Instead, a small man dressed in a neat white linen suit placed one foot on the step before he leapt gracefully down. His features were finely wrought, his chin shaved, and his dark hair neatly parted in the center. He was rather unremarkable, save for the single gold chain around his neck. Beneath it lay a long bow tie of silk so red, it looked like fresh blood.
Adjusting one of his jacket cuffs, the small man turned in a slow semi-circle, taking in the barn, the stables they had no use for, and finally the home itself. When his eyes landed on them, a shudder worked its way down her spine.
Danger.
Even from a distance, she could see the empty, practiced smile he leveled their way. She couldfeelhis magic pressing down on her, so hot it burned.
“Good afternoon,” the man called out, striding toward them with that empty smile fixed in place. “Is Doctor Wyeth in?”
ChapterTwenty-Four
An excerptfrom the article “Exploring Lyssa: The Story of Josephine Wyeth,” written by Elise Sasini and featured in The San Francisco Light, May 17th, 2048—
Despite over a century of study, lyssa’s expression is still mostly a mystery. When I reached out to San Francisco Protectorate University’s head of pathology to discuss it, her answers to my questions were tentative at best. The general tenor of her responses were“Well, we just don’t have the data for that yet”and“it’s hard to say.”
Even seemingly simple questions like“why do a Were’s eyes change after infection?”are impossible to answer definitively even now, in the age of gene alteration and advanced technology. I’m not the only one left to wonder why it destroys a shifter’s ability to transform, nor to ask what triggers the mating urge in a Were. It is possible these questions may never be answered.
I sit quietly in the passenger’s seat as Vanessa confidently steers the truck around blind corners and roads nearly overgrown with verdant vegetation. There are a million questions I want to ask her, but I am not in the truck to needle her about theories around immune system compatibility or the role of fate in the creation of her kin.
I’m here to meet her parents.
It’s an exquisitely rare privilege I’ve been given, and I grow progressively more humbled as we plunge deeper and deeper into the lush mountains of the Collective’s territory. It feels like we are diving into an unknown world, and I can’t help but sense that every tree is a sentinel standing guard.
I roll the window down and breathe in the cold, wet air. I can feel a storm on the way. The energy of it tingles beneath my skin, amping me up further.
“Almost there,” Vanessa says after about an hour of quiet. I look over and find her proud shoulders are more relaxed, her beautiful face at ease.
Of course I researched where we were going before I got on the plane, but I can’t help but note, “We’re pretty far in the woods.”
Vanessa shoots me a sly smile. “What? You afraid I’m taking you out here to kill you or something?”
I laugh. “You could have done that at the hotel.”
“True. These babies can rip through steel.” Her smile turns just a little vicious when she lifts one hand off the wheel to wiggle her manicured fingers at me. Like all Weres, Vanessa’s human-looking nails could transform into inch-long, razor-sharp claws at will. It should be hard to imagine glamorous Vanessa ready to rip someone limb from limb, but it’s not. There is something knife-like about her. When she glitters, it is because the edge of her blade is polished.
Her rings catch the light when she lowers her hand back to the wheel, fingers strumming over the seams in the synthetic leather. She appears to be playing a tune.
“Have you?”
“Ripped steel?”
I nod.
Vanessa purses her lips. “Never tested it myself, but my brother once rescued an off-roader pinned beneath his ATV by tearing through the engine with his bare hands. So… yeah, it’s possible.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine having that much strength. Especially — I mean, especially if it’s new to you, right?”
“Oh yeah, it’s a shock to new Weres,” she agrees, slowing to pull off onto what at first appears to be a narrow, overgrown shoulder. I grip my seat reflexively as she steers the vehicle toward what I would consider a footpath, barely visible from the road. We plunge ahead. Branches and vines slap the sides, roof, and windshield of the truck as we go.
Apparently unbothered by the noise, she continues, “We’re way stronger than most people think. Most Weres kinda— I mean, they go out of their way to keep it under wraps. We don’t need people beingmorescared of us, right? Everyone expects elves and orcs to be scary strong, but us? No. Problem is that then you get folks who are turned and have no idea how strong they are, which creates different issues.”
I can see a bit of sunlight up ahead, through a break in the trees. It’s a relief to know that soon we’ll be off the tiny trail, but my fingers don’t unlock until we exit the forest and are dumped onto a dirt road running parallel to a breathtaking lake.
We take another turn around an outcropping of gray, glittering rock and then I see it: across the narrow lake, a gorgeous, sprawling log home climbs up the mountain on the other side. The wood is honey-colored and even from a distance appears hand-hewn. Seen through a veil of mist rising off of the snowmelt lake, it looks like a rustic palace cradled by wilderness.
Breathing a little easier, I ask, “Like your mom?”
“Mom’s a bit different,” she answers, tilting her head from one side to another. “There aren’t a whole lot of turned, submissive Weres. People who get bitten tend to be on the dominant end of the spectrum. More aggressive in general. Being a submissive— Well, she didn’t know her own strength because submissives prefer flight over aggression. Unless provoked, of course.”
