Page 39 of Wolf's Fate

Doc watched me with understanding. “I get it, I do,” he assured me. “There are words and terms in our vocabulary that we’re so familiar with we don’t even question them anymore. Words likemagicorshifter.They roll off the tongue so easily, but when you think of the actual definition in reality? That’s a lot harder to accept in our general day-to-day. It’s all very well to read about magic in books or see it in a TV show or movie, but when you’re faced with it, inyourreality, in your own life, then it stops being aconceptand becomes truth, and it’s a truth that youcan’tignore. That’s when the veil between reality and make-believe comes down and the real challenge begins. How do you adjust to that? How do you accept something into your every day that was once nothing more than fantasy?”

“I’m ready to be given the walkthrough,” I joked lightly, holding my hand out. “Cheat sheet please?”

Doc laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t have one, but I can let you know how I coped when I found out I was…different.”

“If you don’t mind sharing?” I asked, getting comfortable on the bed.

“My mother is human,” he told me with no preamble. “My father is not.” He didn’t let me ask questions, moving on swiftly. “I don’t know who he is, but my mom assures me that their relationship was consensual, and he took off when she learned she was pregnant.”

His words were sure, well-practiced, and I wondered how many times he had told this story and how many times he had practiced it to remove the emotion from the retelling. “Sorry,” I murmured.

“Nothing for you to be sorry for. I wasn’t the first guy to have a deadbeat dad, and I won’t be the last.” This time, there was a hint of anger, but he recovered quickly. “Mom never knew Dad had something more in his DNA, and it wasn’t until I met Cannon that I knew I was different. I was twenty-eight.”

My eyes widened in shock, and his lips twitched with a smile.

“Yeah, I pretty much had that look too. Cannon knew I was more than human but not enough to be a shifter. From my understanding, it’s not something that happens a lot. Shifters like to keep to themselves, and for most, a relationship with a human is frowned upon. It risks exposure. So the more they populate the world with half-breeds—” He held up his hand at my reaction to the term. “It’s not a slur inthiscontext; it’s an accepted term in our society. And it’s a truth. I am halfof one type of species and half of another completely different.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I grumbled.

“True.” He gave a quick smile and continued. “I didn’t take the news well. I was an educated man—I was adoctorfor God’s sake—but it’s very hard to deny the facts when the guy in front of you strips down and shifts into a big black wolf.”

“I can imagine.”

“Scared the shit out of me. I ran every test possible for where I was.” He saw my look of confusion. “I was a medic in the army. Cannon was a soldier. We served together.”

“Thearmyarmy?”

“From adolescence to early twenties, male wolves have anger issues,” he told me easily. “They need to expel all that pent-up energy, and many of them join one form of armed service or another. They learn discipline and training, and since they can’t be too badly harmed because of the ability to shift, they do well in the military.”

“I’m thinking scary super soldiers,” I admitted with a shudder.

“No, they don’t abuse it. They don’t draw unnecessary attention to themselves. The whole existence of shifters is to stayunderthe radar. They don’t want human attention. At all.”

“Because?”

“Because we’re human, Willow. And we’re the most destructive, vile species that ever lived. We’d swoop into their packlands and take them and experiment on them, cut them open, try to breed them. It would be a horror story.”

It was a horrible picture he painted, but I also couldn’t defend it. “So, what did you do when you accepted it?”

Doc rubbed his cheek, reddening slightly. “Exactly what I just shamed humanity for. I experimented.” He winced at my reaction. “Yeah, I’m a hypocrite, but I wanted to know whatmylimitations were. I knew I couldn’t shift, but could I heal? Would I stop aging? Was I as susceptible to illness as my fellow man?”

“And?”

“I can’t heal, not completely, not like them. I can heal faster. A broken leg on my body takes maybe two weeks to be as good as new instead of the four to six weeks for the rest of us. I definitely age,” he added ruefully, “but slower. Like them, but not as slow as they do. Illness, it depends. I wasn’t really sick as a child, and it wasn’t until I met Cannon that I knew why. But I can still get sick. I test the pack regularly with diseases and always test myself too.” He grimaced. “Had some pretty bad experiences, I have to say.”

“And the terminal illnesses? How can you test for that?” I was completely caught up in his story.

“I can’t and shifters aren’t immune to all diseases. The big C is as much a curse word to them as it is to us, but rarer in them. I’ve come across only one case of leukemia. No MS, no Parkinsons, but I haven’t met them all yet.”

“You like this research,” I realized aloud, “don’t you?”

“Love it,” he told me truthfully. “I have near-perfect specimens to compare against”—he pointed at himself—“and me.”

“Sounds dangerous,” I cautioned him. “So, where do I come into this? I don’t have mixed DNA. What makes me different?”

Doc sat back in his seat. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I know there is magic in the world. I live with it, so I can’t ruleout it’s just one of those things, but I am also a doctor, and science rules my life,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “But I also know the shaman, and I’ve seen the gift of Luna in his workings.”

“Like what?” I wanted to learn everything.

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