Page 14 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)

Sabrina froze at the sound and turned slowly to face Jason. His dark blue eyes now glowed a rich caramel hue. Which was normally the first sign a shifter made before turning.

Not good.

Having a shifter turn in her lab was a recipe for disaster on the best of days.

Add in the fact they were locked inside and Jason had never shifted before, and that disaster took on epic proportions.

He hadn’t felt his animal up to this point.

Why now? Was his animal reacting to the stress?

To being trapped? Or could it be a reaction to what was in the case?

Sabrina could see from her peripheral vision that Misha must have flipped off the speaker because he was having a muted yet animated discussion on his cell while he gaped at Jason.

“What’s wrong?” Sabrina asked calmly even though she was far from it.

“Danger,” he said in a deep, rumbly voice.

She set down her tools and nodded, trying to control her breathing. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

Did she want to ask him about his animal?

Because something was obviously happening, but he didn’t seem to know that his animal was close to the surface.

Or at least she thought it was. Other than the Barry White voice and the high beams that replaced his normal eye color, he seemed fine.

His breathing wasn’t labored, and he didn’t look like he was in any sort of pain.

With the mask covering most of his face, she couldn’t see if his other features were changing.

Even though he was stressed, his energy felt muted, which didn’t make sense.

It seemed as if his animal was struggling to take over, but his body wasn’t getting the message. Whether that was because it didn’t know how to change or maybe couldn’t change remained to be seen.

Sabrina flinched when her phone pinged. Jason narrowed his eyes. “It’s fine. Just my phone. It gave me a start.” She pulled it out of her pocket. It was a text from Misha telling her Griffin coming ASAP . Apparently he didn’t want to alarm Jason either.

She looked over at the window and nodded.

Misha clicked on the speaker button. “I’m working on another way to test. I’m going to see if the air sensors can categorize what’s in the vial.”

“Get out then?” Jason asked.

“I think so, yes. Let me get back to it. You both have to be getting hungry in there.”

Sabrina appreciated him trying to distract Jason. “Are we keeping you from your midafternoon snack?” she joked.

“I ate something before we picked up the truck, but I can always eat. There is a really good brewery by Jason’s apartment that we haven’t been to in a while. We need to go there soon before Callie has the baby. I love their beer-battered onion rings.”

“Focus,” Jason growled.

Sabrina’s stomach clenched at his tone. Misha’s eyes widened a bit at the voice, but then he seemed to get ahold of himself and smiled at Jason. “Okay. Okay. It’s hard for me to not think about food, but I’ll try.”

She kept watching for signs that Jason was going to shift over the next few minutes, but nothing else happened. Misha glanced to the side and nodded to someone.

Griffin walked up to the window with Bea at his side. He took a long look at Jason before speaking. “How are you doing, Jason?”

Jason’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Why…here?”

“We heard about you all having some issues and came by to see if we could help,” Griffin said.

“Good news,” Misha said. “The sensors have determined that the liquid in the vial is not an airborne pathogen, so you can take the masks off.”

Sabrina pulled off her mask at the same time Jason did. Now that his face was visible, she studied it and saw that his features hadn’t changed. Yet his eyes still glowed.

Jason took a step toward the door. “Out?”

“Not yet,” Misha said and then rushed on to add, “But very soon.”

“That’s good news,” Sabrina said with a smile for Jason’s benefit. “I can test the liquid now that we know it can’t hurt us by breathing it.”

Jason growled and his eyes glowed brighter.

“Jason! Listen to me,” Griffin demanded. The alpha power he possessed pulsed from him, strong enough for even Sabrina to feel it through the window. “It’s not time for your animal to come out. It’s time to take control again.”

Jason didn’t seem fazed by Griffin’s demand. He tilted his head back and bobbed it slightly, scenting the air like an animal would. He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

“I think his animal is already out,” Sabrina said softly.

Griffin looked at her for a moment, and she could almost see the wheels turning. “It’s time to let Jason come back now. Once we get you out of that room, you can come and run the forest at my house. Rest now and we’ll meet again soon.”

Jason took a jerky step back and banged into the counter. A metal tray hit the floor and clanged like a bell. He crouched and bared his still-human teeth.

