Page 56 of The Alpha Experiment
So now I needed another, slightly different experimental model. A variation, a control. Now that I knew I could stimulate my dormant genes, and what happened when I applied one set of inputs, I could adjust the variables to try to stimulate a slightly different set.
The kind that made claws, thank you very goddamn much.
I mulled it over as I got dressed, and I’d gotten so lost in thought that I hardly acknowledged it when Colin put a cup of coffee in my hand and a plate of eggs and toast in front of me on the coffee table.
“Earth to Newt,” he said, and I blinked down at my empty plate. I didn’t even remember eating. I’d finished the coffee, too. I looked up at him and found him smiling again, even though I’d obviously been acting like a dick. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” I set down my fork, a little dazed. “Much. Thank you. Sorry. I was kind of miles away.”
“No worries.” He flopped back on the couch, folding his arms behind his head. Showing off his arm muscles again, Jesus. “What’s the plan for today?”
I’d come up with one, but I didn’t know if he was going to like it, given the way he’d been yesterday.
“You want to do your own thing this evening?” I asked, a little warily. “I want to head back to the lab for a few hours. Run some tests on the new sample.” I’d stuck it in the fridge when I came out of the shower, and Colin had just shaken his head at me. “And then I have a few errands to run. But I’ll be back at a reasonable time, no more all-nighters for me. Anyway, I have to teach tomorrow.”
I’d remembered that inconvenient fact once the coffee started to get my brain working a little better. My morning class sounded like something from another universe. But as much as I wanted to cancel it, I needed to stay on the straight and narrow with my job, just in case Greenwald ended up badmouthing me. Showing up for class was kind of the least I could do to nullify any negative rumors.
“Sure,” Colin said easily, much to my surprise. “I can hang here. The council emailed me a bunch of fucking bullshit contracts to read through. I’ll pick up some beer to keep me from losing it, and make a night of it.”
“Okay. Well. Then I guess I’ll get going?”
He nodded, and it was just that easy.
It felt like a trap somehow, except I knew Colin didn’t operate like that.
Still. I headed out for the university feeling like I was missing something.
***
More tests confirmed more enhanced genetic activity—including some RNA transcribed from genes whose purpose I hadn’t yet been able to discover. Hours of work left me, in equal measure, elated, because I still couldn’t quite believe I’d really made such a breakthrough, and disappointed, because I hadn’t made the breakthrough I’d really wanted.
Around ten, I packed up and headed out, nodding to the grad student who’d ensconced himself a few stations down the lab bench halfway through the evening. He’d been peeking at what I’d been doing all night, and I’d had to resist the urge to hunch over my laptop and growl like a dog with a juicy bone. My research direction wasn’t exactly a secret, but this particular experiment wasn’t one I wanted to become part of the university gossip mill.
I had one more stop before I headed home, and I’d already mentally composed a shopping list. No reason to dally.
But I still took a minute, sitting in my car in the shop’s little gravel parking lot, before I could bring myself to go in. The freestanding building had been built to evoke a log cabin, and the trees surrounding it made it look like a cute little rural outpost selling something like farm-fresh produce, or pies.
The giant neon green ‘Adult Emporium—Movies’ sign kind of ruined the illusion.
I hadn’t been in a sex store since Evan turned eighteen and made me take him to one as his birthday present, since he felt too weird going alone. We’d giggled like adolescents under the tolerant eye of a really hot tattooed chick with blue hair until we’d fled in embarrassment. Good times.
I sighed and bit the bullet.
The clerk at this one didn’t have blue hair, but she did have the same air of no-nonsense nonchalance. And, I noticed as I got closer to the counter, where she sat flipping through aVamp Vixensmagazine, she had a small tattoo on her wrist, a symbol I recognized as belonging to a loosely-affiliated group of shifter packs of different prey species. They were much rarer, since so many of their ancestors got eaten. They also tended to be the butt of a lot of jokes from more intimidating species, so they stuck together.
So when she asked me if I was looking for anything in particular, well…screw it. She’d be in a position to understand the parameters of what I needed. An alpha weresquirrel might not terrify the masses, but shifter magic was shifter magic, and alpha magic was alpha magic. They were still a lot stronger than humans—at least while they were in human form.
I glanced around warily, and she smiled. “You’re the only one in here right now, except for my coworker stocking in the back,” she said knowingly.
I’d meant to lead up to it, but instead I blurted out, “I need to tie an alpha werewolf to my bed, but my bed frame is one of those crappy metal mattress holders that he could break with one hand.”
Her eyebrows went up, the two rings on the left side glinting and wobbling. “Well, I think your options depend on how hard the alpha’s going to be trying to get away.” She winked at me. “You’re pretty cute, so I’m guessing he won’t be trying all that hard.”
My face had already been hot enough to fry an egg, but it went to a more surface-of-the-sun level. By the time I’d recovered enough for human speech, she’d put her magazine down and come around the counter.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” she said, and led me down the aisles, past a bewildering array of brightly-colored underwear, black vinyl underwear, candles, oils, and plastic genitalia of every description.
The restraints section had an almost equally overwhelming selection, and I was so damn glad I’d asked for help. I shook my head at various ropes. Whatever I’d learned about tying knots at Camp Uranus had long ago fled my memory.
