I planned to say no. Genesis and I didn’t mix. Not even in small doses. I’d probably run into Rachel. She’d wake my mating instinct right back up and then I could be crazy, miserable, or a mixture of the two at the same time and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

She held up her hand. “Look, I’ve only known you less than twenty-four hours. In that time, you rescued me. You were bitten by a daywalking Vampire for me. You walked me home. Battled more Vampires and had to face off with two Lyons brothers and Deacon Evans. Now you’ve had to deal with me and your pack. I get that I may be a huge pain, but I am asking because I’m asking. People are dying. More will be destroyed. I’m sure of it and for the first time in my adult life, I have no idea what is happening or how I can fix this if I can’t even study these things from a distance.”

That was her truth for sure but it wasn’t the whole truth, not really. “And if you do this maybe they’ll stop thinking of you as the possibly crazy Doubleday clone and you might gain some semblance of a normal life.”

She visibly swallowed. “Probably some of that, too.”

Well, if anyone knew how it was to never quite fit in, it was me. As adults we should probably both be past this, but wanting to find and make a home where we fit in seemed pretty basic. Most people wanted some semblance of normalcy where they lived. Or at least they used to.

But I’d been screwed over by these people enough to know better. Some things improved with age, and I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was an Alpha with a pack to run.

“I might be persuaded to help you for a little quid pro quo.”

Margot blinked. “I’d be suspicious if there wasn’t a deal to be made.”

So she lived in a world that wasn’t the uptight righteousness of the Lyons. That was a relief. Doing things just because they were morally upstanding tended to get people needlessly killed. I sighed. Or maybe that was my father in my head. Who knew anymore?

“I want to bring my pack to Genesis. I’ll vouch for them not hurting anyone, and I want the engineers there to teach my people how to build houses. That’s what I want.”

Margot blinked. “That’s all you want?”

“It’s not a small thing. I’m Alpha and I don’t have that knowledge base and neither do any of my pack members who are left. It’s really been a problem. I need to make a life for us. I don’t know how to do it. I need help. I’ll capture a Daywalker. Or take them down for you. Whatever you want. If you’ll let us stay long enough to learn.”

She nodded. “I’ll take that back. I have no power. I’m a doctor and they barely use me as that anymore.”

I got that. “Maybe this will help with that? I mean, I don’t know how you prove a negative, exactly. How to prove Margot isn’t going to turn on everyone and become an enemy? You can’t, right?”

She shrugged, and her hair slid over her shoulders. The movement fascinated me. Weak sunlight penetrated the clouds, and it hit her brown locks, highlighting a red tint to them I hadn’t seen before. Margot was pretty. I really hadn’t let myself focus on it, and I supposed it didn’t matter one way or another but there it was.

There was something… lovely about seeing real beauty in this mess. It had been a long time since anything didn’t suck.

We cooked our fish and then set about eating it. Her eyes widened. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything I like more.”

Then I felt really bad for her taste buds. Still, it made me sit up a little more. “If they aren’t nice to you in Genesis, why don’t you leave?”

“Where would I go? As far as I can tell the world is made up of about twelve communities like Genesis with sporadic towns of small groupings of humans in other places. Nowhere is perfect. Believe it or not, Genesis is pretty good compared to the demagoguery going on. I mean, I’m not sure in these circumstances that anywhere is going to be ideal and if it were, why would they want me? I’m a clone of a crazy woman who once worked for Icahn. Talk about coming with baggage.”

I shook my head. “You’re Margot. You had circumstances thrusted on you and it seems like you did the best you could. I mean, I don’t know your story. But you couldn’t have gotten from there to here without making some good choices along the way.”

“All that time we watched the Rachel and Jason saga I never knew you were kind.”

My skin crawled at the thought. “How many people were watching?”

“Quite a few. When Icahn made that deal with you to save Rachel’s family—that all happened before I was born or created or whatever.” She waved her hand in the air. “But that was a huge deal. Bigger still when he lived up to the terms.”

I’d hardly let myself think about that time for months and now it was everywhere I went banging around in my head. I’d done a lot of things and all of it had been for my best interest when it came down to it.

I wanted Rachel. I didn’t want to lose her so I hadn’t. End of story. Of course I’d had no idea what was going to happen after that. I hadn’t asked myself if she would want to exist like this. I just thought she was my mate and that was that. Maybe I was as much mate material as I was Alpha material. All signs were pointing to my really being cut out for nothing. Except maybe being the villain who got to sacrifice himself in the end. I tried not to sigh but might have failed. I hadn’t gotten to stay that way. It begged the question… now what?

