Chapter 8

Raleigh jumped down the last two stairs to land in the carpeted foyer. She took a quick step toward the servants’ quarters, but something made her stop and listen. A faint crackle of fire sounded from the kitchen, but no other noise disturbed the house.

Something was going on. Raleigh didn’t know what. Mrs. Mitchell should be in the kitchen, but she always made a lot more racket at her work. Sometimes she even sang at night. She must have gone out to see her married daughter in town. That’s the only reason she would leave supper on the table and a fire in the kitchen for Raleigh and Dax’s return.

Raleigh stole along the foyer and peeked into the kitchen. All lay quiet and peaceful, and she caught sight of Dax sitting on his old wooden stool by the hearth, but some strange aura around him made Raleigh shiver.

She stepped into the kitchen. “Dax? Aren’t you going to bed?”

His shoulders shook. He hunched in on himself and hugged both hands between his knees. His hair hung over his eyes, and he didn’t look up. Raleigh crept around to the table and bent over to get a glimpse of his face.

When he saw her out of the corner of his eye, he turned his head farther away to hide himself from her. Racking shudders shook his whole body. His muscles clenched all over to hold them down.

Raleigh dropped on her knees by his stool. She laid her hand on his back. “Dax! What’s wrong?”

He fought to breathe through gritted teeth, and his voice broke. “It….It happened again.”

“What did?”

He gasped out loud, but he couldn’t get the words out. He moaned in agony.

Raleigh stared at him. She didn’t have to ask what happened again. He must have used his power without meaning to.

She sank back on her heels and sighed. “Tell me what happened.”

He choked on the words. “I was tending the horses. I was doing my usual chores and…and it just happened…all by itself.”

“What did you do? What happened by itself?”

“Nothing!” he blurted out. “I was standing there with the brush in my hand, and the next thing I knew, the chores were all done. The horses were brushed, the hay was pitched down into their mangers, the cows were milked, and all the stock had their water. Even the brush wound up back in the box where it belonged.”

Raleigh sat all the way down on the floor. She gazed at the back of his head. What could she say to ease his anxiety? This dreadful transformation would scare the pants off anybody. She could tell him till kingdom come that it would be all right, that it was all natural. He had no reason to believe it. She dared not believe it herself.

What was he? What would he turn into? Maybe one of these days, the power would thump out of him and Dax McDermott would cease to exist. Maybe he would turn into lightning or something supernatural like that.

She slipped her arm around his back and rested her forehead against his shoulder. She could only love him as long as it lasted. She couldn’t think of any other way to help him. She couldn’t even train him to use his power. He had to walk this road all alone.

He turned his haggard face to look at her. The firelight gleamed through his hair. His face twitched with the shudders passing through him. “What’s happening to me? What am I?”

She laid her hand on his cheek. “I can only tell you what I know. I don’t know the whole story. I only wish Bishop was here to tell you the rest.”

“Tell me,” he rasped. “Tell me anything that will make sense of this.”

She laced his hair behind his ear and kissed his forehead before she looked deep into his eyes. “In Hinterland, there are Ten Guilds who run things. I only know about a few, but the ten together are forming a cabal to create the Elixir of Life. You know that part. They are the ones who want the twen. Its brain contains one of the ingredients for the Elixir.”

He nodded.

“Well, one of these Guilds is the Guild of Husbandry. They work on things like breeding the best strain of cattle for farming, the best work animals, that sort of thing, but they also do research. They conduct experiments. They hybridize different animals, and they even hybridize animals with people. Bishop thought the Guild created that mob of wolf hybrids out in the forest.”

Dax frowned. “So?”

“So….the Guild does terrible things to the people and animals and hybrids it experiments on. It torments them in its labs, and when it creates a new race of something not human, it sells them into slavery somewhere. They live their lives in misery and they die terrible deaths. When we were in Hinterland, we went to the Guild’s headquarters in the mountains to find out what the twen ate. We wanted to track down its food source so we could determine where the cabal was keeping it. The Guild chased us out of the city, and we had to take refuge in the mountains. We were running for our lives when a band of escaped hybrids of all kinds took us in. They sheltered us. They all escaped the Guild, and they all had horrific tales to tell.”

