idea of being part shifter, Molly’s stomach tightened at the sight of Sam’s obvious distress. “We’re going to die, aren’t we? You’ve done tests that show we’ve got like six months to live or something?”
To her relief, Sam laughed in surprise. “No! Oh, I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. No, no, you’re all fine, as far as I know. It’s nothing like that. Nothing bad.”
“You’d better explain before we shift into something big and angry with sharp teeth,” Jess said. Then, frowning, she lifted her hand to her mouth and rubbed her lips as if feeling for signs of an impending shift.
Sam nodded, turning to Lilah. “You asked the toughest question. For you and Jess, it wasn’t your blood that I tested. It was hair.” Her voice dropped. “I’m sorry. I had no right. I completely understand if you want to press charges.”
“How’d you get our hair?” Jess demanded.
Sam sat up taller, shoulders back, like a soldier facing a firing squad. “I knew Molly styled some of the waitresses’ hair. I took samples from her brushes.”
“How’d you know it was mine? Maybe it’s Gillian or one of the other waitresses,” Lilah said.
“I tested everyone’s. I was obsessed with what I was learning about shifters and the humans who found themselves working and living with them. I wasn’t looking or anything in particular, just compiling anonymous data. After Jess began working here, I knew which of my samples were you two, because DNA makes it easy to identify siblings.” Sam turned an unblinking gaze on Molly. “And half-siblings,” she whispered.
The room fell silent.
“I don’t understand,” Molly said. “Jess and Lilah are only half sisters?”
Lilah gasped. “Of course! I always felt something.”
“What?” Jess asked. “That’s crazy. We both look too much like Dad.”
“No,” Lilah said. “Molly. Molly is our half sister. Isn’t she, Doctor?”
Sam nodded.
Jess cried out and put her hand over her mouth.
At this point, Molly became aware of a buzzing, throbbing sound in her ears and a darkening around the edges of her vision.
Lilah’s voice came to her from far away. “From the moment we met, I felt a kinship—Molly!”
Everything was a sparkling blackness, her skull roaring with blood.
“She’s fainted,” a voice said.
With tremendous effort, Molly forced her mouth to open. “No, I’m fine.” She felt a cushion at her cheek and rolled forward so her head was between her knees. The blackness receded, leaving nausea in its wake. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. I’m so sorry. So terribly sorry.” Sam was at her side, forcing something against her lips. “It’s cranberry juice.”
“No doughnut?” Molly managed to ask. Whenever she’d given blood, Sam had offered her juice and a doughnut.
“I’ll go get one right now,” Sam offered.
Molly grabbed her arm. “No. Stay. I’m better now.” She wrapped her lips around the straw and sipped the juice from its tiny box. “I don’t know what came over me. It shouldn’t be that shocking. It’s not like I ever knew my dad. I could be related to half of New England for all I know.”
“Holy shit,” Jess said. “I never thought about that. I mean, about Dad having other children.”
“Our dad,” Lilah repeated. “Molly’s too.”
Jess put an arm around Molly and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re sure it’s our father, not—no, of course it couldn’t be Mom.”
“We’re too close in age,” Lilah said. “And Mom never was good at keeping any secrets.”
“It is your father,” Sam said. “And he’s why you’re part shifter. A remarkable man, genetically speaking, not a shifter himself but a carrier of his ancestor’s genes. I’m only beginning to unravel the mysteries.”
They sat in silence, Molly sipping her juice, absorbing the revelations.
“So this shifter ancestor,” Molly began, “is why I have this weird blood. Does that mean Lilah and Jess have it too?”
“You may,” Sam said softly. “I’ve been unable to test it.”
“Oh really?” Jess asked. “You couldn’t find a way to lie to us and steal it somehow like you did with Molly?”
“I deserve your anger,” Sam said. “But I never would’ve done that. The hair… it seemed harmless because, when I started, the donors were anonymous. I knew they were staff at the Platinum but not their names, not their identities. It wasn’t until several months ago that I discovered Donor Twenty-Eight was related to a new waitress. And then, a month or two after that, a second new waitress. There were only two sisters who had worked at the Platinum, so I realized instantly who they were.”
“Who we are, you mean,” Lilah said.
Sam nodded. “Yes. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I deleted the digital files and shredded all paper records I had on Jess and Lilah. Everything I could find. I’d already been careful to keep it secret—”
“Because what you were doing was wrong,” Jess interjected.
“Yes. And because I convinced myself it kept the potential invasion of your privacy to a minimum.”
“But you couldn’t delete what you had about me,” Molly said. A statement, not question.
“No, the research on you was, I thought, aboveboard and consensual. And the serum already existed and was known to several scientists, management, and technicians.” Sam gently took the empty juice box out of Molly’s fingers and replaced it with a new one. “I also believed that by destroying everything I’d stolen—and yes, I agree with you on the term—from Lilah and Jess, any link to you and your real identity, Molly, was also destroyed.”
“T
he burglary!” Jess exclaimed. “Did they find out we’re related? That Lilah and I might have this blood they want so badly too?”
Lilah’s voice dropped. “Does Gavin know? Because if he does and he didn’t tell me, I’m going to kill him.” Her hand dropped to her belly, palm flat against her navel, protective.
“No, nobody knows you three are related but me,” Sam said. “But they do know Molly is Donor Twenty-Eight and that her blood is the source of a genetically modified chemical that has effects upon other organisms, human and shifter, that we’re only beginning to fathom.”
Molly looked at Lilah and Jess. She’d always thought they were so beautiful, each as lovely as the other. How could she be related to such blond gorgeousness?
“What’s so funny?” Lilah asked, smiling back at her.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been able to feel sibling rivalry,” Molly said. “I kind of like it.”
And then she burst into tears.
Gavin led the way as the elevator doors opened, the group moving into the back of an enormous office through a simple, private hallway. Edward would have marveled at his older brother’s corporate headquarters more if he weren’t wholly consumed with finding his way to Molly, whose heartbeat turned into a sound wave that only his body could feel.
The small anteroom ended as Gavin rushed through a small, gray door that led to a CEO’s office, all glass and light, modern and sleek with cabinet doors covering bookcases, his desk a sheet of glass that extended on without a single document marring the surface.
The group swept past, out the main door to the office, past a flustered assistant who gaped. Edward could only imagine what they looked like.
“Mr. Stanton?” the worker said, her face twisted with worry. An older woman who reminded Edward slightly of Eva, though the American accent made the similarity end. “Can I—can I help you?” She stood hurriedly, a manila folder slipping out of her grasp, her eyes taking in each man’s face, clearly struggling to understand the disruption.
Gavin ignored her, marching down the hallway, out of his office, jabbing the button for another elevator.