I guessed it didn’t matter anymore.

“I get the feeling this is not your favorite meal.” She lifted her lids.

“Taste, not company.” I realized as I said it that it was true. “This is the best time I’ve had eating with anyone that I can remember since I woke up from the Werewolf virus that stopped us from aging and made us… evil.”

She reached out to touch my hand. “Not evil. Try sick. And it’s pretty much eradicated. If you were to get sick again—and I doubt you would since it was your father infecting the pack and you have antibodies for it now—we could help you. Well, I could. I have those skills.”

Now that was good to know. I could cross that out. I wasn’t going to turn monstrous or any more so than I already was.

“What would you eat again if you could from before? Keeping in mind, I never lived there and despite your proclamation of me knowing a lot of stuff, I don’t know everything. I might not know what you liked to eat.”

That was a great question. I had to pause to think about it but the answer proved to be simple. “Look, I know people love all kinds of food. But for me, without a doubt, the answer to that is pizza. And more specifically pepperoni pizza that also had mushrooms. A soda, which was bad for me but I loved it, washed it down.” My stomach rumbled at the memory. “Yeah, that would be incredible.”

She really seemed to be listening to every word I said. “I’ve never had pizza.”

No exaggeration—that was a tragedy. “That seems ridiculous. You guys have working kitchens. A whole mess hall. Genesis below ground was one of the best-stocked places I’ve seen since waking up in this version of reality. There are tomatoes. Surely they can make sauce. Come up with some kind of cheese. Why can’t they make pizza? They have bread.”

She shook her head. “I have to say that the cooking in Genesis leaves something to be desired.”

That stirred a memory I’d long suppressed or maybe outright forgotten. I’d been a great cook. The best in my house. My mother had once said she was going to turn dinner duties over to me and then my father said no son of his was going to be in the kitchen. Wow, I’d forgotten how belligerent and awful he could be on occasion. He’d thrown pots. My mother had ducked.

I’d wanted to cry, but my sisters needed me to be strong. That was the last time I’d offered to help my mother in the kitchen, ever.

“That’s a shame.” I rose. A full stomach was a luxury, and I wasn’t going to waste the energy boost it gave me. “Let’s walk you back.”

“Oh,” she got to her feet, “no need. I got myself here. I can get myself home.”

I shook my head. Was she out of her mind? “I’m glad you managed not to get killed but that doesn’t mean you won’t have an escort home. Why are they letting you just wander around out here anyway?”

“They don’t just let me do anything. There are two ways I’m treated in Genesis. I’m either locked away in a jail for some supposed crime or I’m pretty much left to my own devices. Chad suggested I reach out to you so I left to do so.”

Now that didn’t sound like Chad. Some of the others might be fine with a non-Warrior traipsing about woods that now had daywalking Vampires, but I was not. Chad surprised me. He’d always been mister upstanding. I’d hated him with a passion that had cooled when he died. I didn’t have as much fury toward him now just a sense that he was the opposite of me in every important way.

And maybe that was true still. Maybe I was missing the way it was important ethically or some shit to let Margot prove herself by gallivanting into danger unescorted. Well, whatever. They could all kiss my ass.

She didn’t argue with me and instead took my hand like we had before when I’d wanted to make a point. I stared down at them linked. We didn’t have to create a scent bond again and yet I made no moves to let go of her fingers.

“It’s been a long time since I had a friend.” I didn’t know exactly why I told her that.

“I’ve never had one.” She shrugged and then looked away but didn’t let go. “So you can be my very first friend.”

As a warmth I hadn’t expected and hadn’t felt in years moved through me I realized she would never understand what a gift like that meant to a person like me.

“I’ll endeavor to be worthy of it.”

She smiled at me. “You’re hard on yourself. I know because I’m the same way. Maybe neither one of us is as dark as we think we are. Maybe our source material made it so both of us had to start the race a lap behind everyone else.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have to run a race defined by rules everyone else wrote, Margot.” This woman had risked her life to come ask me for help and shouldn’t be feeling like that.

She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe you shouldn’t either, Jason.”

Now, that was an interesting thought.