“Are you saying…”

She touched his cheek. “You’re a hybrid, Dax. I don’t know what you’re a hybrid of. We might never find out. I hate to think what you might be capable of. Only you can find that out. The band of hybrids who took us in—there was a woman living with them. She was a shapeshifter of the highest order, but she was traumatized. Her name was Cassandra, and she lost her baby. Bishop helped her escape from the Guild. I don’t know how, but it scarred her for life. After he brought her to safety in the mountains, he did something to convince her to let him take her baby away. He took it out of Hinterland, and he brought it….” She stopped.

Dax stared into her eyes. The haunted horror in his face blocked the words on her lips. How could she tell him? How could she shatter his world any more than it already had?

“For God’s sake, Raleigh,” he groaned. “Please tell me. I have to know.”

She sighed. “He brought the baby here. He gave it to Mrs. McDermott to raise as her own. Cassandra never recovered from the loss of her baby, and while we were there, Bishop spoke to her in private. He convinced her to help us when she hadn’t shifted in decades. He did something for her. He rescued her, and then he must have had some compelling reason to take her baby away. The only reason I can think of that he would remove that child from Hinterland was to hide it from the Guild. The Guild wanted that child. I can only imagine they bred that child to be something exceptional, and they’ve been looking for it ever since.”

Dax hung his head, but he didn’t turn away and he didn’t shake and shudder anymore. “I see.”

“You don’t belong here, Dax. You’ve belonged in Hinterland all this time. I can only imagine that’s what drove you to train in the first place. This power, whatever it is, has been lying dormant inside you all these years. You’re a shapeshifter like your mother. That’s how you were able to copy the people around you and create such a convincing appearance of being human. You’re a lot more than a shapeshifter. I don’t know who or what your father was….”

His head shot up, and the orange flames blazed against his eyes.

Raleigh sank down on the floor. “I don’t know who or what your father was, but I know someone who does. We have to take you to Cassandra. She can tell you everything.”

“How will you find her again?”

“Oh, I know where to find her, but there’s something we have to do first. Come on. You need to go to sleep now.”

She tried to raise him from his stool, but he resisted. “I…I can’t.”

“You have to. You might be changing, but some part of you is still human. You need your sleep, and I can’t have you hanging around when you haven’t had proper food and rest. Come on.”

He lifted his head, and a pathetic quiver disfigured his face. “What if it happens again? What if it happens in my sleep?”

She stood above him and gazed down into his frightened eyes. “Sweetie, you can’t control this thing—not yet, anyway. If it happens again, and even if it happens in your sleep, it’s not your fault. No one can blame you for what’s happening to you.”

His chin fell on his chest. Raleigh took his hand and stood him on his feet. He shuffled down the hall to his room, and she pushed him down on the bed fully clothed. She set his booted feet on the bedspread and shifted his guns so he wouldn’t lie on top of them.

He lay on his side and crooked his elbow under his head. He closed his eyes and turned his face down into his arm. She stroked his hair off his forehead and kissed him on the cheek. “Go to sleep. We’ll find the answers for you if it’s the last thing we ever do.”

She turned to leave, but he caught her hand. “Don’t leave. Please.”

She kissed him again and hugged him close. “You’ll be all right until morning.”

The great convulsive shudders quaked through his body once more, and this time, he buried his face in his arms and let loose the sobs he held back so long. He screamed into his sleeve where no one but she could hear him.

Raleigh could only stand and watch. She rubbed his arm and back and petted his tear-stained cheeks. Those tears didn’t come close to expressing what he lost. He lost a lot more than she did when Bishop died. He lost his whole identity, his humanity, all the people he thought were his family, his past—everything. He couldn’t even understand who or what he was.

All of a sudden, he leaned back and screamed out loud. “I don’t want this! I don’t want to be this! I hate this.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

His head snapped up, and he gazed up at her in wild desperation. “What if I can’t love you? What if I turn into something that can’t love you anymore? What will I do then?”

Raleigh threw her arms around him. She crunched her eyes shut to hold back tears. “I’ll always love you. I’ll love you no matter what you become. Don’t ever forget that.”

He hid his eyes in his elbow and sobbed. After a while, his sobs died, but he didn’t lift his head. He sank into a quiet stupor, but Raleigh didn’t leave the room. She lay down on the bed behind him and wrapped her arms around him. She kissed his wet cheeks before she rested her head on the bed next to him and fell asleep.