| |
After being showered in the body parts of the werewolf, Katana wanted nothing more than a nice warm shower—for her and Altair.
Tobias insisted they stop by the house that his family owned out here. “It’s not far from here, we can easily walk. We tend to rent it out, but no-one has been in it for a couple of weeks. It’s not booked again until the end of the month.”
“Thanks,” Katana said, leading Altair down the grassy hill. “How long have your family owned a property out here?”
“Quite a few generations actually.” He cleared his throat. “I should probably now confess a little secret to you.”
Katana raised an eyebrow and shot him a steely stare. “I really do think I’m done with secrets. Is it something I have to know?”
“Well...” Tobias bobbed his head from side to side “...if I don’t tell you and you find out on your own, chances are you’ll be more than pissed at me for not telling you. I don’t see anyone else telling you either and I don’t want to enter this marriage being dishonest from the get-go.”
At the mention of marriage, Katana tried her best to ignore the scrunch in her stomach. The idea still didn’t sit well with her, but she’d agreed the price already. Her debt was still to be paid.
She pondered over his statement for a few seconds and then nodded her head. “Ok. Thank you for wanting to be honest. It’s much appreciated given the current circumstances.”
“I hope the same courtesy would be extended back to me?”
“Of course.”
He nodded his head. “Ok, so, you know that Jacques was born and raised around here, and also unfortunately kidnapped from around here.”
Katana’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes...”
“Well, he’s technically part of the family. This house and land was given to his mum by my grandad.”
“He’s part of your family?” Katana stopped walking.
“Yes...his mother, Ava, is my father’s sister...my aunt. He’s technically my cousin.”
Katana let this information spin around in her head for a few seconds. She couldn’t believe it. Did Jacques know this? Was this why he was so against the idea of her marrying Tobias? “There’s no technically, Tobias. He is your cousin.”
He nodded and shrugged his shoulders. “Technically just kind of softens the blow.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It really doesn’t. How long have you known that?”
Tobias visibly winced. “Since he was taken. But I swear, I had no idea your father was involved or where he’d gone.”
Katana narrowed her eyes and fixed her face with an impassive glare.
“My father and my aunt weren’t particularly close. Nothing untoward, he just didn’t approve of Hugo, her husband.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Mainly because he was a shifter. Anyway—”
“Erm, you do realise that’s being racist?”
Tobias stepped back, completely caught off guard by Katana’s direct, sharp toned question. “I...there’s a lot of politics with our family and the standing it has. Ava was supposed to marry into good standing not—”
“For love?”
Silence covered them both. Katana was growing increasingly agitated at the shady politics going on under everything in this world.
Why couldn’t it just be a simple case of keeping human civilians safe from werewolves? Why did families linked to the Council have to marry other high-standing families? Why was there no love involved in anything?
“Love isn’t the answer for everything,” Tobias replied, keeping his voice quiet. “Sometimes it’s more about keeping peace and allies. Especially in a world dominated by the supernatural.”
Katana looked straight ahead, noticing a beautiful farmhouse in the distance. She started walking again and said, “Carry on.”
“Yes, aunt Ava. When Jacques was kidnapped, it was the first I knew of her existence and of the existence of my cousins. It was only when I started training for the Council that I learned about your family using wolves to hunt and put two and two together. Jacques being a white wolf, that’s very rare for shifters, you know.”
Katana spared him a brief glance. “How so?”
Tobias shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know the genetics of it but it’s kind of like albinism in any breed. It’s rare and usually the result of a defective gene somewhere in the DNA.”
“Maybe it came from his father’s side?”
Tobias shook his head. “No. I’ve done my own research into it, more from curiosity than anything. Now, I’m no scientist, that’s for sure, but I think the stress and trauma of Jacques’ ordeal caused his albinism.”
Katana’s mouth dropped wide open. “What? Is that even possible?”
“Yes. DNA is an adaptable molecule. When something causes it to change, it’s called a mutation.”
Katana nodded. “Like the X-Men.”
Tobias laughed. “Kind of. Depending on what molecule mutated depends on the change then reflected in the person. Studies at Harvard have been conducted on mice that proved that when exposed to chronic stress, their DNA physically altered. The reported mutations brought about changes mostly associated with mental illness or the autism spectrum. Of course, it’s only mice, but imagine the catastrophic effects that can have on a human. Add in someone who is half shifter, with all the supernatural magick flowing through their veins, and you suddenly have genetic changes that no-one can predict.”
“Wow,” Katana said, all but breathless. This was astonishing news. “How else will it affect him if it managed to mutate his basic colouring?”
Tobias shrugged his shoulders. “It could affect him in any way. Mood, abilities, aggression, intelligence, fertility...”
Katana glared at him. “So if an environmental factor such as stress caused his genes to mutate, is it possible they can mutate back to normal?”
“Define normal.”
“Well, how he was before the stress altered him.”
“It’s highly unlikely without fiddling with his DNA in a dish. It certainly could change, or mutate, again, but the chances of it changing back to how it was previously are very slim.”
Katana sighed. “So it’s likely he is how he is and that’s it?”
Tobias nodded.
“What about altering something so he’s able to shift again?”
“Now you’re getting complicated. Imagine on the side of each cell you have two dimmer switches. One denotes the direction, i.e. forwards or backwards, and the other denotes the speed at which you travel in that direction. That’s what will have been altered. Once you’ve altered one piece of DNA, you can use a virus to replicate its way through the rest of the body.”
“Like with the werewolves,” Katana said, a light bulb going off in her head. “Oh my God. That’s how we do it—how we save the people. We re-infect them with a virus that will kill off the original werewolf virus.”
“I see your logic, Katana, but you’re talking years of research, figuring out how Gregory got the virus to lock into the cells and replicate, then tests and trials...” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair “...half of the world will be dead by then.”
Katana looked down at her clothes, still splattered with blood and pieces of flesh. “But me and Altair are covered in that werewolf’s DNA.”
“I don’t follow.”
“We’re effectively wearing Gregory’s work. There’s a jump start right here.” She grabbed a hold of her shirt and pulled at it excitedly. “The hardest part, getting his ‘work’ or whatever you want to call it, is right here.”
“Do you realise what you’re suggesting?”
“Yes,” Katana replied. “I’m suggesting we save thousands of people from dying.”