Page 33 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)
She wanted to share with him. To have someone outside her clan know who she was. But how do you get over a thousand years of conditioning?
His brows drew together. “Sabrina. I know you were raised to not trust and that is something hard to get over. But you can talk to me about anything.”
He understood perfectly her thoughts and hesitations. “I’ve told you that our clan is protective of our powers because we were attacked in the past.”
He nodded.
“When our numbers dropped, we became less of a threat. There are fourteen of us left that I know of.”
“I’m so sorry.” He hesitated before continuing. “If you live so long, why aren’t there more of you?”
And now they were at the crux of the matter.
“For several reasons. We are unable to procreate outside of our clan, so we can’t introduce new blood.
And even though our clan can live for a long time, we lose our people to the Fade.
” Why did that word feel like a knife to the heart? Every single time.
“What is that?”
“A disease that only our kind suffers from. We have not been able to determine why someone becomes afflicted with it. And there is no cure.”
“That’s why Lucas became a geneticist.”
Sabrina nodded. “Yes. He has always been a scientist. In the late eighteen hundreds the idea of genes and chromosomes were just starting to be studied. By the early nineteen hundreds, genetics had been born, and Lucas felt that it could be the key to curing the Fade.”
“You said ‘we.’ So you worked with him? What happened?”
She swallowed around the lump that had taken form in her throat.
“I did. I lived with the clan, and we worked for centuries trying to find a cure. We did everything to help our people. When our numbers were greater, more were afflicted, but our medical knowledge was limited. Now that medicine has evolved, we have knowledge, but no one has come down with the Fade in the past century. The last was Robert.”
Jason looked into her eyes. Really looked like he always did. “You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”
He had given her an out, but she wasn’t going to take it.
“I need to tell you. Robert, Alexander, Lucas, and I grew up together. Lucas is my blood brother, but Xan and Robert were like brothers to me as well. But Robert was Lucas’s reason for breathing.
They loved each other and had been together since they were teens.
When Robert got sick, we were desperate to find a cure and heart-stricken, none more so that Lucas. ”
Jason raised his hands and used his thumbs to wipe away the tears she didn’t realize had started again.
“I tried everything I could think of. I had become a medical doctor to help find a cure, and I couldn’t save my people or Robert.”
“After we lost him, Lucas lost himself in grief, which quickly changed to anger, and he spent every waking moment trying to conquer the Fade. And even though he didn’t say it, he hated me. I failed them all.”
“Sabrina. You can’t take the weight of the world on your shoulders. You couldn’t be the only person in your clan trying to find a cure. You said that Lucas is a scientist, so he was trying as well?”
She nodded. “Yes. But I’m the medical doctor.
And I couldn’t do it any longer. I couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day like Lucas did.
And his anger grew. He was like a bomb that went off at the smallest provocation.
So he gave me a choice. Dedicate myself to researching a cure, or leave the clan.
” She looked into his navy-blue eyes and found nothing but understanding and compassion. “So I left.”
“And the others in your clan did nothing?”
“Alexander tried to reason with him, but it didn’t do any good. The others didn’t know what had happened between Lucas and me.”
“How long ago?”
She swallowed hard again. “1901.”
His eyes widened. “You’ve been on your own since?”
She leaned into his hand. “Alexander and I have kept in touch. Letters which then changed to calls when telephones were invented.”
“And the other clan members?”
“I haven’t seen them. And I don’t know where they live because we kept the clan’s whereabouts a secret to keep our dwindling numbers safe.”
“Damn. I am so sorry you lost everything.”
She closed her eyes for a moment before responding. “I could have fought him on it, but our clan had lost so much. I hoped if I left for a while, it might help Lucas to grieve and let go of the anger.”
“The guy I just met hasn’t let go of his anger. He’s fine tuned it into a thin blade that can draw blood.”
Sabrina blinked to clear her tear-blurred vision. “I’d hoped he’d gotten better.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that too.”
“He’s my family.”
“And so are we. The team is your family, and we’re here for you. And like I said before, we can give him and Alexander the boot if you want.”
Sabrina shook her head. “I’m honestly surprised he’s here. Maybe he’s letting some of the obsession go.”
“Maybe he found a cure.”
Her heart sped up at the thought. “Possibly. But the only way to know for sure would be to administer it to someone who had the Fade.”
“Double-edged sword.”
“Exactly.” She straightened and blew out a breath. “The important thing right now is that we find a way to get your animal to communicate with you.”
And she would make sure that happened, even if Lucas kept directing his anger at her. She loved and missed him. Something had made him agree to help her. If she could help Jason and repair her relationship with Lucas, it would be worth the cuts he inflicted on her heart.