Wild Fire (Wilding Pack Wolves 5) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (2 page)

“I know.” Zoe sighed. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know you are.” Grace still let out a small growl of frustration. “It’s just that this tech would make such a difference.” She was convinced the superhealing ability of white wolves could be distilled into a serum that would be useful to humans—which was technically possible, but Zoe was nowhere near that yet. Even Agent Smith had been surprised by Grace’s superhealing when he had her captured and under his knife. His research only had a few hints that he’d seen anything like Grace’s ability in his test subjects before that.

“Superhealing is great,” Zoe said. “But there are so many variables. Even getting it to the point where we’re ready to trial it on human subjects… I don’t know, Grace, you’d be taking a big gamble going public with this before it’s something we can replicate in the lab.”

Grace’s brow wrinkled up. “Even if there was just the
possibility,
that’s really something we need to share with the public, Zo. If we did, humans would see us as something amazing like we truly are… and then maybe they wouldn’t be so afraid. Maybe they wouldn’t hate us quite so much.”

Zoe nodded, even though she didn’t really agree. As far she could tell, humans had nothing but hate for shifters… and even more so for witches. Their hate was born of a fear of what shifters could do, and that wouldn’t go away, even with the possibility of superhealing being transferred from shifters to humans. But Zoe wasn’t a politician like Grace—she was just a scientist. That was all she ever
wanted
to be. She got her Ph.D. when she was only twenty-one and had practically grown up in her father’s lab. Genetic research was where her heart lay, and she was all for using it to improve the condition of humankind… and shifter kind. And she was fine with shifters being shifters if that’s what they wanted. But she wanted it to be a
choice,
not a destiny built into your DNA. If there was anything she truly believed in, here in her father’s gene therapy institute at the University of Washington, it was that DNA shouldn’t be a prison.

“Speaking of hate,” Zoe said, trying to steer the conversation away from her lack of results. “Did Terra talk to you about her experience with the Wolf Hunter?” Zoe’s cousin Terra Wilding had been kidnapped by the Wolf Hunter—and it turned out, he was a white wolf! That brought the number of known direct descendants of a white wolf to three—Grace, Terra’s mate Kaden, and now the Wolf Hunter. Then there were the two second-generation white wolves in the Wilding family—Zoe and her cousin Noah—and lastly, Owen Harding, whose white wolf had been created under Agent Smith’s torture-via-experimentation. Six white wolves, three different pathways. Which only confirmed to Zoe’s theory that the white wolf gene was some kind of a rogue element, not always expressing under the same apparent conditions. And while her family and friends were good people, the Wolf Hunter was decidedly not. He was like the original white wolf that haunted the Wilding family gene pool—Zoe’s grandfather, an all-purpose asshole who preyed on his own kind and broke up the Wilding pack two generations ago.

“Yes, I talked to Terra.” Grace didn’t seem too excited about that. “The Wolf Hunter is a white wolf, too? I have to admit, I nearly tossed my lunch when I realized I might be a half-sister to that guy.”

“I can imagine.” Zoe knew that sick feeling well—she felt the same whenever she thought about carrying her grandfather’s DNA around. “But that’s not what I meant.” She held up her hand, ticking the points with her fingers. “First, we know the Wolf Hunter is a white wolf like you and me. Second, we know he’s after his father, who is also apparently a white wolf. And the dude’s totally obsessed with this—clearly he has some kind of psychosis or mental issue or something. But it’s possible the white wolf he’s searching for is also
your father.”

Grace’s face pinched in. “Okay, look—I know we started out this whole enterprise with me giving you Agent Smith’s data because I wanted to know who my father really was. Obviously not the ex-Senator. But I’m really okay with letting that go. Your priority needs to be isolating this superhealing gene—that’s more important for all of humanity, not to mention the shifters who have to live among them.”

Zoe quirked up one side of her mouth. “And… it wouldn’t hurt your election campaign, either.”

Grace scowled at her. “Well, yes. But I’m not trying to get elected because I want power. I’m not like the ex-Senator, Zo. He only wanted influence, and he was willing to use people’s hate to get there. I’m trying to
help
people.”