She was the most interesting person I’d ever spoken to and seemed to be equally as invested in anything I said as though my utterances contained some sort of clue to the universe. I wondered if she was like this with everyone or just with me.

“So you don’t actually feel any pain during your shift?” Margot practically bounced as she walked. She’d never gotten to ask a Werewolf shifting questions before.

I shook my head. “Not anymore. When it first happens it’s startling painful. I used to wish it would just go away. My sisters were much better Wolves than I was. They loved it from day one. I just wanted to be human.”

“That must have really been something, living back then, in secret. No one knowing Werewolves were real except, you know, Werewolves. Having to hide.”

“It was my reality so I didn’t have much to compare it to. Actually, I hated it.”

We arrived at Genesis and I steeled my spine. “Well, we’re here.”

I was reluctant to let her go, so much so that I hadn’t let go of her hand yet. That had to be borderline weird. Of course, she hadn’t released mine either so I supposed it could go both ways. Only I didn’t find it off at all. It was nice to have someone’s hand to hold for a change. I’d really been quasi preoccupied with this for hours. I forced myself to let go of her and she briefly released the scent of anxiety.

Was she upset I had done that? It quickly passed and wasn’t worth asking. Fast emotions came and went. It was the lingering ones that needed to be addressed in my experience. Or not. Sometimes it was better just to leave things alone.

“We’re here.” She turned to look at the tower marking the edge of Genesis. I’d noticed it last time I was here but been too aggravated to really dwell on its existence. They’d built this in the time I’d been dead.

I pointed to the building. “How long have they had that?”

“Less than a year. Micah and his wife Brynna are in charge of it. She used to be a Vampire.”

My breath caught in my throat. “Used to be?”

“That’s right. I cured her. Not sure why I just told you that except I have this strange need for you to be impressed by me. Maybe it’s a friend thing. Kind of counter intuitive. I don’t know.”

I smiled at her even as my ears began to ring. “That’s fantastic that you did that. But I’m confused. How did you cure her?”

“It’s a virus. I cured it—in her. Not everyone can be cured. But she could, and it worked. She’s unusual. Didn’t go back one hundred percent to the way it was before but she’s not a Vampire per se anymore.”

I bent over, holding onto my knees. “So you can’t just fix the Vampires?”

“Jason, are you okay?”

I really wasn’t. “My mother was made a Vampire.”

She sighed, coming over to put her hand on my back. “If it were as simple as just being able to cure everyone I swear I would do it. We’ve lost everyone else we tried to help. They died badly. We have to be careful who we make the attempt on. The scientists I worked with when I cured Brynna didn’t care who was tortured in the process. Then they wanted to kill Brynna to dissect her and find out why it worked.”

I got it. There were few ethics and little morality left in the world. She didn’t want to do that to people unnecessarily. I stood, resuming my typical position of not really letting myself feel anything strongly to begin with. I’d just be thrown. My mother was a sore subject for me. We’d let her down. When I let myself think about it, her being out there somewhere in the world undead was like a big gaping wound to my soul.

Man, I could be dramatic when I wanted to be.

“It’s fine.” I waved my hand in the air. “Good job being so brilliant. I don’t suppose you could cure Werewolf-ism could you?”

She scrunched up her eyebrows. “Vampirism is caused by a virus. Werewolf is a gene. I don’t know why anyone would want to cure that. It’s not an illness. It would be like asking to cure green eyes. There’s nothing wrong to begin with.”

I shook my head. “Obviously, I’m kidding.”

“Oh. Sometimes I miss humor.”

She hadn’t missed a joke. I really hadn’t been making one, even if I pretended now. How did I explain that what she called natural, I labeled a curse? I didn’t want it, and I couldn’t think of a single thing in my life that being this half human, half Werewolf thing I was didn’t in some way fuck up. Maybe if I’d never had a mother who was pure human, maybe if I had spent more time surrounded with just my own kind and not nearly all of it with people who didn’t have to worry about accidently shifting into something else, I could have enjoyed it. But that wasn’t my life.

Never had been. And the pack I was trying to keep alive right now wasn’t altering my feelings on the subject. Was it possible to hate one whole side of yourself? Yes, it was.

Micah Lyons stepped out of the bottom of the tower we’d been discussing and rushed over to us. “Margot, you’re okay?”

She scratched her head. “Sure.”

“We’ve been incredibly worried about you. You vanished.”

