Page 77 of The Alpha Experiment
I didn’t plan on making a habit of it, but this time I did exactly what my alpha mate told me to do. And I loved every second of it.
Epilogue
I’ll Top Your List
Meredith’s friend Tony called me in January, right after I got back from spending New Year’s with Colin’s pack. Colin had driven me home, and he’d spent one night in my apartment with me before he left again—a night that had probably scarred my neighbors for life.
I had to invest in a decent gag, although I’d need to flip a coin to see who wore it. Maybe the awesome clerk at the adult store could help me figure it out.
I answered the phone right as my coffee maker sputtered to a finish, and poured a cup as I said hello.
A minute later, I dropped my cup, burned my toes, and let out a super unprofessional yelp.
“Are you all right?” Tony asked. “Newton?”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, shaking off my coffee-soaked foot. “Just dropped—I’m fine. Did you really just say you’ve isolated a shifter healing enzyme? Seriously, for real?” Because that was incredible, world-altering, groundbreaking research—not to mention being potentially infinitely profitable, Nobel Prize-winning research. “That’s amazing!”
“It is,” he said, sounding a little amused—but also just as nerdily excited as I was. “It really is. But it’s not confirmed. We think that’s what we’ve found. It’s going to need a lot more work to be sure, and we haven’t identified the gene or set of genes as yet. And the enzyme’s proven impossible to synthesize so far. I’m calling you because of your progress in alternative splicing in supernatural genes, because I think that’ll be the key to this…”
I dropped down on the couch, coffee forgotten, as Tony outlined what he wanted from me.
My eyes widened as he told me how he wanted to give me an initial grant, followed by a research stipend, with the contract with PharmaTestics giving me credit as the lead research consultant and a vested share in any eventual profits. Oh, freaking gods. He didn’t need to take any stalkery photos of me to convince me.
I didn’t even need the renewed prospect of discovering more secrets in my own DNA to motivate me. After Colin mated me, my lack of any cool werewolfery simply…stopped bothering me. It took a night of drunken heart-to-heart conversation with Meredith to make me realize I’d never wanted to be a werewolf because of my family.
I’d just thought I’d never be good enough for Colin as a human.
Revelations sucked when they made you feel like the world’s biggest idiot, especially when they came with the world’s biggest tequila hangover.
So I knew my motivations for salivating over Tony’s offer were legit, based in a true appreciation for the importance and exciting implications of the work itself.
Except there was one big problem.
“Tony, I can’t tell you—this would be—I’m so grateful for the opportunity, and this is exactly the work I want to be doing. But I was…” Oh gods. Maybe I had to change my plans after all. Colin would understand. I hadn’t even told him yet that I meant to uproot my life for him, and he would never have asked me to. We’d seen a lot of each other over the university’s winter break, and he told me he’d make driving up to see me every weekend work, even with his pack responsibilities.
ButIcouldn’t make it work forever. I missed him down to my bones. I’d gone years without seeing him all the time, happy to be connected over the phone every day, or as often as we wanted.
It wasn’t enough anymore. I found myself absently rubbing at my now-healed mating bite whenever I didn’t have anything to do with my hands.
And no matter how much Colin would always support my career, and never say a word about wanting his own damn mate at home with him where I belonged…I knew he missed me like hell every day.
Besides, ever since that gif of Colin dragging me to his car from the science building got posted on a website dedicated to rating professors, with five flame emojis and the caption ‘OMG hottest kidnapping ever’…well, the whispers and stares and giggles in my lectures or when I got coffee on campus hadn’t been easy to ignore. And the university administration hadn’t fired me, but they were deeply, unamusedly not thrilled.
No. I’d already made up my mind. “I’m not planning on staying at SO Tech for much longer, I’m afraid,” I said, with genuine regret. “So I’m not sure I’d have the resources available to take this research to the next level.”
Tonyhmmm’d thoughtfully, sounding weirdly like Meredith. “Where are you planning to go? I assume you have another job offer? Because the only reason I haven’t asked you to come on board full-time here at PharmaTestics is that Mere told me you definitely wouldn’t relocate away from Oregon or northern California.”
PharmaTestics had their main labs in Arizona, and Meredith had been absolutely right.
“I do have a job offer, a little south of here—at the All Magical Souls College.”
A very small college, and, to put it as tactfully as possible, not a mainstream institution, as their name might suggest. Their Christian and supernatural educational philosophy included a ‘commitment to fostering the eternal souls of all God’s glorious human and were-creatures’—and they also had a giant Buddha statue in front of the main administration building. When I’d asked about it when I visited for my interview, the dean smiled and told me they honored all loving faith traditions—and also that Buddha had been a weresnail.
The dean smelled a lot like coffee, like all academics, but he also smelled a lot like he’d smoked a joint before he came to meet me in front of the statue. I chose not to ask him for his sources for that assertion.
Anyway, I thought I’d probably fit in just fine, and they were only a forty-minute drive from Colin’s pack lands. If I planned my schedule fairly well, that commute wouldn’t bother me at all.
On the other hand, their labs weren’t exactly up to date.
