My ears rang as Jagger laid out his plans. He was going to try to get inside Sampson’s head and pull out what he knew about Able Valent and the rest of the Pack. They were going to use it to go to battle. A battle I knew in my heart they wouldn’t all survive.

“It’s risky,” Suzanne said. “Valent is what the shifters call a Tyrannous Alpha. One who controls his pack absolutely. It is not the way normal shifters behave. There is dominance among normal packs and their Alphas, but also respect, collaboration, boundaries.”

“I know what Valent is,” I said, my lips trembling. Anger and fear boiled in my heart. Jagger should have told me what he was thinking when we were alone. As I looked at him, I knew instantly why he hadn’t. Though they didn’t like it, the rest of the Mammoth Forest shifters believed he was right. It was their best chance at turning the tables on Valent once and for all.

“I know as well or better than any of you what Valent is,” I said. “Not in the same way, but he’s controlled me his whole life.” My heart still felt the bitter sting of Dr. Olivet’s news about my medication. It had been a lie. It had all been a lie. But, I believed he’d told the same lie to Aunt Grace. To her literal dying breath, she told me the medication was the only thing keeping me alive. In some ways, I was glad she’d been spared the truth.

“Then you of all people know why I have to do this,” Jagger said, his eyes dark. “And Rowan, I’m not planning on turning into what Valent is.”

“No,” I said as the real truth slammed into me. “You’re betting the rest of your friends will put you down if you do.” I backed away from them. The truth burned in the solemn eyes of every shifter standing there. If Jagger succeeded, but turned Tyrannous, they would kill him.

“I’m strong enough to fight it off, Rowan,” Jagger said. He took my hands. His eyes searched my face. “For you,” he added. “I’m strong enough to fight it off for you.”

I swallowed past a lump in my throat. It was too hard to hear. Too hard to take. Liam, Gunnar, Mac and Payne dropped their heads.

“Come on,” Lena said. “Jagger and Rowan have some things to talk about. Let’s leave them to it.”

They left, all but Molly and Suzanne. Molly’s face held a different sadness that sparked new fear in me. They waited until the others had disappeared over the hill and went back down into the caves.

I dropped Jagger’s hand. Sensing my distress, he tried to catch it again, but I stepped away from him. “There’s more,” I said, leveling a hard stare at Suzanne. “You came back out here to tell me something.”

Suzanne crossed her arms in front of her. Her posture changed. She became straighter, more formal. In the back of my mind I recognized it. This was a doctor about to deliver bad news to a patient.

“The tests we ran on you have yielded some results. We should talk alone.” Her eyes flicked to Jagger.

“No,” I said. “Let him hear.” Partly, I knew I would need to draw strength from him if the dark circles beneath Molly’s eyes were any kind of omen.

“I have contacts,” Suzanne said. “There are shifters in Wild Lake and nearby towns who know some of the history of how Able Valent came to settle in Kentucky. There were other Tyrannous Alphas and packs who came before him. Very bad men, Rowan. Valent was the worst. He took things to a level not seen since dragons still walked the earth. He has been obsessed with strengthening his line, producing subservient, but strong shifters. And, he’s tried to find a female wolf shifter to serve as his queen.”

“We know that,” Jagger said. “It’s one of the reasons he’s tried to control how his Pack breeds.”

“Yes,” Suzanne said. “And I have a theory. A true female shifter has power over a pack. Her pheromone signature is like nothing on earth. Other shifters are drawn to it. In some, it can drive them mad. I think if Valent had a female shifter under his power, it would have helped him lure and control the Pack even more.”

“It never worked though,” I said. “I’ve heard some of those same legends. There was a pack who thought they could turn a human woman if they bit and marked her enough.”

Suzanne smiled. Her eyes held some mystery behind them. “There’s a kernel of truth to that legend. But that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say all of Able Valent’s efforts to create a female shifter by selective breeding failed. And many, many women died because of it. But, there were other rumors we heard. Most of it was too fantastical for me to believe...until…”

The air changed. I picked up a quickening in Jagger’s pulse. Part of me didn’t want to hear the rest of what Suzanne had to say. The truth of her words were already in me. Had she said nothing more, I would have understood.

“Until I had scientific proof,” she finished. Jagger squeezed my hand.

“Me,” I said. “The proof is me. What is it, Dr. Olivet?”

Molly went to Jagger, sensing his simmering rage just as I did. He was on the verge of shifting right there.

“There were markers,” Olivet continued. “In strands of your DNA. There were other factors in your blood. I told you, I heard rumors from another shifter doctor I know up in the Yukon. Years ago, he spent some time in Kentucky. Able Valent started a program. Since he couldn’t make a female shifter through breeding, he went to the next step. Genetic engineering.”

“What are you saying?” Jagger said, his voice more of a growl.

“Me,” I answered. “I’ve been genetically engineered?”

“Yes.” Suzanne came to me. She put a hand on my face. “I don’t know how exactly, but I have a few educated guesses. If I looked at it from a purely scientific model, it’s a marvel. This is medical technology that is not supposed to exist yet.”

“So what am I?” My voice sounded distant and cold. “Am I a shifter?”

Suzanne sighed. “No. You’re human, Rowan. But certain strands of your DNA have been encoded. You have shifter-like qualities. Your strength. Your shifter eyesight. The small changes to your skeletal structure under certain conditions. And from the reaction of Sampson and the other Pack members you described...you give off a pheromone signature that at least mimics a true female shifter. It’s why they can’t track you. Why you can make them go haywire. These are all natural defenses in a true shifter female. I suspect if Valent knew you possessed them, he would not have let you live. Your Aunt Grace must have kept that truth from him. She protected you.”

