by Diana Seere
He didn’t.
“Why would you translate English?” The words on the first page were clear to him, if written in an odd, old-fashioned hand, using archaic spelling. “The Olde Ones and Beats of Tyme,” it read. The handwriting was different from the book he’d read in Asher Stanton’s office, this one less formal, written in a more casual way.
Or, perhaps, more frantic. The writer’s goal seemed to be to get the story out, not to make it look beautiful. The scrawl was harsh, quick, unfinished.
“Is this a joke? You’re asking me to read a marriage proposal ritual,” he said loudly, half laughing, half furious. He began to read aloud, resentful. “Before the assembled men of her family, your bound hands drenched in the tears of a frog, bend on right knee and slowly recite her lineage seven generations to the—” he read before Sam interrupted him, slapping her open palm on the old text.
“English?” Sam asked, completely perplexed.
Irritation rose in him. “Is this another test of some kind? Asher did this to me too. Are you all just trying to—”
“You really see English when you look at these texts?” Sam gasped.
“Of course! Don’t you?”
“No. I see symbols that are part of a language I can’t possibly decipher. Like a mix of Cyrillic and Chinese and others that are unreadable.”
Blinking slowly, it finally dawned on him.
“You can’t read a word of it?”
“No.”
“And neither can Asher Stanton,” he said in outraged awe. “Can he? That’s why he—”
“Not quite. According to Asher, he can pick out words. Gavin too. But Lilah has more fluency than any of them, and you— Well, Zach, you’re in a class all by yourself.”
The former teacher’s pet in him was deeply pleased to hear that, but the man who’d had his DNA put in a blender and poured over a roller coaster was infuriated.
“You expect me to sit here and read through the texts in English? How many books are there?”
Sam reddened. “Hundreds.”
“Is this an order?”
“Order?”
“Did Asher insist I do this?” he asked Sam.
“What? No! Absolutely not. This is me asking you to do this. To help the project. To help preserve—”
“The shifter world,” he said in unison with her, each tone of voice radically different.
Trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice but failing miserably, he shook his head. “Why?”
“Why ask you to read all of this?”
“Why should I do this? The Stantons have rejected me. I’m not good enough for them. Asher made that clear.”
“He said that?”
Asher’s words rumbled through Zach’s mind in a montage of righteous fury.
…being with Sophia would be a tragic mistake.
…You are an unknown variable, Zach.
…You do understand. Stay away from them both.
“He did.”
“Asher is so, so wrong, Zach,” Sam implored, trying to convince Zach of something he already knew.
“He told me to stay away from Sophia. And you.”
“Me?”
“Because he thinks Tomas is following me. He doesn’t want Tomas to come anywhere near you or Sophia.”
“Only worried about the women, huh? That sexist pig.”
“Wolf,” Zach said absentmindedly.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s not a pig. Asher’s a wolf. Like me.”
Like me.
Sam took a few deep breaths, then gave Zach a searching look. “What if it’s the other way around?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if Asher’s not really worried about Sophia? Or me? He always has an agenda ten layers below the surface that no one sees.”
“You clearly do see it.”
She scoffed. “I know that he has an agenda, but I don’t know what it is. But what if Asher’s worried more about you?”
“I think that’s obvious. He’s worried I’ll bring danger to you and Sophia.”
“I don’t think that’s it, Zach. He stands to learn so much from your translation of these texts. We stand to learn so much from your biological changes, from how the serum alters DNA. He’d cut off his nose to spite his face if he banned you from seeing us.”
“Then what?”
“I think he’s worried Tomas will find you.”
“But he knows Tomas is following me.”
“Yes. Why do you think he would tell you that?”
Zach forced himself to take a few deep breaths to clear his buzzing mind. Too little sleep, too much adrenaline, and far too much frustration in the past day had left him with a brain that processed information too quickly, like a stone being skipped on a pond.
“I need you to spell it out for me, Sam.”
