Page 15

15

T he smell of dusty books tickled my nose as I pushed open the cracked door to room three-oh-one. I poked my head in, looking around with wide eyes at the overloaded bookshelves and stacks of books and papers all over the floor. The sign on the door read: Dr. Elias Samuels, Ph.D.

“Hello?” I called out softly, not wanting to intrude but desperately wanting access to the room to run my fingers across the leather spines. Books of every color and size filled the small space.

“Back here,” a muffled voice called, somewhere behind the stacks,

Easing the door fully open, I slipped inside before closing it behind me. I carefully made my way through the makeshift path left in the floor. I wound around behind the first set of bookcases and the room opened into a small circle with a desk and chair, a small armchair, and several stacks of loose books.

The man bent over a book at the desk didn’t look up as I came in, his white hair shockingly bright against his dark skin. He held a magnifying glass over the text, lips moving silently as he read.

“Yes? Can I help you?” he asked, not looking up.

I cleared my throat. “I was told to come here.”

Amusement threaded his tone. “And now you have. Were you told to do anything else upon arriving?”

I laughed softly, my shoulders relaxing. “Right. I was told to see Elias Samuels? Are you Dr. Samuels?”

“Sometimes,” he answered cryptically. He set the magnifying glass on top of the open book and looked up at me with knowing gray eyes as he lowered himself into the desk chair. “You must be the new Blackwater pack member. Skye Parker, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” I replied, the left side of my mouth hooking up.

He arched his brows. “Touché.” He leaned back in his chair, folding his weathered hands across his stomach. “Please, call me Elias. And how can I help you today?”

“My alpha... Remy, told me to see you. I’ve been having issues with shifting,” I admitted quietly, embarrassed.

“What kinds of issues?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.

“The kind where she only wants to come out and play if I’m super angry or terrified out of my mind. I can’t shift whenever I want the way everyone else can.”

He held up a hand, wagging a finger. “First, stop comparing yourself to everyone else. Everyone had their own issues with their wolf. Anyone who says they didn’t is lying.” He rubbed his jaw. “The bond between a human and their wolf is a sacred thing, and no two bonds are alike. Some start shifting as pups, some don’t shift until puberty, and some struggle through adulthood, never getting the shift to happen more than a few times.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Great. So, it’s going to always be like this?”

“No, I didn’t say that,” Elias replied. He motioned to the armchair in front of him. “Why don’t you sit down?”

I moved across the small space and dropped into the armchair.

“Now,” he started, leaning his forearms on the desk, “you say your wolf comes out when you’re scared or angry?”

I nodded.

“When your emotions are extremely volatile,” he surmised. “You just joined the Blackwater pack? Where were you before?”

I shifted on the cushion. “A southern pack.”

His brows raised again. “Can you be more specific?”

I gritted my teeth. “New Mexico.”

He hummed under his breath, the lines around his eyes deepening as he studied me. “Only five packs in New Mexico. Klarendon, Long Mesa, Small Top, Desert Sands, and Flatrock. Flatrock and Small Top have a dying population and no wolves younger than thirty. I don’t think Flatrock even has a female left in their pack. Desert Sands and Klarendon are small packs with less than a dozen members each. That leaves us with Long Mesa?”

My breath caught in my chest, my heartbeat wild and erratic.

Elias nodded once. “I can see why you left. Long Mesa doesn’t have the best reputation. Once it was a great pack, one of the strongest in the southwest. The last several Alphas have slowly driven it into the ground.”

I snorted. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

His eyes sharpened on me. “But what about you? Why did you leave?”

I tried to choose my words carefully. “Like you said, it’s not the best pack.”

“And?”

“And what?” I countered defensively. “My mom wanted something better for us.”

He sighed sadly. “I’m an old man, Skye. I’ve lived longer than most, and I’ve met more wolves than you can imagine. I’ve devoted my life to studying our kind, and that means traveling across the world to interview and observe them.”

I waited for him to continue, taking a deep breath.

“I remember being young and meeting a beautiful young wolf out in the desert of New Mexico. She brought me into her pack and I spent weeks with them, learning their ways and customs.” He didn’t blink as he looked at me. “Considering you look almost exactly like her with dark hair, I’m guessing she was your grandmother or great-grandmother. And then there are your eyes. Anyone from the south knows those eyes.”

My hands curled into fists. My muscles tensed, bracing to run if I needed.

“Which would mean your last name is Markham, not Parker,” he continued calmly, as if he wasn’t completely dismantling my cover story piece by piece. “And if that’s true, that would also make you the bastard daughter of Adalynne Markham, the wolf who started a war in the south.”

I jumped to my feet. “You don’t know anything—”

He held up a hand. “I’m not judging, my dear. I’m just saying I know. And knowing what I know about the aftermath of the war, and the rumors of Long Mesa, I can hazard a guess why your wolf is dormant.”

I was torn between walking out of the room and wanting to know more. Curiosity won, and I sat back down. “Why?”

