Chapter Three
The command center didn’t get crowded. It condensed.
Power didn’t fill the room—it settled into it.
Aleksy stood slightly back from the central table, arms folded, gaze steady as the last of them filtered in. Bears. Wolves. Lions. Leopards. Gorillas.
And their mates.
Elara walked toward Claire who was already at the console, her fingers flying as she pulled up the data Tamsin had handed over less than five minutes ago.
Tamsin didn’t sit and she didn’t hover, but she did not go far. She leaned one hip against the edge of the table like she owned the space, arms loose, expression sharp and unreadable. It was as if she were waiting for them to catch up.
The screen flickered as Claire opened the files and Aleksy watched Elara as she read the information that appeared. She was completely focused on the data, and then—a small frown appeared.
“What am I looking at?” Jackson asked, leaning forward slightly, eyes narrowing at the data scrolling across the display.
“It kinda looks like schematics,” Riley added, quieter, more analytical.
“But incomplete,” Claire said, head tilting slightly as she studied it. “Or ... segmented.”
Tamsin didn’t move. “Not incomplete,” she said. “Layered.”
Aleksy’s gaze shifted to her, but she didn’t look back at him. She didn’t look at anyone, just kept her focus on the screen.
“They’ve split the architecture,” she continued. “Core formula, delivery system, targeting modifiers. All of them stored separately then rebuilt in execution.”
Elara stilled. Completely.
Aleksy saw it, but he felt it too, through his connection with Ivan and Victor, their bear shifter leaders. As mates to Elara, they would be attuned to any concerns she would have, and this was obviously a big fucking concern for the scientist.
Something in her went tight—sharp, immediate, unmistakable.
Her fingers came to her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “Not again.”
The words barely carried.
Aleksy’s attention sharpened.
“What is it, baby?” Victor asked, voice low, controlled.
Elara didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes moved faster now, scanning, processing, reprocessing—then she stepped back.
Her face had gone pale.
“That’s mine,” she said.
Aleksy’s gaze flicked to Tamsin.
She nodded once. “Yes.”
No hesitation. No apology. Just the truth.
“The base formula,” Elara clarified, voice tighter now, more controlled. “It’s mine. The structure, the sequencing—this is my work.”
Her gaze snapped to Tamsin.
“But this—” she gestured sharply at the secondary overlay now pulling up on screen, “—this delivery mechanism, I didn’t build this.”
Tamsin’s lips curved faintly. “No, you didn’t,” she said. “That special piece of hell is all me.”
That shifted the room.
“What exactly did you build?” Rafe asked, voice measured, eyes locked on Tamsin now.
Tamsin pushed off the table, stepping closer to the console, her movement controlled despite the way her shoulder tightened slightly.
“I built a delivery system,” she said. “Something that could carry a compound directly to a target, bypass environmental variables, and trigger on specific biological markers.”
A beat.
Then—
“Safely.”
The word hung there, and Aleksy knew that it was an important and deliberate use of the word.
“Safely how?” Dorian asked.
Tamsin glanced at him. “Precision that can come with the level of skills I have. Controlled detonation. Limited radius. Designed to affect only what it was programmed to recognize.”
Aleksy’s brow furrowed slightly. “That’s quite specific,” he said.
Tamsin’s gaze flicked to him. “Yes, and demolitions have to be specific. Otherwise, I’m just blowing shit up.”
Aleksy couldn’t stop the small grin that came with the sarcasm she served with that line.
Elara stepped forward again, slower this time, like she was approaching something volatile.
“There are elements here I don’t recognize,” she said, voice quieter now, more focused. “Additions to the formula—this layer—”
She tapped the screen.
Tamsin nodded. “That’s the targeting matrix.”
Elara looked at her—understanding flickering. “You built that?”
“Yes.”
“What does it do?”
Tamsin’s expression didn’t change. “It allows the compound to identify specific DNA sequences. Biological markers. Genetic signatures.”
“Meaning?” Victor pressed.
Tamsin didn’t soften it. “It can be programmed to affect one species and ignore everything else.”
Silence.
Then—Jackson spoke. “They used that on me.”
Aleksy’s gaze snapped to him. Jackson’s jaw tightened, his posture shifting just slightly—not weakness, not fear—memory.
“It didn’t feel like poison,” he said. “Didn’t feel like anything I’ve had before. It was like my body just... turned on itself.” His fingers curled. “Seizures, I couldn’t stop, couldn’t fight. Just—stuck in them. And no memory of them when I came to.”
