Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I am impressed, and I am slightly horrified as I realize my father is losing his pack to my mate. She has no interest in being alpha, and if she is, she will invariably lead her followers astray.
By the time the moment subsides, there are at least eighty naked shifter men in various states of confusion and adoration.
“What the hell just happened?” One of them asks me the question, his face contorted with confusion as he finds himself naked and suddenly very much obedient to a beast he never imagined existed.
“You found someone more worthy than my father,” I say simply. “A female with more strength, more power than any old alpha.”
“Oh,” he says.
Oh, indeed.
It’s fortunate we rented such a large house. There is actually enough room to accommodate those who came to capture or destroy us. There aren’t enough snacks to go around, not at first, not until Callie has some air dropped in from the helicopter she mentioned earlier.
My father is left standing on the driveway with his car. Karl is still beside him. The two of them have managed to keep their senses because they did not shift with the rest of the pack and experience the frenzy of animal submission that has claimed the minds and hearts of those he sent after her.
I stand facing what feels like the dwindling remnants of my family, feeling quite, well, smug.
Orion wants to save face. He wants to let me know he has not lost the game, even though it is quite obvious he has lost the game.
“We’ll make more of them,” he says. “She’s nothing more than the product of a process. You know that. She’s not special.”
The last assertion is where he’s wrong, and where he knows he is wrong. Callie just took his pack with the sheer force of her existence. Simply being who she is, is a powerful invocation. He might be able to try to do science to others, but I don’t think he’ll replicate the results, and he knows it too.
“I don’t think you will. I think you’ll try. I think you’ll kill some people. I think you’ll produce mutated, broken creatures. But I do not think you will create another Calista Hart. It’s not possible.”
“I have a man with me,” Orion says. “Get out here, Doctor.”
The man from the lab who was so helpful when Callie first went missing slides out of the car, looking very sheepish for a wolf scientist. I wonder why he was on hand. To sedate her? To perform further experiments in the field? I try to contain my rage as I imagine all the awful reasons he might be here—not one of them good.
“He’s right, sir.”
“What?”
“The processes involved are not designed to create… what we just observed. She must have had some pre-existing DNA components. Perhaps the prior bite, but I think it is more likely in her bloodline. Humans contain quite a bit of DNA of indeterminate function. When we were isolating her code in the lab, we noticed that she already had some sequences coding for…”
“She’s not special. We can replicate this,” Orion says, interrupting the scientist’s facts with his own baseless assertion.
“Good luck with that. In the meantime, your pack is on its knees for her, and she has the resources to take everything. It’s likely not your lab anymore, Father. It’s hers. You engineered your own demise, old man.”
“I still own all I own.”
“True, but the pack itself has shifted loyalty. They will not forget the experience they had, submitting as a group to the embodiment of pure, raw, female energy.” I say the words slowly, enjoying them, and the effect they’re having on Orion and Karl. They are visibly uncomfortable at what I am saying, and being reminded that raw femininity ruined all their plans in an instant.
“You’ve never managed to bring that to the pack. You’ve brought single alpha male energy. Rough, pointless, self-serving dominance that doesn’t even love its children. And now they have her. She’s more powerful. She’s more wild. And she’s nicer.”
Appearing almost as summoned, Callie shows up with some donuts on a plate, the perfect little feral hostess.
“Have some snackies,” she says, presenting the plate in both hands. She’s taken the time to brush her hair, put on a nice new dress, oh, and find an apron from somewhere with frills around the edges. She is the perfect picture of a domestic goddess. “If you don’t like sprinkles, I think we have some plain ones back in the kitchen? The ones with pink icing are delicious.”
“Wolves don’t want pink icing,” Orion snarls. “They will return to me. I will make an army of werewolves.”
“Oh, never mind,” Callie grins, wandering off again. She is enjoying herself far too much. I’ve never seen a battle won with catering, but she is doing it.