“Asher is probably worried that Tomas will try to recruit you.”
“Recruit me?”
“You remember what he was like when he worked here at LupiNex. Arrogant. A credit taker. Smart and interesting, but you never knew when his mood would change, and then he blamed everyone else for anything that went wrong. But he was ruthless.”
“So is Asher,” Zach pointed out.
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly, her eyes fixed on a point behind Zach’s shoulder. “But he’s ruthless because he loves his people.” Sam’s eyes darted to land on Zach’s. “Tomas is the opposite. He only loves himself. He only loves power.”
“You seem to know a lot about him.”
Her mouth twisted into a nasty smile. “Any woman who’s come within a few feet of Tomas Nagy knows plenty about him. Guys like that are really obvious if you have the radar.”
“You really think Asher is worried I’ll go over to the dark side?” Zach asked in a mocking tone. “It’s not like Tomas is Darth Vader and Asher is Yoda.”
“You’re no Jedi either,” Sam said, distracted suddenly. She reached for her phone in her pocket, read something, and frowned. “Look. Just take the book and recorder home, please. Translate as much as you can. This is just one little book out of dozens, hundreds more that we’re desperate to— Come back tomorrow and I can talk more. I have a video meeting with a Chinese lab this morning that I can’t miss.”
Sam was halfway out the door before Zach realized it.
His fingers brushed over the top of the book’s cover, making him shudder.
If Asher Stanton seriously thought Tomas Nagy would turn Zach into a foot soldier, then Zach had overestimated Asher.
Who had underestimated Zach.
Hailing a cab, he rushed home, needing to think, the edge of a shift tickling his skin. More and more, he found relief and comfort in his animal form, wanting to use it to extend his powers, to search inside and out to know himself better.
Sam’s words haunted him as the cab came to a halt before his apartment building. Although he hadn’t slept a wink the night before, he was wide awake, tingling with energy. Becoming a shifter had greatly increased his endurance. The power was growing on him.
Asher is probably worried that Tomas will try to recruit you.
“Recruit me to what?” he wondered, handing the cabbie a few bucks as a tip, walking to his building and coming to a dead halt.
Holy shit.
Asher Stanton was right.
On the other side of his building’s locked main entrance stood a very familiar man, who extended one long, elegant arm as he opened the door for Zach, a sly smile stretching across his face.
“Hello, Zach. Long time, no see.”
“Tomas,” Zach said, controlling his voice. Extending his hand for a shake, he did the standard death grip exchange, matching Tomas’ strength. Now a few inches taller than the guy, Zach let his shifter self kick in. Not fully—he had no desire to actually shift.
But he needed more than his human sensibilities to handle this.
Predators and pack leaders had one thing in common, Zach knew: an ever-vig
ilant awareness of their surroundings. As Tomas watched Zach watching him, the circular tension made the air’s scent change, a masculine, musky odor turning to a pre-violent thickness, making Zach move as if in slow motion.
Each breath felt like a full minute had passed. Every step he took, Tomas behind him, was an hour. By the time he led the man silently to his apartment—because what else could he do?—he felt old. Aged.
Ancient.
Jangling his keys, he opened the door to his place and gestured for Tomas to step inside. The man wore a finely tailored black wool business suit, modern and sleek, fresh off the runway in Milan. In contrast to Asher Stanton’s more traditional look, Tomas was on the edge of fashion.
And likely on the brink of insanity, too.
“You act as if my appearance was expected,” Tomas said with a chuckle, the slow crawl of his voice over Zach’s skin making his heartbeat roar inside his ribs.
“It was.”
“You detected me? Your powers are that strong?”
“I was warned.”
“Warned,” Tomas said, his eyes on Zach’s neatly made bed, fingers touching the edge. “By whom?” His gaze migrated to the leather pouch in Zach’s hand. Recognition poured into his features. Zach set the pouch carefully on his desk, saying nothing about it.