Aleksy’s jaw tightened. He remembered watching a man he referred to as a brother convulse uncontrollably on the ground.
The room had gone still again.
Caleb stepped forward. Grounded. Like he always was.
His gaze locked on Tamsin, steady, assessing, not accusing—but not letting it slide either. “What in the hell was this supposed to be?”
That was a bloody good question. Because that mattered. Not what Chimera had turned it into, but what it had been designed for.
Tamsin didn’t flinch. Her arms crossed loosely over her chest, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t match the intensity in her eyes.
“It wasn’t designed to take innocent lives,” she said. “It was supposed to save them.”
Caleb’s brow furrowed slightly. “Explain.”
Tamsin stepped closer to the screen, tapping once to bring up a layered schematic—her part of it, not Elara’s.
“This,” she said, “was designed as a targeted delivery system.” Her finger moved across the display. “Controlled radius. Controlled trigger. No collateral.”
Her gaze lifted, meeting everyone’s in the room.
“You separate DNA markers,” she continued. “Or identify a shared biological signature—something consistent across a group, then you can immobilize that group with impunity.”
“Like who?” Jackson asked.
Tamsin’s expression sharpened. “Like a terrorist cell that’s been operating together long enough to share environmental or engineered markers, or a group that’s been dosed, altered, enhanced—anything that creates a consistent identifier.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You could isolate them.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Tamsin’s voice didn’t rise. “You hit the target, and only the target. You don’t level the building.”
Aleksy watched Caleb process it, saw the moment it clicked.
“How many innocents—” Caleb started, then stopped.
Tamsin finished it for him. “Wouldn’t get caught in the blast?” Her gaze didn’t waver. “Hundreds, maybe more.”
That wasn’t destruction. That was control.
Precision.
Restraint.
Caleb exhaled slowly. “Damn.”
Sienna’s voice came in, quieter now. “That kind of precision changes everything.”
“Yes,” Tamsin said. Then her expression hardened. “And Chimera turned it into something that ends everything.”
Jarek’s voice cut through, sharper now.
“If they already have this, build the damn thing, then what do they need you for?”
Tamsin exhaled, looking almost bored, as if this wasn’t really what they should be focusing on.
“It’s unstable.” She leaned slightly against the console, crossing her arms now, her posture deceptively relaxed.
“The compound degrades, breaks down before it can fully execute its function if not delivered in a timely fashion. That’s why it’s inconsistent.
Why it doesn’t always kill. They need the compound stabilized and a delivery system they can use whenever they want to.
” A beat. “Also, I didn’t leave them with the exact schematics.
They probably only have one or two more executions before that mechanism degrades beyond repair. They need me to fix that.”
Claire laughed. “That sounds like a nice parting gift for those assholes.”
Tamsin tipped her head. “Consider it my big old fuck you if you decide to rip me off, or destroy my things.”
Elara went still again. “If they stabilize it,” she said slowly, voice tightening, “if they manage to hold the structure long enough—”
“They don’t need wide dispersal,” Tamsin cut in. “They don’t need incendiary devices.”
Aleksy felt it click. “Direct delivery.”
Tamsin nodded once. “Exactly.”
Jarek’s voice dropped. “How?”
Tamsin’s lips curved faintly. “Think smaller, contained. Focused. Directed.”
Her gaze moved across them.
“Think a weapon that doesn’t explode outward,” she continued. “But delivers exactly what it’s carrying into exactly what it’s aimed at.”
Aleksy’s jaw tightened.
“If they stabilize it...” he said slowly.
Tamsin finished it for him. “They can create incendiary-level weapons that target a specific type of shifter.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “Not collateral damage. Not wide-scale destruction.”
Then the truth settled fully into the room.
“Targeted,” she repeated quietly.
And this time—there was no mistaking what that meant.
“Targeted shifter targeted shifter genocide.”
****
Targeted shifter targeted shifter genocide.
The word didn’t echo. It settled into the room like something alive—heavy, suffocating, and impossible to ignore.
Jarek didn’t move. His gaze stayed locked on Tamsin, like he could protect her from Chimera and any other crazy fuckers dumb enough to target her if he watched her closely enough.
She didn’t flinch or soften the impact of the word. She simply told the truth as it stood and left it there.
“All right,” Victor said finally, voice low, controlled, cutting through the silence like a blade. “Then we stop them.”
Simple. Direct. Exactly what Jarek expected from the Bears.
Elara moved first. She stepped closer to the console again, hands braced on either side of it now, her gaze locked on the data like she could tear it apart and rebuild it through sheer will.
