But he didn’t run. Instead, he turned to face Loughlin. Clearly, the man was more dangerous than he appeared. “What other skills do you think I have?”
Loughlin slowly put the cap back on the plastic bottle. “My organization is very interested in your talents as a shifter.”
Declan had never heard the wordshifter, but it wasn’t hard to connect the term with the monster he had inside him. The only confusing part was how the man—and his organization—had learned about his secret. And what they wanted from him.
He glanced at the door again. It didn’t sound like there was anyone else nearby, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone out there—just that they were being careful. Declan might be a fast runner when he wanted to be, but he couldn’t outrun a gun.
Declan swung his gaze back to Loughlin, looking for a distinctive bulge that told him the man was carrying a weapon. He didn’t see anything, but…
“I’m not carrying a weapon, Mr. MacBride, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” he said as if reading Declan’s mind. Loughlin motioned his head toward the door. “And there’s no one waiting below with a weapon, either. I’m not here to harass you, hurt you, or try to force you into anything you don’t want to do. I simply want to talk to you about a job that can put your unique abilities to good use—in a place where you won’t have to feel like you have to hide who you are. If you’re not interested in my offer by the time I’m done, I’ll walk out of here and forget I ever saw you. I’m just asking for a chance to talk to you.”
Declan didn’t answer. He hated that Loughlin had walked out of the woods and screwed up the carefully constructed facade that was his so-called life, but curiosity kept him from telling the man to get the hell out. Declan needed to ascertain just how much Loughlin and his organization knew about him. He’d likely have to leave Oregon as soon as Loughlin hiked out of here anyway, of course. Which really sucked because he liked it here.
He sat down on the stool by the map table. “How did you find out about me? Was it Marissa?”
“Your former fiancée?” Loughlin shook his head. “No, we’ve never talked to her. We didn’t think you’d appreciate that.”
That was true. Declan didn’t want to think she’d rat out his secret to strangers, but then again, things hadn’t ended well with his former fiancée—hence theformer. If the organization Loughlin represented hoped to employ him, using the woman who had ripped out his heart probably wasn’t a smart way to gather information on him.
“So, how did you learn that I’m a…monster then?”
Loughlin unscrewed the top from the bottle and downed the rest of the water in a few deep gulps. “First off, you’re far from a monster—”
Declan snorted. “Marissa would disagree with you on that.”
“Probably,” Loughlin agreed. “But that’s only because, for all her intelligence, Marissa couldn’t have known your talents are purely the result of a genetic mutation that occurs in an extremely tiny portion of the population. In your case, the blending of human DNA with that of an ancient member of the genusUrsus. As far as how I found you, it wasn’t easy. But if a person knows what to look for, he can pick up on little clues here and there. Physical feats you demonstrated through middle and early high school, the way other animals react around you, police reports that read just a little too strange. From there, it was a matter of getting some of your DNA and knowing what to look for.”
Declan hadn’t realized his jaw had dropped until it snapped shut. Forget about how they got his DNA. The only thing he cared about was one word. “Ursus?”
“Yes,Ursus—a bear.” John frowned. “You didn’t recognize that when you shift, you take on certain obvious bearlike qualities? The size, the strength, the shape of your face and teeth?”
Declan shook his head. “I’ve never really seen myself when it…happens. I’ve just seen the horror on other people’s faces. I thought I was a werewolf or something.”
Loughlin laughed. “While there are a lot of wolf shifters out there, you’re definitely not one of them.”
It was Declan’s turn to frown. “There are others like me?”
“Other shifters? Yes. Several of them work for me. You’re the first bear shifter we’ve found, though. For reasons unknown to us, higher-order canids and felids seem to predominate the shifter ranks.”
Declan’s mind whirled a thousand miles an hour. He’d spent every minute of his life, or at least every moment since he was fifteen—when he’d started changing—thinking he was some kind of freaking monster. Now this guy walks in here out of nowhere and tells him that not only is there a rational scientific explanation for what he was, but there were other people like him.
“These other shifters—they work for you?”
Loughlin stood and walked over to the small fridge. He opened it and took out another bottle of water. “You mind? That walk out here didn’t look so bad on my GPS.”
When Declan shook his head, Loughlin took a long swallow, then went back to his seat.
“Yes, these shifters work for me, along with other less unique, but no less valuable people. We partner them up in small teams that accentuate the strengths and skills of each member, then have them carry out missions that best suit those skills.”
The idea of being able to work with a team of people who wouldn’t view him as a monster when they discovered his secret was damn enticing.
“Okay, you have my attention,” he told Loughlin. “What kind of work would I be doing? I mean, I might be one of these shifters you’re talking about, but I don’t have any special skills that I know of.”
Not unless you counted being able to throw someone through a wall.
“You have more skills than you realize—you simply need training to bring them out,” Loughlin said. “We won’t ask you to do anything that’s beyond your capability. Or outside the boundary of your moral compass.”
“I’m still listening,” Declan said.
