Chapter 11
Two days later, before classes, Professor Chen inspected the hutch, his eyes scanning the entire setup judiciously.
“Outstanding,” he said, fingers tracing the clean lines of the enclosure.
“Appropriate ventilation, lighting, and exceptional separation protocols. The camera setup is well-engineered.” He used a stylus to approve the paperwork line by line on his tablet, and Emmy felt the quiet thrill of anticipation settle deep. She could finally place the order.
The rabbits arrived late the next evening, breeding pairs overnighted to Washington and picked up by Zander’s plane. They arrived at the airport in secure crates that smelled of hay and nervous bunnies.
She settled them all in as planned, and put color-coded collars on them to be certain she kept them straight, murmuring soft reassurances as she worked. A printed copy of the care protocols went on the wall, and then she briefed the stable employees.
She injected the females to induce superovulation, and then two days later, brought in a vet to retrieve the eggs from the females while Emmy gently handled sperm extraction from the males.
Then she took everything to the university’s lab and performed the CRISPR edits with careful precision: targeting the regulatory regions, inserting her synthetic promoter sequences to delay cellular differentiation timing, watching the tiny modifications take hold in the fertilized eggs before they began dividing.
And forty-eight hours later, the vet used a catheter to implant four edited embryos into each female, careful to match them up, double-checking tags and collars, and then it was just a matter of waiting for nature to do the rest.
Emmy cleaned up the lab workspace once she was alone, her hands steady but her mind racing. Four embryos per female. Sixteen tiny chances at rewriting genetic history.
But what if none of them took? What if the CRISPR edits weren’t precise enough? What if—
Her phone buzzed, showing Spence’s smiling face.
She accepted the video call, and he asked, “How’d it go?”
She smiled despite her anxiety. “Now we wait.”
“You’ve got this. I made your mom’s stew for dinner, and it’s in the warmer. Whenever you’re ready, it’s here.”
Her comfort food. He knew she was stressed, and he was making one of her favorite comfort foods.
The knot in her chest loosened slightly.
The days stretched and folded into one another. Emmy woke to the same quiet rhythm each morning: Spence’s warmth beside her, his breathing slow and even, the scent of wolf and satisfaction lingering on the sheets.
Sometimes she’d wake to find his arm draped across her waist, his face buried in her hair, and she’d stay still for a few stolen minutes, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing against her back.
Other mornings, he’d wake just enough to pull her closer and press a sleepy kiss to her shoulder before drifting back under.
She’d learned to cherish these quiet moments. No dominance, no submission, just closeness.
And then she’d slip from bed, careful not to wake him, making her way to the bathroom to shower and get ready for her day.
Most mornings she ate with the flock in the kitchen, but some mornings, Zander cooked for her downstairs. When the days lengthened a little more, he’d go down before she woke, so she was happy to see him on those mornings.
Then came the trip to campus with Delaney, and long days. Technically, she only had to be there until noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she often spent her free afternoons in the lab.
Whenever she arrived home, the sleek lines and quiet luxury of the coterie house always welcomed her.
When she didn’t stay for lab work on her short days, Spence was asleep when she returned. To keep from disturbing him, she worked in the living area of their level.
Evenings belonged to the three of them. Most nights they tangled in the playroom or the bedroom, power flowing between them in shifting currents.
Most nights, Zander fed from others upon waking. On special nights, he fed from Spence, or from her, the bite a slow, intimate claim that left her trembling in its wake.
Some nights, she simply had too much homework, or another deadline pressing down, and both encouraged her to put her work first. No guilt, no pressure, just quiet understanding. Zander would kiss her forehead, Spence would press a soft kiss to her shoulder, and they’d leave her to her work.
On those nights, she felt the balance and was assured her independence was not a threat to their threesome, but part of its strength.
Weekends brought lighter rhythms. Graphics work arrived from the marketing department — small projects she handled in the quiet hours while Spence slept and Zander attended to business.
She’d finish them quickly, handle any revisions on Monday between classes, and move on.
Professional pride burned steady in her chest; she was good at this, fast and precise, and she was being paid her worth.
One Saturday afternoon, she found Spence in the kitchen, flour dusting his forearms as he kneaded bread dough. She came up behind him, pressed against his back, and felt him shiver.
“You know,” she murmured against his ear, “I’ve been thinking about what we might do with you later.”
His hands stilled. “Ma’am?”
“Keep working.” She stepped back, satisfaction curling through her at his obedience. “Zander and I have plans.”
The flush that crept up his neck was beautiful.
She didn’t need to go to the stables every day. The rabbits’ daily needs were handled by the staff, and she could watch them on the monitors.
But she still had Delaney stop on the way home at least three days a week, and often walked down to check on them several times over the weekend.
The does’ bodies slowly changed, the babies growing in utero as expected, meaning at least two or three, possibly all four embryos were now fetuses in all four mothers.
An ultrasound might give her early answers, but she wasn’t inclined to stress the mothers. She’d gotten them used to the bi-weekly blood draws, using treats to make it a positive experience. As long as their bloodwork was fine, an ultrasound wasn’t necessary.
If the kits came pink-eared and breathing, she would have rewritten centuries of failure into something new.
And if those babies could then breed to both species they’d come from? That was the absolute best-case scenario, and one she was almost too afraid to hope for.
And yet, she did.
One evening, the temperature climbed above fifty on an abnormally warm day, the sun shining brightly, and she worked outside on a picnic table with a fantastic view. She’d never valued the sunshine until she’d gone without it in the silo, and now the rays felt like a gift on her bare arms.
Though eventually, she shrugged a light jacket on.
The breeze carried the scent of pine and distant snow, and she stretched her arms overhead. This — the sun, the mountains, the work she loved — felt right in a way nothing else ever had.
Spence brought hot chocolate outside to her when he woke, and she saved her work and asked him if he had time to sit with her in the sunshine while she drank it.
And later that evening, the threesome made love in slow, deliberate ways before turning to frantic, desperate ones — ending with her straddling Spence while Zander took her from behind. And best of all, her vampire drank from her on this night, sending her to the heights of ecstasy.
Later, they talked in the dark, voices soft, sharing pieces of themselves, learning more of their vampire’s long history while they shared bits of their own shorter ones.
Emmy felt the days pass like pages turning — each one bringing her closer to baby bunnies, to hopefully her master’s degree, and then to the rest of the life she was building with the two men who had become her world.
She was deeply, quietly, fiercely happy.
But she couldn’t help but worry about what happened once she had her degree in hand, because Anchorage wasn’t home to any of the top genetics labs.