Page 26 of Wolf Revealed

It was Mike’s turn to think. “Is that how someone becomes a hybrid werewolf?”

She nodded. “Yup. One parent is always born a werewolf, and the gene is passed down to their children, sometimes for generations without ever turning on.”

“Huh,” Mike said.

“Is that the only thing that makes you different from a werewolf like Mom?” Kal asked. “That you have to wait for your DNA to turn you into one when it wanted to?”

Mike’s mouth edged up at that. “Well, I know it takes my pack mates and me longer to turn into wolves than it does for your mom and her pack mates.”

Okay, so Mike could turn into a wolf. She hadn’t really been sure after what she’d seen when all there’d been were claws and fangs. She and the other wolves in her pack couldn’t do a partial shift like that. Maybe hybrid werewolves could because they were human first before becoming a werewolf.

Kal looked at her. “Am I the kind of werewolf Dad is or the kind like you?”

On the other side of the table, Mike seemed just as interested in the answer to that.

Lark smiled at their son. “You’re a werewolf like me.”

“You’re sure?” Mike asked.

She nodded. “I actually wondered about it a lot when I was pregnant. Since I thought you were human at the time, I assumed Kal would have the hybrid gene, but I knew from the moment Kal was born, and I picked up his scent, that he’s a werewolf like me. I didn’t think too much about why, but now it makes sense. You already had the hybrid gene, even though you hadn’t gone through the change yet. When one parent is a First Clan werewolf like me—that’s what we call ourselves, by the way— and the other parent is a hybrid werewolf like you, the child will always be First Clan.”

Mike looked relieved as he dipped his cheeseburger in some ketchup. “As I understand it, werewolves are descended from dire wolves. At least, that’s what we figured out after one of my pack mates accidentally had his blood put through a DNA scan.”

Lark frowned, repeating that last part over in her head a couple times to make sure she’d heard it correctly. “How does someone accidentally have their blood taken and scanned?”

He chewed, washing it down with some iced tea. “Technically, it wasn’t an accident. When they were first dating, Trey’s fiancée was suspicious about all the weird things that seemed to go on around the SWAT team, so when he fortuitously sliced his finger in the kitchen, she got a sample of his blood, then gave it to her sister to test at the genetics lab where she works.”

Mike must have seen the shocked—not to mention terrified—expression on her face because he quickly hurried on.

“There’s no reason to freak out, though. Once Samantha turned out to be Trey’s soul mate, she didn’t do anything with the information she learned. But that DNA panel is where we learned the wolf material in our DNA comes from the dire wolf that went extinct about ten thousand years ago.”

There was so much there to unpack that Lark didn’t even know where to start. The link to extinct dire wolves made sense, but the idea of the woman Mike’s pack mate was dating stealing his blood to do a DNA panel on it was still all kinds of terrifying.

“That sounds like the stories you told me when I was little, Mom,” Kal said. “About us getting our werewolf nature as a gift from real wolves long ago in repayment for a kindness our ancestors showed them.”

Lark nibbled on a chip thoughtfully. “That would definitely explain what Samantha discovered in the DNA panel.”

Mike picked up his other cheeseburger. “You have stories about where werewolves originated from?”

She smiled, thinking of how the story was passed down from generation to generation in her pack. “Legend has it that our ancestors once faced terrible creatures that threatened to wipe out all of humanity, and just when it seemed like there wasn’t any hope, a miracle happened. One of our ancestors—Amias—was running from the creatures, barely able to keep ahead of them and close to collapsing from exhaustion, when he came across an alpha from one of the ancient wolf packs. Even though the wolf was huge and a dangerous creature in his own right, he’d gotten trapped in a narrow canyon during a forest fire and was close to perishing. In return for Amias risking his life to save him, the alpha wolf gifted Amias and his family and all of his descendants with the speed, agility, strength, and form of the great wolf. As a result, Amias and his family were able to defeat the creatures. That blood continues to run through our veins today, thousands of years later.”

“That has to be one of the coolest origin stories I’ve ever heard,” Mike said with a grin and laughed. Mike did love his superhero movies. “And it kind of fits with everything we’d been told about how our ancestors became werewolves long ago to protect humanity from vampires.”

Kal’s eyes widened. “Vampires?!” He looked at her. “Those creatures in the stories Grandpa told me were vampires?”

Mike nodded, looking from Kal to her. “According to what Davina told us, yeah.”

“That makes the tales even cooler!” their son said.

Mike chuckled at that, and even Lark couldn’t help laughing again. Spoken like a true ten-year-old boy. One who was also definitely his father’s son. She’d have to remember to mention the whole vampire thing to her parents and see if they knew that part of the story.

As they ate the rest of their lunch, they talked about other things, like why Mike became a police officer, how the SWAT team came to adopt Tuffie, and whether Kal could try to do the obstacle course on the compound they’d seen the other day. The sight of them bonding like this made her heart happy.

“Do you want to play some video games, big guy?” Mike asked when they’d finished eating.

Kal grinned. “Definitely!”

“Good deal. Why don’t you go inside and pick a game while your mom and I clean the table?”