Sabrina held up her trembling hands in front of her, hoping it wasn’t noticeable. “You’re okay. I know you’re scared right now, but everything is going to be all right.” She hoped that was true, but she would do anything, say anything to keep him safe. “You can trust me.”

Jason’s animal—because that is what Sabrina knew this to be—stared at her for a moment as if trying to burrow into her to read her thoughts and feelings. “I will keep you safe. Rest now. We’ll be out of here soon.”

Jason didn’t move.

Sabrina started humming a tune she’d heard during her jazz club days in the twenties. Jazz calmed her and she hoped it would calm Jason’s animal as well.

After a few minutes Jason relaxed and sat on the floor, resting his head against the cabinet, and watched her. She kept humming, her mouth getting dry and her nerves flaring, but she’d stand there until he didn’t feel threatened.

He finally closed his eyes, and she held her breath until he seemed to relax.

She glanced over at the window, and Misha, Griffin, and Bea nodded or gave her a thumbs-up.

She kept humming and grabbed her tools to take a sample of the liquid in the vial and get it tested so they could open the damn door.

She hummed a bit louder as she tried to quietly open the box again.

She glanced over at Jason, and thankfully he didn’t open his eyes.

She took a sample and placed it on several slides and in another vial to run multiple tests.

She wouldn’t open the other vials right now since she didn’t know what they held or if it would trigger the alarms again.

The first slide went under her microscope, and she studied it for a few minutes.

It didn’t appear to be bacteria. She placed some of the liquid in several of her instruments and waited for initial results to generate.

Of course, more detailed analysis would need to be conducted, and she would work on that once the biohazard lockdown was done.

She kept humming as she waited and glanced again at Jason, who was taking a serious nap now. What was happening with him? Maybe Griffin or Bea could shed some light on Jason’s reaction.

Finally one of her tests completed, and the lab door unlocked with a definitive click.

As the door slid open, Sabrina could see that Kyle and Dalton had joined them and stood outside the lab with matching looks of concern.

Griffin made his way slowly into the room and stood next to her when she said Jason’s name.

Softly at first. When he didn’t respond, she said his name a little louder. Still nothing.

Griffin held up his hand before she could get closer to Jason. “Jason. Time to wake up,” he said in his alpha tone.

Jason stirred and opened his eyes slowly. They weren’t glowing, but they were confused. “What happened?” He sat up and looked around. “How did I end up on the floor?”

Griffin reached out a hand, and Jason grasped it as he got to his feet.

“We’ll explain everything to you,” Griffin said.

“Okay. Can we do it outside the lab?” Jason said. “Not a big fan of this place at the moment.”

Sabrina blew out a breath. Jason was already bouncing back to his snarky self. He would be fine. She— they —would make sure of it.

Jason sat on an exam table in the back warehouse clinic while Sabrina checked him over. Misha, Griffin, Bea, Kyle, and Dalton watched him with varying degrees of concern. He thought he remembered Griffin and Bea showing up. But when did Kyle and Dalton get here?

He felt like a specimen on a petri dish. So much for not feeling trapped. He took another deep breath as Sabrina listened to his chest. She finally removed the stethoscope and stepped back.

He was surprised she wasn’t commenting on his heart. Even with all the deep breathing and telling himself to calm the hell down, it had to be beating faster than normal. He couldn’t remember how he’d ended up on the floor in the lab. How was the lockdown over? Had he passed out?

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Sabrina asked before holding her hands over his head while she read his energy.

“We took the case to the lab, and when you opened it, the alarms went off and we got locked inside.” He kept describing what had happened, and both Sabrina and Misha nodded so he wasn’t totally off base. “After a while everything started to get a bit fuzzy like I was watching from the outside.”

“What is the last thing you remember?” Griffin asked.

He thought for a moment. “Taking off my mask.”

Griffin nodded. “That is when your animal seemed to take over.”

Jason looked down at his intact clothing. “Did I turn into something?”

“No. It’s like the animal took over your consciousness,” Sabrina said.

He turned to Bea. “You said that doesn’t happen.”

“It normally doesn’t.”