That didn’t make sense. “I thought they sent you to make a deal with me.”

She looked between us. “I don’t understand. They did.”

“Oh,” Micah lifted his eyebrows. “Well, no one meant for you to go running out there alone. That was a mix up. You’re our only doctor. If for no other reason than that, we kind of need you to tell us where you’re going, if we forget how dangerous it is out there.”

Micah wasn’t wrong but that didn’t temper my reaction to hearing him order her around like he had the right to. “She’s a grownup. Is there a rule in Genesis now that adults can’t do as they like?”

The dark haired Warrior didn’t move. “Are you arguing with me just for the sake of it or do you want an answer, Wolf?”

I opened and closed my mouth. Margot left me wrecked with the curing Vampire news and I did want to fight something. It was the Wolf inside of me. He was always ready to throw down and prove himself. I’d done that enough with Micah and he had a machete. If I lost he could lop off my head and then none of us would be any better for it.

“I’m not arguing with you at all. That would imply I gave a shit what you thought.” I backed off them. I’d gotten Margot home. She was with her people. “I told her I would do it but I have some conditions. Find a way to tell me if you’re willing to meet them. I’m available to use my Vampire taking down services any day. Until then.” I nodded at Margot. “It was a real treat getting to chat with you today.” I met Micah’s gaze, which was, as usual, steely and accusatory. “Micah.”

I walked away from them, waiting until I was out of sight to shift. I didn’t need some overzealous Warrior catching me by surprise and taking off my head. Not that any of them had managed that so far. It was everything I could do not to turn around and sprint back to Genesis. I didn’t even know why, but I kept stopping and almost turning around. My heart beat fast and that was unusual for my Wolf body. What in the ever loving fuck was going on?

My head was too conscious, too human to be in my fur body. Why wasn’t the Wolf driving this bus? I huffed out my frustration. No matter. I’d run until I couldn’t think at all.

The woods were old friends. I knew them too well. This was my life, the one scientists who had nothing better to do with their time had doomed us all to live. They’d made Vampires by screwing up a virus.

I’d gone from having one life to an entirely different one. I couldn’t even remember the years in between. I guessed I’d been lost to the Werewolf version of it. I’d woken up, like coming out of a long, terrible dream.

Now I had to live this. Alone.

I skidded to a stop. But I wasn’t the only one that way, was I? I turned to look back at where Genesis would be if I could see it in the distance, which I couldn’t anymore. Margot was singular in her world, too.

She was cloned—but then again so were a lot of us, including Chad Lyons—but her clone was the woman who had done this to all of us. The chief scientist, the driving force behind all this pain. Margot had to live like she was constantly under suspicion.

I knew that feeling well.

I charged toward Genesis as fast as my four legs could take me, skidding to a stop when I finally got in front of it. What was I doing here? They weren’t going to just let me in to see her. I had to get past Micah’s gate and dressed in my fur that was not happening. I called the shift, panting as I came back into my human form. I stared up at the tower.

“Micah,” I bellowed up at it. When no one answered I tried again.

Finally, a figure appeared, stepping out from the watchtower to the balcony attached. It wasn’t Micah, but his wife. She was dark haired, looking like she didn’t belong in daylight at all. If ever there was a person made for the night it was that woman. I blinked. What was the matter with me? I’d never been any kind of a poet. I wasn’t going to start thinking ridiculous things now.

“Jason,” she called down to me. “Micah isn’t here. He’s patrolling right now. The border.”

I sighed. I wasn’t getting in if Micah didn’t let me, and I was probably not then either.

I had to let this go. They’d come find me when they needed me and whatever this weird obsession I had going on now I had to get over it. I wasn’t going to repeat history and let my head go too Wolf until I lost perspective. I’d leave.

“Thanks.” I waved a hand at her. “You could have cut off my head from up there. Thanks for not doing that.”

She shook her head. “I knew who you were. You know, your mother loved you so much. I… I can see it.”

Her words sucked the air right out of my lungs. When I could, I answered her. “What?”

“Mothers shouldn’t have favorites and she loved your sisters, too. But she understood you completely. You were just like her. You always thought it was your dad, but it wasn’t. It was…”

“Brynna,” Micah’s voice cut through the air like an arrow. “Don’t do that. Jason may not want to hear those things.”

He was right. I’d let these wounds fester too long, and every time I touched them they were like a fresh hell.