“I need you to answer a few questions for me first,” Elias replied. “And I need total honesty. Nothing goes beyond this room. You have my word. My ability to help you will depend on having all the facts, but I can also see why you would want your privacy.”

Reluctantly, I nodded as dread coiled in my stomach.

“You are Skye Markham ?”

“Yes.”

“Your mother was an omega of the Long Mesa pack?”

“Yes.”

“You lived with her at the omega house?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Omegas are still treated as community property in the Long Mesa pack?”

“I guess,” I replied bitterly.

His eyes narrowed. “I doubt much has changed in the several decades since I was there. Omegas were used as grunt labor, little more than janitors and servants. You’re telling me life has improved since then?”

“No, I’m telling you it got worse,” I snapped, my temper flaring. “Omegas aren’t maids or janitors, they’re... whores. Pack members come to the house and do whatever they want, whenever they want. However they want.”

Elias was utterly silent for a moment. “My, God,” he whispered. His eyes went to mine. “And you were forced to live as such? Since you were a child?”

“Omegas weren’t declared until they were at least the age of majority—eighteen,” I clarified through clenched teeth. “The night my mother and I left, they had just decided to lower the age to sixteen, which would have made me a full omega. I was told the next day I would start... serving my pack.” I spat the last words, stomach churning violently.

“So, you were never abused, but you knew it was imminent?” Elias asked gently.

I looked away, heat flaming across my cheeks. “I didn’t say I was never... The boy next in line to be Alpha was in my grade. He and his friends... They never... I mean they didn’t force me to... you know , but... There was other stuff.”

Elias lowered his head. “And how did that make you feel?”

My head snapped up. “How did it make me feel?” I demanded, my body flushing with anger. “You mean, did I like it?”

“No, not at all. Let me clarify: how did this make your wolf feel?”

“Sometimes furious. I would start to shake, wanting to change at first. But mostly she stayed silent and quiet the longer it went on. Lately, though, it got worse.”

Elias nodded solemnly. “She was likely protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” I scoffed. “By letting them—”

“If you had shifted,” he cut in gently, “what would have happened?”

“I would have killed them,” I hissed. I knew it in my heart. Just like I had killed Dane, I would have killed Cassian.

“Exactly. And in that situation, killing one or all of those boys, what would have then happened?”

I paused, thinking it through. “My uncle and his friends would have killed me. And my mother.”

“Could you have taken them all on?”

I shook my head, defeated. “No.”

“But by staying quiet and dormant, your wolf had given you both the best chance at survival,” Elias explained. “She knew taking on multiple wolves would only lead to your death. She knew any form of aggression on her part would have had catastrophic results for you both.”

“I killed a wolf the night we left,” I admitted. “He was raping one of the other omegas, and they had just told me I would be an omega the next day, and I lost it. I shifted and had my teeth around his throat in seconds.”

“You killed his human form?”

“He was shifted when he was...” I trailed off, swallowing back bile at the memory.

Elias looked stunned and then horrified. He went ashen. “That’s sacrilege, an abomination. For a wolf to attack a human and... “

“It was kind of common around Long Mesa,” I whispered, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“Does your new Alpha know this?” Elias asked, his voice tight.

I nodded. “My mom and I told Gabriel everything when we came to Blackwater.”

“Good,” Elias said. “Gabriel is a good alpha. He won’t let this pass without consequence. He’ll likely bring it to the Alpha Council at the Summit for a formal inquest.”

“That’s good. I guess.” I couldn’t see Linden or Cassian changing things in Long Mesa because the Council said they had to.

He looked at me. “This explains a lot about why you have issues shifting. Not only did your wolf bury herself to protect you, but she likely didn’t trust her pack mates. A pack is meant to thrive together, to trust and love. You grew up surrounded by mistrust and fear. An Alpha should be a source of comfort and safety while yours was the center of your anxiety.”

“So now what? I just have an emotionally damaged wolf to live with?” I rolled my eyes.

“Spend time with your new pack. Make friends. Let your wolf sense she can trust these new people. For now, if you feel the need to shift, don’t fight the urge. She’s let you take control for the last seventeen years, trusting you to keep both of you alive. It’s time for you to trust her.”

“Trust her?” I repeated skeptically.

“Yes. Spend some time by yourself outside. Try to reach her, let her take over. I don’t think your issue is that your wolf wants to be dormant, but that she’s done it for so long, she doesn’t know how to stop, except when you experience extreme emotional distress. You need to spend some time reassuring her that you’re both safe.”

I flopped back into the chair. “All this because of a freaking genetic anomaly. Normals have it so much easier.”

“Genetic anomaly?” Elias repeated, amused and confused. “You think being a shifter is a result of a genetic anomaly? Like you’re a superhero or something? A mutant?”

“Isn’t it? I’ve taken the science courses—shifters have an extra chromosome that causes the shift. It’s science. So, yeah. Kind of like a mutant.”