“I know, Grace.” Zoe held up her hands, feeling bad for working her up and getting her so defensive. She really hadn’t meant it that way—she just wanted Grace to slow down a little on the time frame. Give Zoe more time to figure out her part. “I know you’re one of the good guys—trust me, I know the difference. I’m just saying… the Wolf Hunter’s looking for a white wolf who might be your father, and maybe we should be focusing on that. Because it would be a disaster if the Wolf Hunter found him before we did.”

“A disaster?” Grace’s pretty face scrunched up. “Why? And do you really think he’s still hanging around Seattle, like the Wolf Hunter told Terra?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Zoe said. “And it’s also possible we’re talking about the same genetic origin for
all
the white wolves. Remember—this dude’s really a witch, and witches live freaking forever. The same white wolf could be your father, the Wolf Hunter’s father, Kaden’s father… and even my grandfather. He could be eighty and not look anything over forty. Do you have any idea how old some of the witches are in those covens downtown?”

“Yeah, like two hundred years old? I’ve heard rumors.” Grace was back to scowling. “So you think it’s all the same guy?”

“Maybe. But here’s the key—he’s the
source material,
Grace. The source material for the superhealing.” Zoe still had her hand up, with only two fingers counted off. She ticked off a third. “We know the Wolf Hunter is collecting DNA. When he was kidnapping all those shifters from the gangs downtown—Marco’s gang—he was taking DNA. Why?”

Grace shrugged on the screen. “I don’t know, the guy’s crazy—”

Zoe shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if he’s crazy—what matters is what he’s trying to do. And we know he’s trying to find a white wolf, with a heavy suspicion that he’s using DNA to do it. But how would a few random samples of DNA help him?”

Grace looked confused. “Just spell it out for me, Zoe. I’m not a brilliant scientist like you.” She was getting annoyed, so Zoe got to the point.

“I talked to my cousin Marco, and he told me that while the Wolf Hunter was torturing him, he injected him with a serum that he supposedly got from his “friend”
Agent Smith.
It was the suppressor serum, the ones used in Agent Smith’s experiments! Marco is just a normal wolf, so the suppressor worked on him. My theory is that the Wolf Hunter was trying to figure out if Marco was a white wolf.”

Grace’s frown was getting deeper and deeper. “Wait a minute—you’re telling me that the Wolf Hunter has some kind of connection to Agent Smith?”

Zoe shook her head. “I don’t know. The pieces don’t entirely fit together. According to Terra, the Wolf Hunter didn’t realize there were any white wolves besides himself until he saw
you
come out on TV. But according to Marco, the Wolf Hunter somehow has access to the serums that Agent Smith used.”

“Only Agent Smith was dead before I came out as a wolf.” Grace scowled.

“Exactly.” Zoe lifted her eyebrows. “There’s only one thing that survived past Agent Smith and his very fortunate demise…”

Grace’s lovely face paled a little more. “The database.”

“Are you sure you have the only copy?” Zoe asked. “Absolutely, positively sure? Because the database has enough information for me to re-create the suppressor serum. And if I can do it, and the Wolf Hunter has access to the same database…”

“He can do it, too.” Grace closed her eyes and tipped back her head, letting out a long sigh. Then she opened her eyes and gave Zoe a deadly serious look. “I am absolutely positive that no one else has had access to that data.”

Zoe nodded and bit her lip. “Well, it’s possible that Agent Smith had a backup we’re not aware of. And that somehow, the Wolf Hunter got hold of it. Either way, if he has it, he can use it, along with DNA samples from wolves around Seattle, to try to track down the white wolf ancestor. Your father. My grandfather. And the source material for the superhealing serum you want.”

Grace’s shoulders dropped in defeat. “Okay, you’re right. We need to find my father before the Wolf Hunter does.”

Zoe let out a sigh of relief but tried not to let it show. “Good. I’ll see what I can do with the data as well. If we both have the same information, maybe I can beat him to it.”

“All right.” Grace grimaced—it certainly wasn’t the progress she must have been hoping for when she called, but going after the white wolf source would buy Zoe a little more time. And if they actually found the guy, it would legitimately speed up her research—both for the superhealing and for Zoe’s more secret plan to eliminate her own wolf.

Grace pulled in a breath and continued, “We’re doing what we can here at Riverwise to track down the Wolf Hunter.” Her mate, Jared, was one of the River brothers who ran the Riverwise security firm. “You keep doing your job, we’ll keep doing ours.”

