Chapter 8 #3
“Fading ink, deterioration of paper, and damage from water, mold, and insects. It’s almost unreadable, but there are sixty years of traditional knowledge that complements your brain-chemistry research perfectly.
I think the key to the tonic is the hot spring water, but I don’t know for sure.
From what I could make out from the journal, it calls for the hot spring water among other ingredients, but honestly, my tonic recipe is a crapshoot. ”
“I’ll take a look at the journal when we get to the lab,” I said. “Honestly, the possibility of combining Una’s traditional knowledge with my modern science might be groundbreaking.”
“Exactly.” His voice carried equal parts hope and desperation. “And that’s why your research is so crucial, Rozi. You’re not just improving on what Una did, you’re helping me figure out what she actually did in the first place.”
Rozi. Not Dr. Dhahabu. My name in his mouth was like something precious he’d been afraid to say.
Our food arrived, saving me from having to respond.
The baked two-cheese-and-bacon grits looked like heaven on a plate.
One bite and I nearly groaned aloud. Bacon, cheese, and grits together created a harmonious blend of flavors.
The grits provided a neutral, creamy base while the bacon added a smoky, salty, and crispy element.
The cheese contributed a rich, sharp, tangy note.
“Good?” Brody said.
“Delicious,” I replied, unable to stop myself from immediately taking another bite.
As we ate, the conversation shifted back to research logistics.
For those moments, I could almost forget the history between us.
Almost believe we were just two shifters collaborating on a breakthrough.
But then his hand would accidentally brush mine reaching for the sugar, or his eyes would catch mine across the table, and years of suppressed need would flare between us.
“The existence of hot springs in Alaska, especially at the altitude of Black Forest Ridge, is considered impossible by scientific minds,” I said to get back to business.
“The Ridge is a magical vortex, so anything is possible here,” he replied, his voice dropping to an intimate tone that made my skin tingle.
“Most residents access the regular hot spring from fountains throughout town, but there’s a hidden spring deep in a cave that only the Bane pack and Freya’s coven know about.
” His eyes locked with mine, something primal and protective in his gaze.
“Quinn’s great-grandfather called it the Mother Spring.
The cave where it’s located is known as the Cradle of Life. ”
I choked on my coffee before clearing my throat.
My mind raced, connecting dots that had eluded me for years.
The unique mineral markers in shifter blood samples.
The evolutionary anomalies that had never fit neat taxonomic boxes.
The strange genetic similarities across completely different species lines.
My cheetah stirred beneath my skin, suddenly alert in a way I’d never felt before. As if she recognized something ancient calling to her very DNA.
If this was true… If what he was suggesting was real… My entire understanding of shifter biology would be rewritten in an instant. Not scattered emergence points across continents as we’d always theorized. One singular birthplace.
I leaned forward and whispered, “Are you saying this is where shifter life on Earth first emerged?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “The geographic location of where shifter life originated.”
My eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”
“As impossible as a being that can shift at will into an animal with fur and teeth then back into its human form?” One eyebrow arched in challenge.
He’s right. Shifters were two sides of a coin—human on one side, animal on the other—and both had intelligence.
“But what’s the connection between Una’s journal, your tonic, and the Cradle of Life?” I asked.
“Grandma Una scribbled COL water on every single page of her journal,” Brody explained.
I sat forward as it clicked. “COL, as in Cradle of Life?”
He nodded. “Exactly. I believe Una never got her tonic to work properly because she couldn’t access water from the Cradle.”
“If that’s the case, why isn’t your tonic working? You have access to the COL water, don’t you?”
Brody sighed, running a hand through his hair. “When I found Una’s journal with notes about feral sickness and a tonic recipe, I was excited. But the handwriting is damaged, some ingredients I can’t read, and others I can’t find or don’t make sense. I’ve been improvising.”
“So she never got the tonic to work?” I asked.
“Not without the COL water,” he confirmed. “My version is passable. I’ve been tweaking it, but it’s not the cure we need.”
I pursed my lips, spinning my cup in a slow circle against the table. “Over the years, I’ve heard so many stories about the shifters’ Cradle of Life. All the tales seemed too fantastical, and no one knew its location. I thought it was just folklore.”
“Well, you and I both know that Others’ folklore is based on real events and real beings,” Brody said with a half smile.
“I’ve visited the Cradle once,” he said.
“I’ve stood where the first shifter transformation occurred, where the boundary between human and animal first blurred into something new.
I’ve cupped my hands in waters that are alive with old magic. ”
His eyes had taken on a distant quality, seeing beyond the coffee shop walls to something primal. For a moment, just a heartbeat, I glimpsed the boy he must have been, full of wonder and uncomplicated joy, before life carved its scars into him.
“Most elders swear it exists,” he continued, snapping back to the present, “but few know where it is. The journey there isn’t just physical; it’s as though the land itself tests those who seek it, revealing its secrets only to those deemed worthy.”
“This is fascinating,” I said, my mind racing. “A couple years ago, I attended a lecture about the Cradle of Life given by a famous witch named Hera.”
“Did she mention the location?” His question came quickly, tension in his voice.
“No. She said that knowledge was lost to time.”
“Thank goodness for that,” he replied, relief evident in his expression. “If all shifters knew its exact location, it would be exploited and desecrated. But did she explain its significance?”
“She said it was where the first shifter transformation occurred,” I replied.
“Where the magic of changing forms was born. But scientifically, there’s no way.
” I hesitated, feeling the familiar tug-of-war between the rational researcher I’d trained to be and the cheetah who lived beneath my skin.
Something deeper than logic stirred at the memory of Hera’s words, a knowing that bypassed my intellect entirely.
