Page 40 of Bound

“We assumed all along they were holding the abducted shifters as blood slaves,” August said. “That’s nothing new. But if using Eclipse allows them to breed varewolves—"

“That’s a big if,” Topher pointed out. “What’s the advantage of a move like that?”

“Not-Emma-Stone could dematerialize and shapeshift,” I said. “Stands to reason she would retain advantages of both her lineages. Vampire strength. Our ability to heal. It was nighttime, but maybe she can even go out into the sun.”

“Shifter strength and ability to draw on moon magic falls across a spectrum. Most likely the same would be true for varewolves. So you’d get some who’d be weaker than either a full-blooded shifter or vampire.” August pushed himself up gingerly, instantly looking like he regretted it. “Maybe they wouldn’t be able to shapeshift or dematerialize at all.”

“Right now this is all hypothetical.” Topher frowned out at the dark street. “Regardless of who or what she is, she’s with Vlad’s people. Vlad could have sent anyone. He brought her. He wanted us to know the Vampire Nation was breeding varewolves.”

I checked my phone again. Nothing from Brody or River. “Yeah. No doubt because we’re slow-walking his request for a meet with Guillermo.”

“Who cares why he did it? We send this to River.”

August said, “Let’s say the leeches are running some elaborate breeding program. They’d have to wait two decades for any varewolves to reach adulthood. No offense, but I don’t see them patiently sticking around for that sort of long game.”

“They’ll be worse than the lowest castes,” I said quietly. “Literally vampire dogs. They’ll be indoctrinated from birth, then sent out into the field to fight for the aristocracy. And so much more convenient because they can go out in sunlight without getting sick and wearing out like their current model.”

Topher cursed.

“Based on everything we know, she shouldn’t exist. Clearly that’s wrong. What other false assumptions have we been operating under and have they been blinding us to what’s really been going on this entire time?” I frowned, feeling a headache coming on. “You think this could have been one of those things the Tracers classified that Mom couldn’t talk about?”

“Hard to say about Mom. I mean, in general? The Tracers require absolute secrecy. Even if you get out, you’re never really out, you know? So I’d imagine she saw and heard quite a few things over the decades she was with them that would make our blood run cold.” August hesitated. “The Alphas are routinely given information that isn’t meant to be passed on to the rest of the pack. Security briefings, threats, that sort of thing. And all of it’s need-to-know, only. So it’s possible Brody knows more than he’s letting on, too.”

“Eclipse is a game changer,” Topher said quietly. “We haven’t even begun to understand all the ways it can be utilized. What if the undeads figured out that by suppressing viral load in one of us, suddenly it was possible for a shifter-vampire pregnancy to reach full term?”

A little while later, after August was out cold and snoring like a grizzly, we grabbed two beers from the fridge and quietly slipped out onto the balcony.

Topher twisted the cap off his Dos Equis and leaned back against the railing.

“I hate seeing him that way. I was a dick the other day when River told us he was considering the drug trials.” I picked at the label on my beer. “It’s easy for me to say it’s too dangerous, or how can he even consider it. I’ve watched him deal with this his whole life, but that’s not the same as living with it. He’s the one who’s had to fight with this disease every day since he was six years old. For him, there’s no break, no escape, no forgetting even for a minute that he’s sick. If this could make him feel better, even fractionally, so that he doesn’t have to go through this hell on a day-to-day basis, what kind of jerk am I for doing anything but offering up my full-throated support?”

“Why are you so against the drug?” Topher crossed one ankle over the other and I watched his t-shirt pull tight across his chest as he lifted the bottle to his lips. “And I’m just talking therapeutic uses for the moment.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it just freaks me out to think science can create a drug that transforms you from one species to another.”

“Lycanthropy is triggered by a virus,” Topher pointed out. “So we’re pretty much talking a matter of degrees. But I get that it’s harder for Borns than Bittens. Maybe if I’d been a wolf all my life, I’d feel like something else entirely, rather than human with an inconvenient furry side that rears its ugly head at the full moon.”

“If August needs to live the rest of his life as a human to control his disease, hell, if he has to grow fangs and become a vampire, I’m behind him one hundred percent.”

“Yeah, well. Make sure he hears you say that.”

I hesitated. “You and Kieran lived with your grandfather growing up, right?”

“Our mother couldn’t be counted on to stay clean. We wound up spending most of our time at his house. Which was a good thing. He practically raised us, never uttered a word of complaint when two wild little boys got dumped on his doorstep when he was probably looking forward to retirement.” He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. “Gramps was in a car accident on the way back from a doctor’s appointment when Kieran was twenty-one and I was a sophomore in high school. It was bad. He had to go into a nursing home and stayed there until he passed a few months later. My mom and her latest boyfriend took off shortly after she found out there wasn’t going to be any inheritance, that he’d left everything to me and Kieran and most of that would have to go towards his care.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

He shrugged. “She was never going to win mother of the year. I lucked out, getting Gramps and a brother who would have walked through fire for me. Kieran loved working on this old Dodge Charger he and Gramps had been restoring on the weekends. He went down to the lake every morning to run the Hike and Bike Trail. And every time I’d get up in my head about our mom or something that was stressing me out, he’d tell me, ‘This isn’t forever. Don’t let yourself get trapped the way she did. There’s something better waiting just past the edge of where you can see right now. You’ve just got to get there.’” Topher leaned against the railing, staring out at the night. “Phoenix Richards still has a thing for you.”

I kept my eyes averted, unable to deny the way my pulse spiked at the dark edge in his tone. The bite mark he’d left at the crease of my hip burned like a brand, casting fiery tendrils of heat every time he dragged his gaze lazily over my body when he thought I wasn’t looking. Exactly the way he was doing right now.

“It’s ancient history. I can name at least ten guys he’s gone out with since the epic fail that you’re trying to spin into this Instagrammable romance.”

“And yet he still makes time to meet you for sushi once a month.”

I drained half my beer, then dangled the bottle between my fingertips. “We lived on the same floor freshman year. You need to understand that because of what I can do, I never dated in high school, never even kissed a guy before that. I told myself as long as I just kept things physical, if I didn’t allow myself to get in too deep, it would be okay.”

I didn’t look up, couldn’t. I felt Topher’s eyes raking over my face and heat crawled up the back of my neck, the shame of that memory curling sour in my stomach even a decade later.