“Agreed.” Zoe felt her energy rising up, gearing for more work tonight. She didn’t know how much time she had just bought, but she needed to make the most of it.

Some movement at the end of the lab caught her eye—her father was weaving through the rows of benches, heading her way.

“Gotta go,” she said, reaching to hit the Skype button. It cut off before Grace could reply, but also before her father could see who she was skyping with.

“Still working late?” he asked with a small smile as he strode up to her. He had the dark-haired, blue-eyed gene that ran strong in the Wilding family, but he wasn’t a white wolf like her. His wolf was big and black and shaggy-furred… and like every other shifter. He didn’t know about her white wolf
…
and if he did, he would probably be ashamed of his daughter. As far as he knew, she had never shifted. Of course, that was far from the truth.

“Yeah, just catching up on some stuff,” she said, taking a peek at her screen to make sure nothing incriminating was up there.

Her father scowled, but it didn’t have much heat behind it. “You work too hard, Zoe. I can’t help thinking I went wrong somewhere to have
this
be the result.” He gestured to her, perched on her stool, clad in a bulky lab coat stained with coffee as if it was a pathetic state to be in. Which, if she was honest, was probably true. But he didn’t mean any harm by it. Billy Wilding was a gentle man, unlike the white wolf who was his father, Bobby Wilding. Of course, her father didn’t know
that
part either—he thought he was the progeny of Gary Wilding, the alpha that Bobby killed after sleeping with his mate.

“I love my work, Dad.” She gave him a teasing look. “Besides, you’re the last person to talk.” Her father was brilliant and had built this gene therapy lab from the ground up, developing all kinds of innovative technologies to help people. And because her mother had died in childbirth, Zoe and the lab were everything to him. Always had been.

Her dad scratched the back of his neck, gave her an awkward look, then grinned. “Isn’t this where I say,
do as I say, not as I do?”

“Too late!” She smiled. “All opportunities to influence me have been null and void since my sixteenth birthday when I went off to Harvard and discovered all the things you never wanted me to know.”

Her dad threw up his hands. “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!”

She laughed. She truly loved her father—he had such a good heart—but if he ever knew what she really was, and why her mother truly died in childbirth, she was convinced that the light in his eyes would go permanently dim. Her cousin Terra had told her the Wolf Hunter’s story about killing his own mother in childbirth… and it hit way too damn close to the bone. Terra, of course, knew Zoe’s mother had died the same way—but she didn’t know Grace was a white wolf like the Wolf Hunter. No one did, except Grace, who Zoe had confided in only after Grace had taken the leap of bringing Agent Smith’s data to her for analysis.

Zoe was convinced, just like the Wolf Hunter, that the magic inside her was what had killed her mother. That knowledge hadn’t turned Zoe into a psychopath like him, but she understood the pull of that darkness. And the desire to get rid of this thing inside her was only stronger knowing she might have gone down that dark path.

Her father leaned forward to kiss her gently on the cheek. “Zo-bug,” he said softly as he pulled back. “You’re a beautiful young wolf. You should be out having fun. Or maybe even finding a mate. You’re twenty-five already—”

Zoe scrunched up her face. “Oh my God, Dad,
please…
You’re acting like an old bitty grandmother. Just stop. I’m begging you.”

He chuckled but then turned serious. “I shouldn’t have drawn you into my business, Zo. I’m afraid I’ve passed on my obsession for genetics. All I can do is apologize for my DNA, I guess.” He smiled, but the words made her cringe inside.

Zoe struggled to keep that off her face. “You’re doing good work, Dad.
Important
work. I’m proud to be part of it.” And that much was true, as far as it went.

He accepted that with a small nod and turned to leave. Before he got far, he twisted back and shook a finger at her. “Don’t work too late, young lady.”

She raised her voice to call after his retreating form. “You’re the only dad I know who would be happier if I was out clubbing than doing my homework. Don’t be so weird!”

She heard him chuckling all the way into the long hallway outside the lab. Once he was gone, she pulled up her gene sequencing software and dove back in. If only she could figure out how to isolate the white wolf gene or find the trigger that caused it to express its powers, then she could reverse engineer it. She had all of Agent Smith’s data and had re-created his serums, but it was like re-engineering the space shuttle. Too many interconnected parts. She just had to keep whacking away at it… eventually, she would have some kind of breakthrough.