My mind demanded controlled experiments, peer-reviewed data, repeatable results, but my shifter nature recognized truths beyond laboratory parameters.
How many times had I dismissed Others’ folklore as superstition only to later discover biological mechanisms that validated the ancient knowledge?
Perhaps here, in the Ridge, with its impossible hot springs and impossible man sitting across from me, I could finally reconcile those warring halves of myself.
“The Fae were the ancient architects of Black Forest Ridge,” Brody continued, “imbuing it with its fundamental magical properties and natural wonders before it became the hidden sanctuary it is today.”
My eyes widened. “The Fae? What the hell?”
“Let me back up,” he said. “Black Forest Ridge was originally created centuries ago by the Fae as one of their vacation spots in the human realm. They’re rumored to be the guardians of the trees, mountain streams, and forest pools.
Over time, the land transitioned from their control.
Quinn’s great-grandfather, Boris, purchased it, making the Bane family its owners and guardians. ”
The Fae were magical beings with deep connections to nature. Their ties to the natural world would explain why the Ridge possessed such unique features, like a rain forest ecosystem in Alaska.
“Could this be my breakthrough?” I asked.
I could almost see it working, the special water from this ancient, magical place somehow bridging what was broken in unmated males.
Like finding the missing piece of a puzzle I’d been trying to solve for years.
Something in this water might finally help these men hold on to their humanity instead of losing themselves to their animal sides.
After countless failed attempts, endless nights in the lab, and watching so many shifters suffer, this discovery felt like stumbling upon buried treasure. A secret hidden in plain sight that could change everything.
“That’s what you and I need to discover,” he replied, his voice steady even as his fingers curled into a fist against the table.
“The trek to the location is difficult and will take several days. We’d have to make camp both ways, to and from,” he said. “I can take you there tomorrow.” His eyes met mine, darkened with meaning that had nothing to do with botanical expeditions. “If you’re willing to trust me that far.”
Did I trust him? Could I ever trust him again after what happened in Kenya?
The question clawed at me, stirring up emotions I’d buried beneath years of academic achievements and professional detachment.
Trust was for fools who hadn’t learned life’s harshest lessons.
Trust was for people who hadn’t watched their father walk out the door without a backward glance.
People whose mothers hadn’t disappeared into research labs rather than face their grief.
People whose fated mates hadn’t looked them in the eye and decided they weren’t worth staying for.
My cheetah paced restlessly beneath my skin, torn between ancient instincts to claim our mate and the soul-deep memory of rejection. She wanted to simultaneously claw his eyes out and rub her scent all over him until no female would dare approach. The contradiction made my head spin.
The memory flashed, vivid and painful, standing in the Kenyan savanna, eighteen years old and trembling with adrenaline after he’d saved me from the hyena pack. The way electricity shot through me when our skin touched.
His pupils dilated as he caught my scent and uttered those life-changing words, “You’re my fated mate.”
The hope that had bloomed in my chest for that one perfect moment before horror washed over his features and he stepped back with “I can’t have you.
” The sight of his massive midnight-black wolf form disappearing into the African night, taking with him pieces of my heart I’d never thought I’d recover.
My cheetah had howled with betrayal, snarling, “Weak male! Not worthy!” even as confusion tore through us both. I’d spent years building myself into someone who didn’t need him, didn’t need anyone. Trusting him now threatened everything I’d constructed from the rubble of that devastating rejection.
But then, how many unmated males would suffer if I let my personal history interfere with finding a cure?
“I trust your knowledge of the terrain,” I said finally, a compromise that satisfied neither.
I drummed my fingers against the table’s edge, a nervous habit I thought I’d broken in graduate school.
Trust him? My stomach knotted at the thought.
The same man who’d left me emotionally bleeding in the Kenyan savanna now wanted me to follow him into a wilderness so remote that no one would hear me scream.
My mind calculated risk factors while my cheetah paced restlessly, claws scraping against my control.
Brody’s eyes tracked the movement, his nostrils flaring slightly, as if he’d caught the scent of my anxiety beneath my carefully controlled expression.
“That’s progress,” he replied, his shoulders relaxing infinitesimally, as though he’d been bracing for outright rejection. He drained the last of his coffee, throat working in a way that drew my unwilling attention. “Ready to get to work?”
“Yes,” I replied.
As we stood to leave, his hand brushed mine while reaching for the check.
Not a grazing touch, just skin against skin for a fraction of a second.
But my body betrayed me with humiliating eagerness.
Lightning shot up my arm, arcing straight to my core, where it exploded into liquid heat that pooled low in my belly.
The room tilted, sound receding until all I could hear was the sudden intake of his breath as my arousal hit his heightened senses.
My canines lengthened with such sudden sharpness that they pierced my bottom lip, the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth as my cheetah surged toward the surface with primal need.
His pupils dilated instantly, amber swallowing gray as his nostrils flared. The growl that rumbled from his chest was barely audible to human ears, but to my shifter senses, it was a declaration of possession that vibrated through every cell in my body.
Mine, it said without words. Always mine.
I stumbled backward, my hip catching the edge of the table with enough force to send ripples across our abandoned coffee cups.
Years of carefully constructed walls and they were crumbling from a single accidental touch.
My thighs pressed together of their own accord, trying to ease the sudden ache between them as I struggled to recapture controlled detachment.
Damn, the way he looked at me, like he could see through my clothes, through my skin, straight to the parts of me I’d spent a lifetime hiding from everyone, including myself.
Focus on science, Rozi. The cells. The proteins. Not how his hands would feel trailing fire across my bare skin. Not how those full lips would taste against mine. I jerked my gaze away, forcing air into lungs that had forgotten how to function.
“Let’s go,” I managed, my voice a stranger’s, husky and breathless. “We have work to do.”