Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
My mouth pops open, and I can’t stop the gargled laugh from leaving my mouth. God, I miss my grandad. He would have also found this whole thing hilarious and then sorted the problem out with a few choice words… well, after he told me off for getting bitten.
They all think I’ve turned? That I’m a bitten shifter? I slap my face with my hand and laugh through my fingers. I am poorly for a few days, and the entire world goes mad.
Hell, their imaginations, and this situation, are way worse than the reality of my hybrid status.
It is so much worse, and I never thought I would say that—shit.
The way the angel is looking at me, with false sympathy—he thinks he’s connected all the right dots. When in fact he’s gone off the page.
“I know it’s a bit of a shock,” he says.
I laugh harder.
I bet the hairy bastards—the shifters—are going nuts. I bet the angel has been shitting himself while dealing with his worst nightmare.
I guess it’s a fitting punishment for him being such a dick with me.
Unfortunately, it messes with my life way worse.
They don’t know I’m a hybrid. Getting poorly after that idiot chomped on my finger was a real cosmic coincidence. The timing couldn’t be worse.
“You could have died,” he grumbles.
My laugh cuts off, and my eyes widen.
Oh no.
It hits me.
It’s not about what can happen to me. It’s the implications for other women.
The realisation freaks me out. What if the shifters all suddenly think that they can turn women now?
Everybody knows if a human female is bitten—hell, any female is bitten—by a shifter, they don’t turn; they die.
What if this whole thing sets off the shifters, and they go on a rampage and start chomping on everybody in a stupid attempt to turn them?
People could die.
I’d be responsible. Perhaps indirectly, but I’d be responsible. With a wobble, I slide back down onto the side of the bed, my back towards the angel. My temples throb and my heart pounds in my ears as my brain filters through the implications.
Female pureblood shifters are super rare, guarded as either precious jewels or as a commodity.
Poor cows are seen as baby-making machines.
If they think I’m a super-special turned shifter, my life will be a living nightmare.
Bitten male shifters can’t shift. But I don’t know if they can pass the shifter gene down to their children.
What if the shifters get it into their head that maybe a turned human can produce full-shifting children?
Bile rushes up my throat, and I swallow it back down.
No, I’m overthinking things without all the information.
I never thought being a hybrid would be the best outcome in this situation.
“I know it is a bit of a shock,” he says again.
That’s the understatement of the century. I realise I’m shaking my head and rocking like a crazy person.
I’ve got to tell him. I’ve got to stop this.
When I still liked Xander, I might have googled angels, and on one site it said angels can tell truth from a lie. So whatever I say, I have to say it carefully.
The silence stretches between us.
A bit like an out-of-water fish, I open and close my mouth. Fuck. I shrug, have no idea what to say. The truth, tell him the truth.
I’m not a child no matter what he thinks. I know kids—teenagers—say that. But I’m not. I am the sum of my experiences like we all are, and I’ve seen things, dealt with things that would make most people—no matter what their age—crumble.
Come on, you can do this.
Everything happens for a reason. I screw my eyes closed and huff out an enormous sigh. I hate that phrase.
But… but I dunno having that theory helps. I guess if it is true, and fate pushes in a certain direction, and the push is so hard it rattles your teeth, maybe you need to go with it.
Maybe I need to go with it. Hell, hiding isn’t working.
Fate has given me a massive kick to my bum. Getting bitten while already being ill? It’s a crazy coincidence. This is more than me. More is at stake than my selfish self-protection.
All I need to do now is step forward.
“I am not—”
There’s a knock on the door, and a guy in fatigues prowls into the room. “I have Miss Dennison’s results,” he says.
Results? Oh shit.
This guy doesn’t look like a doctor. It looks as if he’d be happier with a silver sword than a stethoscope. Not that doctors use stethoscopes anymore. They have fancy magic tech for that.
“You’ll not believe what I found,” he continues, his eyes fixed on the medical tablet.
Double shit.
I wiggle on the side of the bed, then turn so I can see him better. His eyes lift from the tablet when he catches the movement. “Miss Dennison, you’re awake.”
I wave. “Yeah, I think I am… I’m in a sort of twilight zone at the moment, one where the world has gone mad. I think I might be still unconscious, and my brain is just having a fun time making unbelievable shit up,” I grumble.
“My name is Dr Ross—”
“Okay, out with it, Ross. You can be polite on your own time,” Xander interrupts. He waves his hand in the air for the doctor to get on with it.
