Waken (The Woods of Everod Book 1) (21 page)

Before anyone could say anything, Lukas said, “It started with the Wolf.”

Chapter 18

“The Wolf was a man who was able to manipulate his genetic makeup, letting him take the form of the wolf.” Lukas said, picking up his coffee mug and cradling it close to his lips.

“In the early-twentieth century, scientists were beginning to experiment with creating animal hybrids,” Lukas began. “Dr. Grigory Markov was one of those scientists. He was a biologist obsessed with the theories of lycanthropy.”

Katrina disappeared for a moment into the living room, returning with a framed picture, handing it to Lukas. Lukas passed the frame to me. In the photo, an elderly man was crouched low next to a pack of wolves.

“Other scientists had attempted to create new species, hybrids of two different animals. Some even broke laws to experiment with human women, hoping they’d create one of these hybrids. Dr. Markov worked with a Russian biologist on these experiments until the biologist was arrested and exiled in the early thirties. Dr. Markov fled Russian and settled here in Everod, where he could devote his life to researching human hybridization. While his colleague had focused on breeding, Markov was convinced the initial transformation had to be a transfusion of infected blood. He had no idea that what he was doing was altering DNA. After years of research and testing on animals, he finally believed he’d accomplished it, so he tested it on himself. He injected himself with the serum, an infection, forever altering his DNA.”

“Just like that?” Justin asked. “With one little needle and the guy created werewolves?”

“We prefer the term Lycan,” Marissa said. Katrina gave her a sharp look.

“It was an excruciating process and he very nearly died,” Lukas said. “For weeks he thought it had been unsuccessful then the changes began - sensitivity to sounds and smells, increased night vision, and the healing. Finally it happened. One night he morphed into a wolf, though only for a short period before taking his human body again.”

I shook my head, completely overwhelmed by everything I was hearing. “Werewolves are myths. Stories started centuries ago by superstitious villagers to scare their children into staying inside on full nights.” It all seemed so impossible, yet how else could I explain what I had seen Tristan do?

“The Wolf is not myth or magic. He’s science,” Marissa snapped at me and I decided then that we just weren’t going to get along. Anyone who could fault me for having difficulty believing all of this was going to be too much for me to deal with.

Lukas shushed her and motioned with his hand for her to leave, giving a small smile to soften the blow before turning his attention back to me. “What he did was a hybridization, science he did not completely understand the consequences of. He had no control over when the wolf would come out. Still, he felt he’d been successful and he infected the entire village. Many of them didn’t survive the initial illness, their bodies unable to adapt to the changes. Some survived, but their lives were dominated by controlling the beast that was now living within them.”

“And he kept infecting people even after he knew they could die? That’s messed up,” Justin said.

“He was messed up,” Adam conceded. “Dr. Markov was striving to perfect the science he had discovered. He didn’t infect everyone. Once others began to change, they struggled even with their wolves just as much as he did. The biggest difference was that unlike him, they hadn’t chosen this life. They were angry and destroyed by what this infection meant. All of the villagers lost someone to the infection; some had lost their whole family. Then they were faced with living under his control for the rest of their lives. He was their wolves’ creator and Alpha. And being under his control meant staying here in Everod where he could continue his experiments on them.”

Lukas paused in his retelling to sip his coffee.

“This all real interesting, but get to the part where Janie is a sacrifice so Janie can see how crazy this all is and leave.” Justin’s lip curled in frustration.

“What Dr. Markov didn’t know was that in all the years he worked to perfect the infection his mate, Clara, was trying to find a cure,” Katrina explained.

“She was a scientist, too?” I asked.

“She was a medical doctor. Clara didn’t find the cure, but she did find a girl.”

“Amelia,” Tristan whispered. The name from the book.

Katrina nodded. “Amelia. But she was not just some random girl. She was immune to the infection. She’d been born to infected parents. Her siblings had all been born infected, yet she never showed signs of the change. Dr. Markov attempted to infect her, but it never happened and when Amelia gave birth to a boy, he was infected from his father’s side.”

“You can tell if they’re infected when they’re born?” I asked.

“It’s pretty easy to check,” Tristan said. “Take a needle and drag it across the back of their hand. If they are infected, any mark would be gone within seconds.”

“You say that like it’s normal,” Justin said.

Tristan shrugged. “Every baby born in town has it done. I remember Ms. Markov doing it to Bryce’s little sister.”

Lukas shifted in his chair, resting his elbows on the table. His palms pressed together and he interlocked his fingers just at the tips. I could see in their long slender lengths my own. He noticed me staring and I flicked my eyes over to Adam.

“When Amelia gave birth to twin girls, one was Lycan, but the other was not,” Adam said. “Dr. Markov tried to infect her, but she never reacted to the serum. When she was three, she became ill and died. Dr. Markov died shortly after. His mate, Clara continued searching for an answer until she was on her deathbed. That’s when she called for Amelia. Clara predicted that a girl from her bloodline would free us from the infection.”

“So this…you’re all just like the product of a science experiment?” Even to my own ears, my phrasing sounded a bit harsh, but the explanation was just as hard to take in as some kind of mythological one I’d been expecting.

“That is one way to put it, I suppose. Though we like to think we are not beyond hope,” Adam said, his lip curling up on one side. It was an expression I’d seen Tristan wear many times. “That was what Clara gave us. Hope.”

“What happened to Amelia?” I asked him.

“She left.”

“Where did she go?”

“She completely disappeared for a while. When she passed away, her children refused to return to Everod, choosing to go to one of the new settlements in the East, though her son eventually came here.”