“Asher.” No need to keep the facts from the man. He likely knew more than Zach could imagine.
“Asher,” Tomas said, shaking his head slowly. “Such a waste. When he fell in love with a human, I knew he was weak. So crass. So clichéd. That was the moment that I knew I needed to break off and find my own way to free the shifters.”
So it was like that, was it? No holds barred.
“Free them? Looks like you shifters live a life of absolute freedom. More free than humans and with plenty of money,” Zach said, mixing his observation with some good old-fashioned flattery.
“Only if we hide our true selves,” Tomas said with deep bitterness. Dark eyes met Zach’s, the anger of centuries brewing. “We were forced into hiding by small-minded humans who used fear to oppress.”
“Everyone hides some part of themselves,” Zach replied, trying to keep the guy talking.
“Being a shifter isn’t like hiding a sexual kink or secret eating or alcoholism. Every aspect of who we are is infused in our animal side. To be forced to submit to humans is degrading and unconscionable.”
“Submit?”
“We pretend we are less powerful than we are!” Tomas hissed, voice almost a whisper, the repressed intensity worse than if he’d shouted. “Asher Stanton is the leader of the shifter world, and he has turned us into slaves.”
“Slaves?”
“We hide our truths. We spend our money protecting ourselves, fooling humans into thinking we’re like them. We live double lives when we should be open and free. And Asher reinforces this.”
“Does he? How?” Zach’s question wasn’t just a ruse to keep Tomas talking. He was genuinely curious.
“He considers himself head of the shifter world. His father and his father’s father and so on… It’s in the legends,” Tomas explained, as if Zach were supposed to know what that meant. “But his power comes from tradition, not strength. It’s time for change. Time for a new era. And his own brother brought us close. Gavin’s work on shifter DNA was a great beginning. And now my lab has done so much more.”
Zach stared hard as Tomas looked him over, eyes crawling across Zach’s skin as if surveying a specimen.
“What have you done?” Zach asked.
“Created you.”
Sam’s words about Asher’s true concern rang through his mind.
“Me? No one created me. I’m an error. An accident. Unstable and unpredictable.”
Tomas snorted, dark eyes gleaming as he gave Zach a canny look.
“You sound like Asher. So dour. So negative. So doubting.”
Zach studied Tomas, wondering what best to say next, fighting the rising reaction inside him.
“Don’t compare me to that asshole,” he finally snapped, making Tomas grin.
“I see. You’re more perceptive than I thought. Asher hasn’t brainwashed you like he has his siblings. A bunch of weak-willed minions whom he’s convinced that they must follow him.”
The thought of any of the Stanton siblings being considered “weak-willed,” especially Sophia, made him clench his fists.
“I’m my own man.”
“You are a shifter.”
“I am—” What was the phrase Asher had used? “I am an unknown variable,” Zach said in reply.
“It wasn’t an accident, Zach. You were chosen. Just as the legends say.”
“The legends?”
“The ancient texts. Have you read them? I am certain Asher has forced you to try.” He looked pointedly at the leather pouch on Zach’s desk.
“The books with the funny symbols?” Playing dumb was his best bet. “They keep trying, but it’s all gibberish to me. I’m a biochemist, not a linguist.”
The hard look he received in return made Zach channel Asher Stanton’s cold indifference, his face muscles changing, dropping, loosening by sheer will to not give away his true reactions and emotions.
“Funny,” Tomas repeated, starting to pace slowly. “You cannot read them?”
A small bit of truth always helped secure a lie, he told himself. “I can pick out a few of the symbols and maybe convert them to a handful of what look like English letters, but other than that…” He let his voice trail off, hands moving in a gesture of supplication.
“Humph,” Tomas huffed, clearly displeased. “I thought the serum would do a better job.”
Zach froze.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” The implications of his words turned Zach’s blood into an ice-and-fire storm.