The doctor shrugs at me apologetically and then turns his full attention to the angel. He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a potion ball.
Witches normally colour code their spells, red being dangerous, orange being fire or explosive. The one in his hand is pale blue. Asking for permission, he raises his eyebrows at Xander, and the angel nods his consent. The doctor flicks the potion ball onto the floor.
The air around us pops. I have to swallow a few times as the pressure hurts my ears. Silence. A bubble of silence so thick—it’s an expensive potion.
Xander tilts his head to the side, and his face scrunches up with distaste. “Ross, if you can’t trust my security over one pain-in-the-arse girl and her medical bullshit, we’ve got a serious problem on our hands. Do you need to waste a potion for this?”
Gosh, the guy reallyyyy does not like me. What a shame.
“I don’t trust anyone else but the people in this room with this information.”
I twitch, and my head throbs. I wonder if they’ll notice if I go back to sleep. I lick my dry lips nervously. It looks like we’re skipping my hybrid confession. I guess it’s out of my hands.
My granddad died not even four months ago, and in that time… I’ve fucked up. I mentally give myself a double thumbs-up. You’re doing awesome, Tru.
NOT.
I keep my mouth closed. God, I’m so bloody frightened.
“Okay, the good news. Miss Dennison is not a bitten shifter.” Ah, shit. Here we go. “I checked the results myself three times. I even got another sample of blood to make sure.”
Nice to know I’ve been prodded and poked while I’ve been unconscious. Among other things, I glare down at the brand-new never-seen-before pyjamas.
Xander nods his head. His face relaxes with relief.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.
I don’t understand why you felt the need for the full cloak-and-dagger potion drama.
Working with John’s team has made you paranoid.
” Xander rolls up from the chair. “Send the results to the shifters. I’m sure they’ll want to do their own tests to confirm. ”
Dr Ross holds his hand out and shakes his head. “I don’t think we can do that. It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
I hunch and my shoulders brush my ears.
“The results show that Miss Dennison is half shifter.” Both the doctor and Xander turn and stare. I force myself not to fidget, and I lift my chin. Half shifter is perfectly fine.
The way the shifters go about breeding willy-nilly. Practically every other human has some shifter DNA. There are thousands of half shifters out in the world.
“Okay,” Xander scoffs. “No problem, we can handle that. At worst, it might look I’ve been harbouring a rogue half-breed.” He scowls at me, and I glare back. “You will need to register with the guild.”
Crikey, I don’t know why he hates me so much.
With all the angry looks he’s shooting my way, he could seriously give me a complex.
It’s not as if I’ve taken a poo in his cornflakes.
This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask him to stick his nose all up in my business.
He was the one who came to my home and ripped me out of my bed.
“I’m not finished.”
No, really?
The doctor taps the tablet on his leg, and his hand trembles.
He takes a deep, fortifying breath. “It’s a whole lot worse than that, Xander.
The results show that she is also half vampire.
” He doesn’t look like a man who gets nervous.
He looks like the guy who typically takes things on the chin and nothing bothers him.
Which makes his next words so impactful.
“I think we need to call in the hunters guild.”
The doctor is freaking out.
“Half shifter, half vampire? That makes little sense… She doesn’t smell dead.”
“No, that’s because she isn’t. She’s a born vampire, a shifter-vampire hybrid.”
Oops.
Xander grinds his teeth.
“Check the results again,” Xander barks out.
“I already did, three times.”
Both men look at each other, and an entire conversation goes on between them with just their eyes.
Xander turns those eyes onto me. “Tru,” he growls, using my name for the very first time. I can’t leave the room because the doctor is blocking the door, so I do the next best thing like a total boss… I flop onto my side and pull the covers over my head.
Like a kid.
Look at that. I am rocking this. Maybe if they think I’m asleep, they will leave me the hell alone. I can sneak out.
Xander grunts. “Her illness?”
“I need to do more tests, but it looks as if she’s going through her vampire transformation early.
To me, it looks like both sides of her nature are conflicted.
They’re at war with each other. Her electrolyte levels are all over the place, her potassium levels are too high, and her sodium, vitamin D, and iron are critically low.
From the data, both sides are losing.” I hear a few taps, and I think he’s showing Xander my medical stuff on his tablet.
“Medically, I don’t know how she’s still alive.” It just gets better and better.