“I still don’t get what any of this has to do with Janie,” Justin said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Lukas is Amelia’s son.”

For a moment, no one said anything as again the unspoken fact that Lukas was my father filled the space.

Justin broke the silence. “Couldn’t Janie be infected then?”

“No,” Tristan said, “she carries the mark of the wolf.”

“What does that prove?”

“When my mother was a child, she had a large birthmark on her back it was shaped like a butterfly with its wings closed,” Lukas explained. “My sister Tara and I are both infected and neither of us has the mark. Tara’s twin, Julie, had the same mark as our mother.”

“That is what Clara saw. She had realized that the mark was a sign of immunity. That is what she promised Amelia.”

“Maybe this mark is just a coincidence,” Justin said and I loved him for the straws he was grasping at.

“It’s not just a coincidence,” Adam said. “None of Lukas’s other children bear the mark and of them, only Janie is not Lycan.”

Other children? The air rushed from my lungs as I processed that. That meant I had a brother or sister somewhere. Probably in Everod.

“How can you be sure?” Justin pressed them.

“Her brother and sisters have been checked and all have gone through a transformation,” Lukas said.

A brother and sisters. My chest ached. Lukas knew them; he’d been part of their lives. But me...I hadn’t been worth it. He’d left me with Elin, knowing what she was like.

“Fine. She not Lycan.” Justin threw his arms up. “She got the mark. She’s immune. So what? Take a sample, make your cure.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Adam said. “Clara’s notes indicated that the amount of blood it would take would be massive. So much that there would be no way to live through it.”

“So, there’s nothing to worry about then,” Justin said, his shoulders relaxing just a bit.

“Except Kas.” Katrina stood up and made her way to the coffee pot, filling her mug with fresh steaming liquid. “Apart from Ericka and Helena, there isn’t a more powerful shifter. He must not know you’re Lukas’s child.”

“Why would he care?” I asked.

“Kas isn’t interested in being cured. He wants power and the promise is the only thing he fears,” she said. “The other children have been proven to be Lycan. You, on the other hand, are definitely not.”

I turned to Lukas. “How many children do you have?”

“Four.” He refused to lift his eyes to mine.

“Is that before you remembered you had me?”

“Four with you.”

I had three siblings. People I didn’t even know existed before a few moments ago. I wanted to yell at him, to hit him. The question ‘who?’ burned my throat. Justin stepped close to me, pressing his hand onto my shoulder.

“What if this Kas guy finds out about Janie? Will he try to kill her?” Justin asked.

Katrina sat back down. “He was bound by Ericka.”

I gave her a questioning look. “What do you mean bound?”

“Although she chooses not to use it, Ericka still has alpha status and that means if she gives an order and we have to obey. An alpha’s orders are unbreakable. There is no way Kas could kill any of Amelia’s children. She gave him the order long ago when she first suspected he wasn’t interested in being cured.”

“He’s convinced the Council that the promise means nothing. That Clara had simply been an old woman rambling as she slipped into death,” Adam said. “I would guess that’s why the Council gave permission to tell you. That and the fact Ericka had already given Tristan approval.”

“About six months ago, Ericka told me I would find the promised one,” Tristan said. “Since I knew the other two girls were Lycan, I wasn’t sure how I was gonna follow her order, but Lukas told me not to give up. Until you showed up I didn’t understand why.”

“So you were ordered to date me? Before you even met me?” My stomach shriveled at the thought.

“It wasn’t like that. Ericka can’t order us to love or even like someone. All she said was that I would find you. What I feel isn’t because of anything she said.”

“These girls, my...sisters, did they know what Ericka said to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Who are they?” I was staring at Tristan, but it was Lukas who answered.

“One is named Beth and she’s just turned eighteen. Her mother was from the northern community. I knew her before I came to Everod. Beth’s lived here since she was ten, but she just left to stay with her mother.”

“And the other girl?”

This time it was Tristan who answered. “Rachel.”

Chapter 19

Rachel was my sister. How was it possible that I had sat across from her, stared into her eyes, and not had any idea it was even a possibility? Then again, being related to her was the most normal thing I’d learned over the past couple days. The worst was that she hated me and really, I wasn’t sure just how I felt about her.

I sat in the kitchen talking to Lisa about the movie she wanted us to go to see next weekend, all the while conscious of Tristan’s warm voice in the living room talking to Justin. He wasn’t happy about staying, and that was putting it mildly. He ranted on and on before I finally just walked away, wanting simply to return to a world where everyone was normal.

“Do you want some more hot chocolate, Janie?” Katrina asked. She looked so young it was hard to remember she was Tristan’s mom and was nearly seventy years old.

“No, thanks,” I answered. Other than the occasional food related question, Katrina had stayed quiet, letting Lisa and I do the talking.

“Are you sure you want to stay, Janie?” Lisa asked for what seemed the hundredth time.

“I’m sure.”

“No one would blame you for wanting to leave.”

“I know, but I want to stay.” Although, my sanity was questionable.

Lisa nodded and sipped at her mug of steaming cocoa. “It’s okay to be freaked out, you know. I know I did when I first found out.”

“So, you weren’t born a werewolf?” I asked.

“Lycan, and no I haven’t always been one,” Lisa answered.

“How did you become one?”

“I met a Lycan just after my twentieth birthday. I thought we were in love, but he was just using me to expand the pack. Once I’d changed, he had little use for me.”

“Can I see you change?” I asked.

Katrina sucked in her breath and I turned to watch her furiously whipping the bowl of cream in her hands. “What?”