“You don’t trust them. Great.” She sighed and pulled out her phone. “Give me five minutes to check my email and then…” Her voice trailed away as she thumbed into the data that she’d received last night. “Wow,” she breathed.
“What?” Anxiety burst through the word, but she waved at him to show that it was okay.
She kept reading. There was too much to process in five minutes, but the summary was pretty succinct.
“Cecilia—” he began, and she waved at him again, answering without looking up.
“The data that you guys sent earlier? A bunch of it came from a lab in Ann Arbor run by Dr. Sherilyn.”
“Yeah. Shifter lab at the University of Michigan. She’s an ocelot.”
“I sent her our data yesterday while we were waiting on Abby to…” Cecilia looked up. “An ocelot? Seriously?”
He shrugged. “We aren’t all dogs and bears.”
“Right.” Damn, there was so much to learn. The excitement of that nearly buried her annoyance at being woken up too damn early by rude werewolves. Then she was back in the data Dr. Sherilyn had sent. “She’s done some great work. Pretty clear how the body is effected by this Flu.”
Hank shifted, his body relaxing slightly in hope. “Can you stop it?”
“Too early to say—”
Heavy pounding on the door interrupted her words. She had to force herself to close up her phone and pay attention to the situation at hand. Hank looked at her, and she nodded. He pulled open the door, then jumped back quickly as he took up a protective stance in front of her.
The wolves sauntered in, their leader empty-handed but the other two carried hot coffee, Frappuccinos, and an assortment of muffins. Impressive. She hadn’t thought Starbucks had any bakery items left.
“How’d you get those?” she asked as her nose twitched. She might not be a shifter, but she sure as hell could smell baked goods.
“We have a wolf who bakes. These are hers.”
Wonderful!Except she now realized that Hank wouldn’t want her to eat them. Possible poison or whatever. So with a sigh, she gestured to the table. Everyone gathered and sat, except for Hank. He stood beside her bristling and naked. It was actually pretty sexy, but she didn’t let herself focus on that.
Instead, she grabbed a bottled Frappuccino and twisted it open, feeling for the pop to prove it hadn’t been tampered with. It popped, she drank, and it tasted wonderful. She leaned back in her chair.
“Okay. Civilized conversation. What’s going on?”
“Good morning, Dr. Lu. Our alpha promised that we would answer your questions. We are here to do that.”
She frowned. “I thought the meeting was tonight.”
“It is. We are here to take you to where we gather so you can—”
She held up her hand. “Stop. I’m not going anywhere with you right now. There’s too much going on.”
The werewolf arched a brow. “You are in significant danger.”
That phrase ought to terrify her, but honestly, she’d been too amped up from adrenaline these last days to get worked up. “Really? From what?”
“Hybrids are everywhere, the water is tainted, and as a scientist who knows about shifters, you are a valuable person.”
She nodded and looked at each of the werewolves in turn. “Sounds really scary,” she deadpanned. “That’s why I’ve got a guard with me here.” She glanced at Hank. “And I spend the rest of my time at the hospital.” She took another sip of her drink. Damn it was good. “But you’re here now, I’ve got some questions—”
“We want to offer you a job, Dr. Lu.”
She blinked and stared at her drink. Had they drugged her? They couldn’t possibly be offering her a job. “I work for the CDC.”
“But you’re aware of shifters now. Surely, you realize that there is a limit to the type of research you can do—and report—to the ignorant.”
He meant to the world at large, to all those people who are not in on the secret. “Yeah, well, that’s a discussion for another day. Right now, I have a flu to stop and—”
