11

AIDA

The sound that erupts from Byron's mouth makes me pull the needle out in a quick jerk, cover my ears, and duck to escape it.

Not because it's unpleasant.

The opposite, actually.

The low, crooning—howl, for lack of a better description—seems to flow through me like molasses, slow but heavy, coating my chest and belly so that I feel like it's going to consume me from the inside out.

It drips down my spine like honey, leaving me feeling shaky and strangely aroused.

I clench my thighs tight as I watch his full mouth bow to produce the sound. The crescendo goes on so long that it takes on a paranormal quality, like something from a movie, and I'm amazed that he can produce such a pitch.

Finally, the cry rounds off, easing until he's quiet again. His shining eyes meet mine, and he smiles.

"What the hell was that?"

"A howl." He says this like it's the most normal thing in the world or like human beings howl .

"And why the hell did you just howl? How the hell did you howl?"

Those dimples deepen as his expression remains impassive. "What can I say? You stimulated me."

His pointed look clues me in that he's faking a response to the shot, even if it's weird as hell.

Suddenly, the lab doors burst open, and a half-dozen guards rush in, accompanied by Dr. Umansky. Each of their heads swings rapidly across the room, guns trained and aiming with their movements.

"Did you inject him?"

Quickly, I depress the plunger with the saline while my hands are at my side and then raise my arms, holding up the now empty syringe. "Yes, what's wrong?"

I decided last night that I'm not playing this game anymore. I'm not running tests. I'm not administering anything. I'm definitely not synthesizing a damn thing. If I'm the key to what they need from Byron, they won't be getting it.

"Check him!" Umansky swings an arm wildly in our direction, and a few guards, led by Maxim, rush forward.

When they reach Byron—I can't even think of him as Noel anymore—Maxim, whose mouth is curled into a snarl, rears back and slams the but of his gun into Byron's face, which jerks as a spray of blood erupts from his nose.

Byron doesn't make a sound.

His eyes only close for a brief moment before they open again, the blue glinting like a bullet straight at the man who hit him.

I, however, scream, lurching forward to grab Maxim's arm before he can deliver another blow.

He slings me off, his closed fist connecting with my cheek and throwing me into the chair so that it tips backward, causing me to slam my temple against the side of the table.

Black dots swim before my eyes, and when I blink, I'm lying on my side on the floor, the heavy chair pinning my legs down as terrified screams sound out around me.

"Tranque it!"

A deep snarl follows the distinct sound of bone cracking, and another scream rents the air.

The dots clear. In the wavy scene before me, the blurry image of a dog—no, a wolf, but larger than any I've ever seen—attacking the men comes into focus.

Maxim has his gun trained, but Umansky holds him off as he shouts to the other guards.

Man after man rushes forward, only for the wolf to grab them into its great jaws and shake them like a rag doll. Even from my stupor, I can see that it's not attacking haphazardly.

With every man flung out of the way, their bodies hitting the walls with a sickening crack, the wolf stalks closer to Maxim. Its glowing blue eyes are trained on the man whose gun is still aimed at him.

I sit up just as the wolf lunges toward Maxim and his father, and at the exact moment, one of the other guards pulls himself up from the floor, a tranquilizer gun held in his hands, and shoots the beast.

Its body hits the floor with a dull thud almost immediately, and everything goes quiet, the only sound the thump of my heart in my ears.

"You idiot! You almost ruined everything!" Umansky's hand swings fast, striking Maxim across the face before he slaps his son's gun down. "We need him alive!"

Maxim sniffs, his jaw clenching, but he doesn't respond, not even when his father shoves him back and turns on the guard who sedated the wolf.

"Well done, son. Let's get him up quickly before he shifts back. Tell Peters to get here asap, and get her the hell out of here!" Umansky swings his head back to me, and I'm grabbed by both arms from behind before I know what's happening, my head still swimming from the blow Maxim delivered.

The rubber soles of my Keds squeak on the linoleum as they drag me from the room, but my eyes stay on the wolf.

When we get to the hall, they drop me without ceremony to the floor and rush back inside.

Pressing a hand to my head, I try to shake off the dizziness, but Maxim hit me hard. The place where his hand connected is numb and throbbing, and my temple, where I connected with the table, is stabbing pain through my skull.

Something brushes my arm, and a pair of legs come into my line of sight as another scientist runs through the open door, just as Umansky's furious voice echoes into the hall, where I'm still slumped on the floor.

"God dammit!"

