“No marital spat. We’re not married,” Emma hissed, stalking around the table and dropping into a thick orange chair.
“Yet,” Dage said with a hard glare, which he turned on his brother. “I don’t like these ten people having access to the residence, Kane.”
“I know. But they need a place to live until we buy them houses, Dage.” Kane’s calm façade didn’t waiver.
Emma shook her head. “Where do the other forty people live?”
Kane shrugged. “Somewhere in Boulder. We bought out Colorado Labs last month and put their geneticists to work for us. They already lived here.”
“I want the humans out of our residence facility within a week, Kane.” The king strode toward the door. “I have some calls to make from Kane’s office, and we’ll meet again in two hours to discuss our options with Talen.”
Emma gave him a glare while Kane nodded, glancing back and forth between them with a small grin. “Sounds good. See you then.”
A pounding set up at the base of Emma’s skull a couple hours later. She sat between Kane and Dage on one side of a large oak conference table facing Cara, Talen, Maggie, and Katie. Jordan paced behind Katie, the muscles vibrating along his forearms, a vein standing out on his forehead.
Emma tried to be inconspicuous in her survey of Maggie, who looked like the girl next door with curly brown hair and deep chocolate eyes. How could this pale woman change into an actual wolf?
“So”—Cara leaned forward, hope filling her eyes—“what did you find out?” The shades behind her allowed in enough light to bathe her in silhouette, turning her into an angel.
Emma shook off the fanciful thought and twirled her key card in her hands. The card that granted her access to every half-painted lab in the building. Labs with a myriad of test tubes, centrifuges, incubators, and autoclaves. Top of the line. “Well, we already knew Virus-27 attacks the twenty-seventh chromosome of mates and shifters.” Every single twenty-seventh chromosomal pair in every single cell of the body.
“But definitely not vampires,” Kane said. His broad hand tapped papers together before him.
Talen raised an eyebrow. “How do we know that for sure?”
Emma turned toward Kane. They didn’t know that for sure. Did they?
Kane shifted, his gaze going to the papers he shuffled. Silence pounded around the room.
Dage pushed back from the table, his jaw clenching shut as he stared at his younger brother over Emma’s head. “You dumb bastard. You did not.” Disbelief combined with anger in his voice.
Emma frowned and realization dawned. “You didn’t.” She’d just spent two hours with the man going over her results, and he hadn’t even mentioned the risk he took.
Kane shrugged. “It was the only way to make sure. I mean, it’s not like we own animal test subjects who have twenty-seven chromosomes.”
Katie frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Dage’s eyes blazed a hard silver. “My dumbass brother infected himself with the virus to see if the bug impacts vampires. He used himself as a lab rat.”
“Jesus.” Talen shook his head. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, Kane. How could you?” His hand covered Cara’s on the table.
Kane met his gaze squarely. “Like I said, there was no alternative. Once I heard your mate was infected ...”
Cara paled even further, her skin a complete contrast to the black sweater covering her shoulders. “You did this for me? But ...”
“Damn it.” Talen’s gaze went from Kane to his mate and back to his brother again. “Kane, you only found out last night. You wouldn’t even know if the virus has taken hold in you yet.”
“I feel fine. We’ll monitor my blood and will know for absolute certainty in twenty-four hours.” Kane reached for a pencil to tap against his papers. “But so far everyone infected has shown symptoms within hours. I’m fine.” He rubbed his square jaw. “Emma and I put our research together and discovered the Kurjans have been able to pare the virus down to two injections. But only the first one is truly necessary.”
“Yes.” Emma rolled closer to the table. “The heart-breaking films you told me about where the infected Kurjan mates went crazy from injection led to the Kurjans creating two separate injections. The first is the virus, which attacks the chromosomes, the second is a catalyst, which speeds up the process.”
Jordan stopped pacing. “Catalyst?” His eyes shifted to catlike gold, then back to brown.
“Yes.” Emma leaned forward. She’d love to see him shift into a cougar. “Look at it like radiation combined with chemotherapy to treat cancer. The two combined often get the best results.”
Kane nodded. “Similarly, while the virus itself is engineered to eventually reach the desired goal, we think this catalyst speeds up the process—so the Kurjans would acquire their werewolf slave class much faster. So far Maggie is the only person who has had two injections.”
Maggie blew out air, having arrived the night before with her test results in hand. “Yippee for me.” She watched her hand tremble on the table as if not quite sure the appendage belonged to her.
Emma reached for the applicable file, her gaze concentrated on the pale brunette. “The virus immediately attacked the twenty-seventh chromosome, which affects your shifting ability. The catalyst made the virus attack the twenty-sixth and twenty-fifth chromosomes, taking you down to twenty-four—or to the genetic makeup of a werewolf.” The protein binding the virus to the chromosomes held like glue, and they needed to find an unraveling agent. They also needed to run another battery of tests on the wolf shifter.
“But I shifted into a wolf instead.” Maggie bit her lip.
“Exactly.” Kane nodded. “The virus is new and hopefully not as strong as we feared. So far your natural defenses are fighting the illness, and your chromosomes are struggling to repair themselves.” He cleared his throat. “You’ve beaten one full moon so I’m greatly encouraged you’ll beat this bug.”
Emma nodded. Apparently when humans were bitten by a werewolf, the human went through changes during three full moons, remaining in full werewolf form for the rest of its short life after the third change.
Katie’s gaze slid to the table’s surface. “What about me? I can’t shift.”
“Right.” Emma shifted her focus to the lioness. “You were just infected. You’re sick right now, for a lack of a better term. Your body is fighting the virus—and we don’t know the cycle. Without the catalyst in your blood, you may even beat the virus faster than Maggie is.” They hoped. The wolf shifter had been kidnapped by the Kurjans and kept at a hospital for an unknown amount of time and had no memory of the experience, or of her life before the capture, so they were just guessing at possible experimentations.
“So I’ll be able to shift again?” Hope filled Katie’s dazzling brown eyes.
Emma couldn’t promise that. “I hope so.”
Jordan took up position behind Katie’s chair and clasped both her shoulders with his broad hands. “You’ll shift again, Kate. I promise.”
The young woman paled further and remained silent.
Dage frowned. “So if a feline shifter doesn’t fight off the virus, will she turn into a werewolf?” He sent a sympathetic smile toward Katie.
“We think that’s the goal,” Kane affirmed. “But again, we don’t know if it actually works that way.”
Talen stretched an arm across Cara’s shoulder. “And mates?”
Kane sighed. “The virus initially takes away the individual mating aspects.” His gaze softened as he glanced at Cara. “So you’re immortal right now but not tied to any particular vampire.” He grinned. “In fact, you could choose a different brother if you wanted.”