“But it has happened,” Kyle chimed in. “When Griffin was drugged a couple years ago, his animal took over.” And the way Kyle had described it, she had almost become his chew toy.

“Is that the drug in the case?” Jason asked.

Sabrina set her stethoscope on the table.

“I won’t know until I can study it some more.

The drug used on Griffin was injected. We’ve already ruled out that the liquid in the lab doesn’t impact us through inhalation, and you didn’t touch it, so I’m not sure how you would have been affected by whatever it is. ”

Jason’s stomach bottomed out as he looked at Sabrina. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Her expression softened. “No. Your animal was confused and scared.”

“I was hoping to calm your animal. Normally my alpha voice works, but it didn’t really help,” Griffin added.

Misha frowned. “Maybe your voice works for other shifters who are conscious of what’s going on around them, and it didn’t work because his animal had taken over.”

Bea nodded. “Sabrina was the one who calmed your animal.”

Jason’s chest tightened. “You should have sedated me. It wasn’t worth you getting hurt.”

“We were locked out of the clinic. I don’t keep sedatives in the lab or morgue area. I don’t normally need them there,” Sabrina said with a smile.

She was trying to lower his anxiety, but it wasn’t working. He could have hurt her. Before he could respond, Sabrina turned to Griffin.

“Have you seen anything like this before?”

Griffin shook his head. “Never. If someone is part shifter and part human, they can be latent. But that normally means they don’t turn into an animal at all. They might have one or two characteristics, like heightened senses, but I’ve never seen a partial shift like that. It’s all or nothing.”

“It’s like your body couldn’t change, and your animal couldn’t interact consciously either,” Bea said.

“I think for now you should move into my house,” Griffin said.

“At least until we know that you can control your animal. I don’t want something happening while you’re alone in your apartment building.

We need to work with you to see if we can coax your animal out in a safe environment and you keep your conscious thoughts. ”

Now he needed a babysitter? “And what happens if it takes over my consciousness again and I turn into something?”

“Between Bea and I, we can work with your animal. And we’ll have Sabrina there as well to make sure you are okay physically.”

“And if you can’t control it?” He swallowed. If he couldn’t control it?

“Then we tranq you,” Griffin said. “But only as a last resort.”

Jason nodded. At least Griffin didn’t sugarcoat it. He appreciated that.

Kyle raised her hand. “I’ll man the tranq gun.”

Jason smirked. Leave it to Kyle to make him smile in the middle of all this mess. But that was her goal. She was a smart-ass, and she knew how to diffuse the situation. “You seem a little too eager.”

She smiled. “What can I say? I’m a team player.”

Dalton started to laugh and unsuccessfully tried to cover it up with a cough. Misha flat out laughed, his deep belly laugh causing a chain reaction of chuckles from everyone else.

“Why don’t we take you to your apartment so that you can pack, and then we’ll head to the house,” Griffin said.

Jason shook his head at being sidelined. “I want to help with the investigation.”

Griffin held up his hands. “I’m not going to lock you up at the estate. You can be a part of the investigation, but I think after what happened today, you need to take it easy tonight.”

Before Jason could respond, Sabrina spoke up. “I agree with Griffin. I want you to take it easy, and then I’ll come over to the house tomorrow and we can discuss plans on working with your animal, okay?”

Bea smiled. “We’ll have dinner at the house. You know, if you didn’t want to go out tonight, Jason, you could have just told me. Getting yourself locked in the lab? Overkill.”

Jason smiled back at her attempt to lighten the mood as well. “Sorry about that.” He turned to Sabrina. “What are you going to do?”

“I have several tests running right now on the liquid in the case. I’m going to see what it tells us.

We aren’t going to get all the answers tonight.

In the meantime I’m going to put the case in an airtight container and leave it for now.

” She put her hand on his arm, and the weight and warmth calmed him.

His gaze traveled around the room, taking in the faces of his teammates and possible new pack, finishing with Sabrina. She was amazing and so calm. He could have hurt her. Hurt any of them, really, and they still stood beside him, with him. Even with what he had done to them in the past.

And that gave him hope. They would get to the truth about the smugglers and his animal. And they would do it together.