I struggle to my feet and stumble back into the lab, my eyes finding Umansky breathing heavily as he stares down at the unmoving form of—a man. Byron's naked body is spread out where the wolf was.

"I told you to get her the hell out of here!" Umansky's shout draws my attention to him glaring at me.

"What's going on?" The words are barely out of my mouth before Maxim charges at me, his thick fingers latching onto my jaw as he pushes me back into the wall.

My shoulder blades meet the concrete sharply, and I cry out, gripping his wrist in an attempt to pull him off, but he only tightens his hand until I worry that something is going to break.

"You don't say shit about what you think you saw here, you understand?"

I grab his wrist, struggling to dislodge his grip. "Let me go."

My voice is strong despite the face that my vision is so blurry I can barely see him straight.

"I will kill you and that fucking little girl." He jerks my head, knocking it into the wall and sending another dagger of pain through my skull.

Black dots dance in front of my eyes, and I list to the side, worried I'm going to pass out.

"Maxim, what the hell are you doing? I said, get her out of here!" Umansky's voice sounds out again.

"Sir?"

"Maxim!"

"Sir?"

"WHAT?" Maxim shouts this, making the scientist who rushed past me in the hall jump as Maxim twists around to glower at him.

The scientist's eyes dart to Maxim, but he addresses Umansky when he answers. "I think we have something."

It's like all of the tension dissipates, and suddenly, Umansky rushes forward, and Maxim's hand falls away from my face. He goes to his father and the other man, who is looking at a tablet with wide, excited eyes.

"Is the sample large enough?"

The other man's head bobs. "It should be. She should be able to start her synthesis tomorrow."

Suddenly, all eyes are on me as everyone swings to look in my direction.

Maxim stalks back to where I stand and stabs his finger into my face. "You're staying here tonight."

I swallow but keep my voice even when I say, "I have a daughter. I can't just not come home."

"I don't give a fuck—"

"Max." Umansky walks up beside his son, his plastic smile on full blast. Actually, it's not plastic this time. He looks happy. "Things got a little heated. There was a lot of excitement for everyone, and Max got a little carried away. Go home, and come back tomorrow. Bring Zella."

I level my gaze at him. "Your son just assaulted me. You'll be lucky if I don't call the police."

Umansky's smile stiffens, taking on the edge I'm used to. "As Max said, it would be in your best interest to be back here tomorrow and ready to do your job. We wouldn't want to have to come get you. And bring Zoe, too. We know she's been suspended from school for a while."

At once, everything in me goes cold as he mentions Zora's school situation, which he would have no way of knowing. Fear ices through my belly like a shard, and when my head dips in a jerky nod, it's because I don't know what else to do.

"Good." Umansky smiles brightly again. "We'll see you tomorrow. Now get out."

Maxim grabs my arm and shoves me toward the door. I trip into the hall, barely taking time to right myself before I rush through the sterile halls.

Next thing I know, I'm in my driver's seat, not having remembered handing over my pass or getting my purse.

My hands grip the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles crack, and then I'm sobbing in the car, my chest aching with the effort as the ugly sounds fill the space.

I don't know how long I cry, but when I'm done, my eyes are almost too tight to see, and my headache is worse by ten.

My hand shakes as I fit the key into the ignition and start the engine. I probably shouldn't be driving, but now that my breakdown is over, I can only think about getting home to my daughter.

***

I'm shocked I don't get pulled over the way I speed home.

I park the car crooked in front of my garage and take the front steps two at a time before bursting into the house, my daughter's name on my lips before the door closes.

"Zo!"

I rush into the kitchen, which is clean of dishes or dinner. When I get home, she's usually cooking something.

I glance at the clock and see that it's a little earlier than I usually get back from work, so I go upstairs, but her room is empty, too.

"Zo!" I check the bathrooms and my bedroom, remembering how, when she was younger, she would sometimes hang out in my room and fall asleep while waiting for me to get home.

My bed is made like I left it before I went to Genesis, and nothing's been disturbed.

I rush back down the steps, my mind filling with Maxim's sinister sneer as I try to remember where I left my purse so I can get my phone.

As I reach the bottom of the landing, the front door opens, and Zora walks in with a paper shopping bag.

When she sees me, she pauses, stepping back, her eyes darting cautiously behind me.

I know that look, and I know what she's thinking. It guts me that she knows this fear even as I'm more glad to see her than I've ever been to see anyone in my life.

I halt in my rush, clearing my throat and pretending I wasn't just two steps away from another breakdown. "Hey, where were you?"

She doesn't say anything. Her eyes search my face, and I glance at the mirror to my right.