Elias snorted and got off his chair. “Your generation is all about science and proof. There has to be a scientific reason for everything.” He moved to a stack of books, shifting three off the top and grabbing the fourth. It was a small, black leather volume with an embossed star and wolf on the front.

He held up the book. “So much has been thrown into the science of being a shifter, that the true story has been lost.”

“True story? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” I arched a brow with a smile.

He glared at me, exasperated. “Young people think you know it all.”

“What’s to know?”

He settled back in his chair, opening the book to the first page. “History, little one. History is what there is to know. Did you know where the first wolves originated from? Or how they came to be?”

I stared blankly for a second. “It was a genetic anomaly. Evolution at its finest. Or worst, depending on how you look at it.”

“Two words often used to try to explain the unexplainable,” Elias muttered. “The first shifters came from the Old World.”

“The Old World?” I repeated, frowning.

“Before there were countries and boundaries. What is technically now divided into Russia and eastern Europe. When people lived life instead of watching television shows about it.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, crossing my legs and sensing this was going to be a longer conversation, but I was admittedly curious.

“Her name was Namina, and she was the most beautiful girl in her village. She was loved by two men, the son of the Grand Prince and the bastard of a drunkard. One who wanted to control her and one who wanted to love her.” He looked at the book before him, turning the page.

“What happened?” I licked my lips, trying to see the faded, handwritten words from my side of the desk.

“What always happens,” Elias said softly. “Men went to war. The reasons are always different, but the outcome is always the same. The Prince’s son believed he had a right to Namina, but Namina only loved the bastard. They planned to run away, when the Prince’s son summoned a Roma from a nearby traveling group.”

“Roma ?” I asked.

He smiled. “A gypsy woman. He made the woman place a curse on the bastard, turning him into a beast known to terrorize the villages. Clearly Namina could not wed a wild dog. A wolf.”

“So what happened?”

“The devotion between the bastard, now a wolf, and Namina never wavered. Eventually the Prince’s son grew bored of Namina, seeing a prettier girl in a neighboring village.”

“But he had already turned the bastard into a wolf,” I realized. “So they could still never be together.”

Elias turned a page. “As legend tells it, Namina’s mother was a descendant of the Romani tribe herself. Upon seeing her daughter’s distress, she wove a spell to ensure her daughter’s happiness. The magic was too strong to turn the bastard back to a man, but it allowed him the ability to shift at will from wolf to man.”

“And they lived happily ever after?” I teased, not wanting to admit that the story was kind of sweet and kind of awesome.

Elias’s face darkened as he turned the page. “No. The greed of man knows no bounds. When the Grand Prince discovered what had been done, he rounded up all the Romani he could find. He saw the potential for an army of wolf-men. Imagine the battles he could win. He would be able to conquer the world with such an army at his behest.”

“And then what?” I was more invested in this story than I wanted to admit.

“He forced the Romani to turn hundreds of soldiers, and then dozens of women so he could breed his own army.”

“That’s awful,” I whispered.

“Namina and her wolf knew they couldn’t let the Grand Prince continue his plans, so they worked with the turned army and overthrew the Grand Prince. In a single, bloody night, they killed the Grand Prince and his entire family. The burned the village to the ground and escaped into the night, forming the first shifter pack deep in the Ural Mountains.”

“And Namina and the shifter?”

“They became the first Alpha pair,” Elias turned a page. “They had several children, all who carried the shifter genetic anomaly, as you call it. The pack eventually grew too big for the area and they began splintering off, moving across the world as they sought new territories to claim.”

“But now the shifter rate is declining. Why is that?”

Elias inclined his head to the side. “In some regions more than others, yes. Especially in the south. There’s no clear-cut explanation for why, but it’s something I have devoted my life to studying. It could be as simple as it is for human women—stress plays a large part in infertility. Southern packs have started to die out, and thus the stress on females to bear children is greater.”

“But there’s still less females than males.”

“It’s always been that way. Fewer females were created than males. Males were to be the army and females simply the vessels to make more soldiers. The Grand Prince didn’t know the toll a single birth would place on a female. He came from a time when women gave birth to child after child after child.”

“Lovely,” I muttered.

“It also may have something to do with your genetic anomaly,” he continued with a shrug. “Males already have an altered chromosome, so it’s easier to manipulate another whereas females have double chromosomes. Perhaps thus making it more complicated for them to change two. The truth is, we don’t really know. There’s no clear cut reason why in vitro fertilization doesn’t work for female shifters either. It works for humans and it works for animals, but a hybrid of the two can’t seem to accept a foreign embryo.”

I studied him for a second. “But you have a theory about that?”

He smiled serenely and closed the book. My eyes again caught on the star and the wolf mark on the cover.

“Perhaps the reason is in how we were created. The Romani believed there had to be a balance in nature. The Chinese call it yin and yang. Perhaps in creating what was never meant to be, nature found a way to control the shifter population on its own.”

“But you’re saying that shifters were basically created from magic?” I asked, flicking my eyes up to him.

He smiled distantly. “My dear, isn’t everything magic in some way?”