Misha nodded. "The chance of having a son, with no strings attached, is something few male wolves would pass up."
"So why should I settle for you?"
He slipped into the opposite end of the spa, and stretched his arms across the edge. The heat of the water lent warmth to his pale skin, but it did little to erase the calculating chill from his gaze. "Because you also want answers."
"You haven't yet proven you can give them to me."
"No, but I will."
"And what do you get out of the deal?"
He raised an eyebrow. "A son or a daughter to carry my name."
The slight edge in his voice made me frown. "Why is that suddenly so important?"
"Because I'm dying."
I blinked, not sure I had heard him right. "What?"
"I'm dying." He shrugged, as if it was something he'd long ago accepted. "And I want to leave this world knowing something of me is left behind."
There was only truth in his words, not lies. At least in this one instance.
"You're dying because you're a clone?"
He smiled. "You know more than I thought."
"We've had Talon for a few months now."
"Ah, yes." He considered me, icy eyes slightly narrowed, nostrils flaring. Another wolf on the hunt, and I wasn't entirely sure for what. "Talon was produced in the same batch as I. There were three others produced alongside us. Talon and I are the only ones left alive."
"Why?"
"Because the very chemicals used to help give us life is now snatching it away." He grimaced. "I've begun to age at twice the normal rate. It isn't yet showing, but it soon will. If the pattern of my disintegration follows that of my lab brothers, I will be dead inside five years."
"And Talon?"
"Will undoubtedly soon suffer the same fate."
I wondered if Jack or the lab boys knew. "So how long ago did the three created with you die?"
"Two didn't make it to their teens. One died at sixteen."
I sipped my beer, then asked, "Why?"
He hesitated. "What do you know about cloning?"
"The DNA from a donor egg is sucked out, and the cell of a donor used to replace it. Then it's fried into activity and away it grows."
He grimaced. "Crudely put, but reasonably accurate. The process is far from perfect, even now. There are always problems, and those of us who do make it into adulthood without problems then have to contend with a self-destruct button that somehow is related back to the method used to fuse cell and egg and switch on the DNA sequencing." He took a drink, then added, "Two of the three who died were victims of large offspring syndrome, and one was born with an immune system than was, at best, poor."
From what I'd read about cloning, having two out of five survive into adulthood was a pretty damn good success rate. "Yet despite these difficulties, they obviously survived quite well At least for the first few years."
He nodded. "Medically, we're far enough advanced to keep them alive where once we could not. However, no one has yet uncovered the sequence that becomes the self-destruct button once the clone reaches a certain age. Nor do we know why some clones can reach their forties, like me, and others don't even live to see their tenth birthday."
"I'm amazed Talon never tried to research that—after ail, he had a vested interest in uncovering the answers."
"Talon is a lot less circumspect than his creator, as evident in his approach to cloning He also believes that he will not face what the rest of us have faced, that he is destined for greatness."
I snorted. "And like all mad, would-be dictators, he got his comeuppance."
"In the labs of the Directorate. Quite fitting that he ends in a lab similar to the place where it all began."
I raised an eyebrow. "Is that how you plan to end? In a laboratory?"
His smile was grim and cold. "I intend to go down fighting."
And I had a feeling he wasn't talking about the self-destruct button built within his genes. I frowned "So, are you wolf, or part vampire, like Talon?"
"All wolf."
"Then why not clone yourself a mirror image?"
"Because, for all its advances, cloning still carries too many risks—risks I'd rather not inflict on any offspring of mine. And, as I said to you not so long ago, I am not involved in the cloning side of the research."
"But you are involved in the crossbreeding."
"No. My companies undertake research to discover the secrets of a vampire's long life."
And now I knew why—he was dying. And just in case he didn't discover the secret in time, he wanted a kid to carry his genes and his name.
It was a desire I could sympathize with—which made me wonder just how much he was playing me.
"Given Talon was running Moneisha and Genoveve, does that mean another lab brother runs the crossbreeding facility?"
He hesitated. "Not exactly."
"Meaning?"
He simply smiled, so I tried a different tack, "just how many of you clones are there?" We knew that there was one other, at least, besides Misha, but who knew how many Talon had gotten around to releasing?
He chuckled softly. "Not as many as you seem to think. All up, if you include Talon, there are five of the original cloning attempts left."
"Meaning, non-Talon clones?"
He nodded.
So, given Gautier was one, that left two we didn't know about. "What about the Talon-created clones?"
"I think roughly a dozen remain, though I have not been able to keep track of all Talon's creations, so there could be more. Most are dead, though, or soon will be dead."
"That self-destruct button you mentioned?"
"No, the Directorate. The mob you work for are an efficient killing machine, Riley."
Which is why I was fighting like hell not to become a guardian. "So what was the aim of the original five?"
He hesitated. "To carry on and perfect our lab father's research, by whatever means needed."
It was the "by whatever means needed" bit that had me worried. Talon had certainly shown no need to follow the rules, and the man behind the crossbreeding had proven he was ready to kill to keep his secrets.
And if that was the true aim, then why place Gautier at the Directorate?
"You knew I was in that facility, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I was not responsible for you being there, nor was I the one who tended to you there."
"So who did?"
He smiled again. "I can point you to the path that will lead you to the person, but I cannot give you the name."
"Why not?"
"For the same reason Talon cannot."
I raised my eyebrows. "Talon couldn't tell us because the name has been burned from his mind. Are you saying the same thing has happened to you?"
"In a sense, yes. I know the name, but I am prevented from saying it to anyone."
"So why not just give me his address?"
"Personal details are included in the ban."
Which was a little too convenient. I finished my beer and glanced at the timer in the door panel. We had less than half an hour left. "Then explain to me why the hell the person behind all this is so determined to get his mitts on me."
"Because forty years of research has not produced a crossbreed who has fully assimilated the duel natures of their heritage the way you have. It makes you unique. Makes you desirable for research purposes."
Which was the same reason Jack had theorized about some time ago. And the fact Misha didn't mention Rhoan hopefully meant they weren't aware that he carried the very same genes. "They weren't trying to research my genes in that damn facility."
A smile touched his mouth. "Yes, they were. But the man in charge of the facility was certainly taking advantage of the situation as well. He says you owe him."