My eyes widen, too.

I look terrible.

My left jaw is swollen and covered in a dark, eggplant bruise. My temple has a gash. The reddened slash is crusted over with blood.

Surprisingly, the area to the sides of my mouth looks the worst. The unmistakable fingerprints from where Maxim grabbed my face mar my brown skin in a way I didn't even know was possible.

I meet her gaze again. "Hey, I'm okay. I had an accident at work. I'm fine. Everything is fine."

I force a smile and push back the tears that batter the corners of my eyes. After a brief hesitation, Zora relaxes, stepping fully into the house.

"Was it the dog? Did it attack you?"

I clear my throat and rush forward to lock the front door before taking the bag from her and heading toward the kitchen.

"Dog?" Rushing ahead to give myself a chance to get it together, I've managed to slow my heartbeat from a jackhammer's pace by the time she trudges in after me.

"The uh dog at your lab. Yesterday, when I was rushing to find you, it was because that dog had collapsed."

I shift back to look at her with a frown. "You saw a dog in my lab?"

She shrugs, coming up to grab a container of coconut yogurt and put it in the fridge. "I think so. It was enormous, so it might have been a wolf. You all do animal testing there?"

There's an accusation in her tone, and I know it's because she has a soft spot for animals—hence the veganism.

"No, baby. Not that I know of. Are you sure it was a wolf? In my lab?"

She nods. "Yeah. It was big, grey, with really pretty eyes. They were like super blue. I didn't even know wolves could have blue eyes. Seemed smart and pretty docile."

Unease shifts in my belly as she describes the animal I saw in the lab or thought I saw. I'd almost convinced myself it was a trick of a scrambled brain from hitting my head, but I can still recall the wicked growls it made as it tore through Umansky's men and their screams.

My mind churns with all of the possibilities of what this could mean, and each one seems more improbable than the next until I reach the most improbable conclusion, which is also the only logical conclusion.

My hands shake at the realization, but I keep it to myself.

Closing the fridge, I turn and paste on a smile. "How about pizza tonight?"

Zora's nose turns up, and I hold up a hand to stop her.

"Vegan cheese and extra veggies." I hold my breath, expecting more attitude, but she shrugs.

"Yeah, sure. I guess."

I exhale as she walks out of the kitchen then grab one of our local pizza menus from the drawer near the sink.

I order her vegan cheese loaded with broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, jalape?o, and spinach and get a small double pepperoni for myself.

I stand in the kitchen, staring into space until the pizza comes.

I deliver Zora's box to her room, ignoring the side-eye she gives my pepperoni slice. Then, I sit on the couch, eat, and binge-watch a few hours of TV.

Anything to take my mind off the fact that I'm pretty sure Byron turned into a wolf.

Once my food has digested a bit, I go to the small bedroom on the ground level, which I use as my home gym, and jump on the treadmill.

As I run at a moderate jog, the reality I've known my whole life, where men don't turn into wolves, batters my earlier conclusion.

I purposefully push my Byron-turned-into-a-wolf theory out of my mind until bedtime. It isn't until I'm in bed, my eyes starting to droop with sleep, that I allow myself to wander back to the possibility.

Before the guards came in, there was only us in the room, and then there was a wolf and no Byron.

And then there was Byron again.

Umansky believes there is something so special about Byron that it could change human life as we know it. He's trying to source a hormone from Byron's gland, which I've never seen in a human before.

He says it's supposed to cure cancer.

But if he were able to harness whatever could make a man turn into a wolf, I can only think of one use for it, and it's not as generous as eradicating one of the most devastating diseases in history.

It would, however, allow Max to "rip someone apart."

I pale at the idea of what a power like that would mean in the hands of someone like Maxim.

By the time sleep takes me, I've accepted the impossible and realized I can never let my work succeed.

When I enter the dream, he's already there, sitting on his hind legs, watching me with those piercing blue eyes.

I wait to see if the wolf will attack me, which feels silly, but then everything that's happened here has felt so real that I don't think being mauled by a gigantic wolf is something I want to experience, even in a dream.

He doesn't move, however. His tail wags like he's pleased when I take a tentative step forward.

"Byron?"

That tail flaps harder, the wolf's mouth opening before it prances forward, making me stumble back.

In a flash, the wolf folds out into a man, his steps determined as he gains on me before I know it.

His hands gently cup my cheeks. "This is my fault."

"No." I shake my head, my hands come up to hold his wrists. "You had no way of knowing they'd do that."