“Your abilities aren’t as extensive as they should be,” Tomas said with a dismissive huff that reminded Zach of Asher. While the two men couldn’t be more different in appearance, they had a similar arrogance.
“Sorry to disappoint. Next time I have a lab accident, I’ll try to do better.”
“Accident,” Tomas repeated, clearly savoring the word in his mouth. Zach looked at him abruptly, his breath halting in his chest.
So he wasn’t imagining it.
“It was an accident,” Zach said, moving closer to Tomas, taller and bigger than the man.
“Or was it?” Tomas gave no quarter, standing in place, his body immobile. This was a man—no, a shifter—accustomed to power. Presence.
Obedience.
Memory picked at the edges of Zach’s sense of the present, interfering with still images of that day at the lab. A shove from behind, the puncture of the needle, the shift—could it really have been planned?
“What are you saying, Tomas?”
“Do you truly believe that what happened to you was a fluke? My God, you humans are so gullible. And yet we’re the ones forced to hide. That will all change soon enough though.” Tomas gave a low, throaty chuckle, as if they were sharing intimate secrets with each other, humble and vulnerable. The guy was anything but, leaving Zach on guard and reeling at the same time.
“You’re saying it was planned? My lab accident wasn’t an accident?”
“Planned all the way down to the jostle, Zach. You were carefully selected to be Subject Number Two. An only child of only children, no living relatives of importance. Intelligent, healthy—if a bit weak, in your old form.” He sniffed derisively. “You live alone, like a monk. No girlfriend, no wife—no attachments. No one would miss you. You were perfect.”
No one would miss you.
His head began to pound as if someone were hitting him between the eyes with a hammer, the sound of rushing blood making his ears roar with the tides. His chest nearly cracked in half.
Sophia. Oh, Sophia.
“Who was Subject Number One?” Zach asked, his throat numb, his lips barely moving. He knew the answer, but this was a game—one he was playing to save his own l
ife. Pretending to be gullible, ignorant, foolish—whatever preconceptions Tomas had—was the key to survival. Academia had taught him that sometimes playing dumb was how you escaped the most narcissistic professor. Feed his ego. Make him preserve his self-image. Prop up the idea that he’s the smartest guy in the room.
And never directly challenge him.
“He’s unimportant. The man was an idiot who failed miserably. But you—not you. You’ve turned out well, if a bit below our projections in terms of powers. We picked you.”
“We?”
Tomas’ eyes flashed with an eagerness that felt like a blade. “Gavin Stanton and I, of course.”
Lying. Tomas was lying. Zach knew it the way he knew all the truth of the shifter world, the web of connection between shifters coming into startling focus. His heartbeat grew louder, augmented by Sophia. He felt her. Drew on her strength.
And then hid the Beat, fast.
Tomas’s eyes flickered with recognition, then confusion. “You didn’t realize it? That the Stantons were all part of your creation? Of course you wouldn’t. They tried to bully you, didn’t they? Never trust a Stanton, you know. It’s a saying in the shifter world.”
The lies burned. He knew giving in to them wouldn’t make this go away though.
“They are worthless. The lot of them.” Tomas’ dark eyebrows rose with an evil glint. “Although one of them is fine to look at.”
No.
He wasn’t talking about—
“Sophia’s a tasty one.”
“Don’t you dare talk about her like that.”
Tomas’ eyebrow rose, eyes narrowing. “Ah, really? I would have thought you were more inclined toward Samantha. Sophia is so… widespread.”
If the man meant what Zach thought he meant, he was dead meat.
“Leave Sophia out of this.”
“She’s hard to leave out, given she’s slept with nearly every shifter in the—”
Tomas’s nose broke with a satisfying crunch as Zach hit him.
So much for playing it cool.
Chapter 19
Dressed in the black silk pantsuit with satin lapels and diamond buttons that she wore when she meant business, Sophia put her palm on the secret metal plate in the elevator that would bring her to the Novo Club—many floors below the building that held LupiNex and the Platinum.