“And it cost her her life. So, I’m some kind of a mutant. A freak after all?”

Jagger’s growl ripped through the air. He put himself between Dr. Olivet and me as if her words could do me physical harm. I put a steadying hand on his arm.

“No,” Suzanne said. “You’re not a freak. You’re a human being, Rowan. A beautiful, marvelous woman.”

“They died,” I said, pulling away from Jagger. “My aunt was trying to tell me. I didn’t understand, but I think I do now. She said over and over that I was the only one who lived. There were many, many other babies like me. She said Valent gave them to her to take care of, but they all died. Even her own. Oh, God, I think my Aunt Grace gave birth to at least two of Able’s...experiments. She carried their pictures in the locket we just buried her with. She said they thought I was going to die too, but I didn’t.”

“That makes sense,” Suzanne said. “Horrible though it is. And your mother would have died too. Grace would have been one of the lucky ones. It is my best guess that the women carrying these babies would have had to take powerful hormones in doses not meant for humans. It’s a miracle that any of them survived to carry to full term. Most probably didn’t. And the birth… a human woman giving birth to a shifter baby is traumatic at best. And dangerous. If none of the mothers are still around to tell their stories, I suspect they died in childbirth or shortly after.”

“That’s what she told me,” I said. “Aunt Grace said my own mother died having me.”

“I’m so sorry, Rowan,” Molly said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I will never let Able Valent get anywhere near you again,” Jagger said. He was trembling with rage. “If he knew how you strong you really are...how perfect...he would try to use you.”

“Yes,” Suzanne said. “Your aunt was right to keep you away from him and lie about how well you were doing. She probably saved your life.”

“No,” I said. “He knew. Able knew something at least. He used that fake medication to keep me in line and to blackmail my aunt. I think he wanted me under his thumb but didn’t want to really deal with me. Until he found some other use for me.”

My legs shook. It got hard to breathe. Jagger sensed the change in me and slid his arms around me. “Enough!” he said. “It doesn’t matter how you came into the world. It matters that you’re here and you’re you. And you’re where you belong.”

I smiled up at him and touched his face. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to say so many other things. But, he’d heard enough for today. “Jagger, don’t worry about me,” I said. “You’re right. I’m strong. And I’m where I belong. It’s going to be okay. It’s you we need to worry about. If you’re determined to do this thing with Sampson, you need to get some serious rest. Will you? Please? Go back to the caves. I’ll be with you in a minute. I just want to say a few more things to Aunt Grace.”

He kissed the palm of my hand. His pain for me seared in his eyes. I smiled and gave him a light shove. “Okay,” he said. “But don’t stay out here too long. It’s less safe at night.”

“I know.” I gathered my arms around me and watched him leave. When I sensed him moving deep into the caves, I turned and faced Molly and Suzanne.

“Okay,” I said, taking a breath. “I’ve got enough of a hold on myself. Jagger can’t hear. So, why don’t you two tell me the rest of it?”

Suzanne and Molly passed a look. Molly couldn’t hold it together. She started to cry. My heart lurched, because I knew that meant Liam would probably intuit everything she was about to say.

“Out with it,” I said. “I can take it.”

Suzanne put a hand on my arm. “You’re right about one thing,” she said. “Rowan, you are so strong. And I wasn’t kidding about you being a marvel. But, you are only human. The changes in you aren’t meant to be sustained by a human body. It gets harder for you each time, doesn’t it? The pain that comes before and after your shifts is getting worse.”

I couldn’t say the words, but Suzanne knew. Damn her, she knew.

“Oh, Rowan,” Molly sobbed.

“How long?” I asked. My heart turned to stone. There was only one reason Molly would cry like that.

Suzanne bit her lip. “Rowan, we shouldn’t…”

“How long?”

“I don’t know,” Suzanne sighed. “There were some alarming results with some of your enzymes. I would really love to get some additional scans. An MRI could tell us a few things. And I know a specialist in Toronto who has done some amazing things with gene therapy and…”

“Suzanne,” I said measuring my tone. “If you don’t come out with it, you’re about to see how much of a marvel I am right here. Right now.”

“Yes,” she said, clearing her throat. “Rowan, I will be blunt then. Your organs are showing some early signs of decompensating. You probably can’t feel it yet. The changes in your adrenal glands are probably masking most of the symptoms. You feel strong. Powerful. But your body is beginning to shut down. You ask me how long. I cannot tell you that. You are a sample size of one.”

“So, extrapolate,” I said.

“Right. If you were on bedrest maybe, under tightly controlled conditions, we might be able to remediate some of the effects. I am guessing that is out of the question. And your Aunt Grace was right. With what is going on in your body, you shouldn’t be alive. So, there are many unknowable data points. But, Rowan, if I had to take an educated guess, a few months at the most. After that…”

I held up a hand. I suppose I should have crumpled under the weight of what she’d just told me. Molly already was. She drew me into her arms and sobbed against my shoulder. I couldn’t cry though. I couldn’t feel. If I let Suzanne’s diagnosis truly sink into my heart, Jagger would feel it too.

Months. Not years. I had only months to live. Some cold, detached part of my brain had known it all along.

“We’re not done yet, Rowan,” Molly said, pulling away from me. “Do you hear me? Suzanne and I are already doing more research. Don’t give up. I’m not. There are alternative medicines. There is witchcraft, a spell, maybe. There are shifters out in the Yukon who may have heard of things we can try.”

I straightened my back. The truth thundered through my heart, but still, I wouldn’t let it land. Not yet. There was still work to be done.

“You do that,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m going to try and help Jagger and the others kill that son of a bitch. Whatever else you do, don’t let Jagger know.”

I left Suzanne and Molly behind me as I headed back to the caves.