“They’ve altered the stability curve,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “The degradation rate—it’s inconsistent because the compound isn’t bonding correctly with the delivery matrix.”
Tamsin nodded once. “Yes.”
It was like they were already working from the same page. The way they listened and understood each other’s role and strengths in that moment was a thing to watch.
Riley stepped in next, moving to Elara’s side, her gaze shifting between the data and the projections forming on the screen.
“Neurological overload isn’t random,” Riley said, voice steady, grounded in something clinical but not detached.
“If it’s targeting specific DNA markers, then it’s triggering a chain reaction inside the nervous system itself.
Her fingers hovered over the interface, not touching, just tracking.
“Once it starts, the body doesn’t recognize it as an external attack. It treats it like a systemic failure.”
Jarek’s jaw tightened. “Meaning? Dumb it down for me, geniuses.”
Riley glanced at him briefly. “Meaning it is exactly how Jackson described it. As the body fights itself, no external countermeasure. No natural defense. It just ... keeps going until something gives out.”
Then Sienna stepped forward, providing a different energy. Not clinical or analytical, this one was much more strategic. Her gaze moved across the room, then back to the screen.
“They don’t need mass deployment,” she said. “Not if they can target individuals or groups.”
Jarek’s attention flicked to her.
“They can destabilize leadership,” she continued. “Take out Alphas. Command structures. Anyone who poses a threat.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then exhaled. “This isn’t just a weapon, it’s a control system.”
Claire moved in last.
Her gaze didn’t go straight to the data. It went to Tamsin. Then Elara. Then back again.
“They’ve merged two systems that weren’t designed to work together,” she said slowly. “Elara’s base formula and Tamsin’s delivery mechanism weren’t meant to be integrated like this.”
Elara nodded. “They’ve forced compatibility. It’s unstable because it’s incomplete.”
Claire’s head tilted slightly. “Or because they don’t fully understand what they’re working with.”
Tamsin’s eyes widened for a moment, then her lips curved faintly. “Bingo.”
Claire stepped closer to the console now, her fingers finally moving, pulling up a secondary layer of data.
“If we can identify where the instability originates,” she said, “we might be able to reverse-engineer a failsafe.”
Riley nodded. “Or disrupt the trigger point entirely.”
Sienna’s gaze sharpened. “Or weaponize the instability against them.”
That got Jarek’s attention.
He glanced between them. Noticing, really noticing how it was between these amazing women. The way they moved. The way they built off each other.
Like they’d been doing this together for years.
Aleksy shifted beside him, subtle but there. Jarek didn’t look at him.
He felt it anyway.
The same realization settling in. They’re good. No. Better than that. They were—dangerously good.
Jarek exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his jaw.
We’re lucky.
The thought came uninvited. And for once—he didn’t push it away. Because looking at them—at Elara, Riley, Sienna, Claire, their Tamsin—at the way they took something this twisted and immediately started pulling it apart, finding the weak points, mapping the solution?
Yeah. The E.S.E. has been getting stronger and stronger with the mates they have been lucky to have been fated for.
They were stronger because of this. Because of them. Jarek’s gaze shifted back to Tamsin. She wasn’t watching the screen now. She was watching the others.
Like she was already calculating how she fit into it.
His lips curved slightly. Yeah ... she fits.
Aleksy’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Can you stabilize it?”
Jarek’s gaze snapped back to Tamsin.
She didn’t hesitate, just shot his brother a look and said, “Of course I can.” Her expression shifted slightly. “But I won’t.”
Tamsin pushed off the console, straightening fully now, her posture shifting into something more deliberate.
“Stabilizing it makes it way more usable,” she said. “Makes it reliable.” Her gaze moved across the room, landing on each of them. “One version of that existing is already too much.”
Jarek felt that hit deep, because she wasn’t wrong.
“We don’t fix it,” she continued. “We break it.”
Elara’s eyes lit slightly.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Into a million pieces that they could never hope to put back together.”
Riley nodded. “We destabilize the delivery system further.”
Sienna’s lips curved. “Make it unusable in the field.”
Claire added, “And if we do it right, it collapses on activation.”
Tamsin’s gaze sharpened. “Exactly.”
Jarek exhaled slowly.
There it was.
A plan.
A real one.
His attention flicked briefly to Aleksy, then back to the room. Then to her. Standing there like she belonged in the center of it. Like she always had.
His grin came back. Slow. Dangerous. She’s not going anywhere.
And this time—that wasn’t just instinct.
It was fact.