He sighs, but there's still regret etched between his brows. "I'm going to kill him." His gaze lowers to mine, his bright eyes glowing with some force as they sear into me. "The moment he touched you, he signed his death warrant. Now the only question is, do you want to see it?"

"I—what?"

"When I rip his limbs from his body for daring to harm you, do you want to be there, or should I just bring back his head?"

I stare, wide-eyed, unsure how to respond, and his mouth lifts into that dimpled smile.

"I'm kidding, baby—kinda. Not about killing him. He's dead, I promise. But I can do flowers and weekend getaways as surprises. Are you okay?"

His expressions shifts to concern, and my brain struggles to catch up with the range of emotions he's displayed in the last minute—absolute rage, joking sweetness, and now worry.

"I don't know if I'm going crazy or not."

"You're not, Aida. I am what you think I am, and I'm yours. I'll tell you about it once we're safe, but I need you to listen to me for now. I'm going to kiss you tomorrow."

I pull back, now even more confused. "What do you mean?"

His brow lifts as he hits me with another of those 90s R&B smiles. "Tomorrow, when I see you, the second we're alone, I'm going to kiss you. And then, I'm going to bend you over a desk and fuck you until you come all over my dick."

"Byron—"

"Shh," he cuts me off, his expression serious, but his words have set off a riot of sensations throughout my body. I fidget around the wetness slipping between my thighs. "I'm going to fuck you because my wolf needs it so he doesn't lose his shit again, and I need it because there hasn't been a moment since I found you here where I haven't wanted to bend you over a desk. That's going to be a common occurrence for us in the future. But it's not important right now. What major city are we closest to?"

I tell him, and he thinks for a moment, his eyes casting up like he's running through information.

"Craven Park."

I nod. "Yeah, that's not far from my house."

"Good. Go there tomorrow, find a tree, and rub up against it." He waits, and I stare at him.

"Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack."

"That's what you want me to do?"

"Every three or four miles. Find a tree and rub up against it. All the way to work."

"From Craven Park?"

He nods with a shrug. "Take Zora before work. Walk around a bit. Get her a croissant at that little French food truck that parks there."

"She's vegan."

"Then get her a vegan croissant. They're actually pretty flaky. But promise me you'll do it, even if you think it's crazy." He seems almost desperate.

"God, this dream is getting weird."

His inhale is patient, and when he bobs his head, it's clear that he's come to some decision. "Fine. This has been one consistent, startingly realistic dream."

I snort. "No need to be snarky."

He chuckles and takes my arms, his smirk turning mischievous. "Okay, we'll say for now that none of this is real. So when you wake up, you shouldn't be sore."

That's the only warning I get before he pounces.

The sunlight beaming through my window makes me roll to my side to escape.

"Sssss!" My eyes spring wide as a dull ache radiates through my thighs and between my legs.

I push my hand against my pussy, frowning when it feels tender and tingly. Almost like I was getting railed within an inch of my life in my dreams.

"Mom!"

I gasp and sit up, pulling the covers up as I face my closed bedroom door. "Morning, sweetie. I'm up. I'll be down in a minute."

"I was going to make waffles. You want some?"

I pull a face since my daughter's waffle of choice is a bland, cardboard, vegan brand. Then I still, clenching my thighs to trigger the ache again.

I shouldn't be sore, but I am.

Clearing my throat, I shout out before she can head back downstairs. "Actually, let's go out for breakfast."

***

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking at this tree." I swallow the humiliation crawling through me and continue to discreetly rub my arms and torso against the broad trunk of an oak at the edges of my local public park.

Zora watches from a few feet away, where she's munching on a vegan croissant and scanning the area to make sure no one's witnessing her mother hump the flora.

"It looks like you're making out with it."

I roll my eyes back to her. "Just eat your food. This is for science."

"Sure. Okay." She makes a face and shifts away like she doesn't want anyone to think we're together.

I rub a few more times and step away from the tree line, going over to where Zora is just finishing her croissant.

She stands, brushing crumbs from her jeans.

For a vegan option, it was pretty flaky. Just like Byron said it would be. There are so many ways I could attempt to explain this knowledge away and keep myself in denial about my dreams, but that inside part of me doesn't want to.

As remarkable as it is, Byron comes to me in my dreams, and the things that happen there are real.

So, I do what he's asked. As I drive to work, I stop every couple of miles, select a tree along the road, and rub my body against it. Much to the embarrassment of my daughter.

By the time I reach Genesis, the front of my shirt is a little scuffed, and my arms are abraded from the rough barks, but it's done.