“You must love Spencer very much,” she said softly.
Lillie nodded, her mouth curving again. “I know it’s crazy to fall for a guy with Spencer’s issues. He’d be the first one to tell you that between his PTSD from the years he spent in the army and what those crazy doctors did to him, he’s dealing with a lot of crap. But love doesn’t care about a person’s past or what issues they have. When you meet the person you’re meant to be with, nothing else matters.”
Zarina silently agreed. She wished Tanner would take a page out of Spencer’s book and stop pushing her away. Or maybe she was the one who needed to be more like Lillie. Zarina had just met her and could already tell the girl was a force of nature.
She sipped her coffee, studying Lillie over the rim. “So, how did Spencer and the other hybrids end up in your camp?”
Lillie eyed her in confusion, quickly finishing the bite of toast she’d just taken. “Hybrids? What’s that?”
Of course. Stutmeir’s doctors hadn’t started using that term until after Tanner had survived the first dose of the serum. That was after Spencer and the others had already supposedly died.
“It’s a term the doctors who experimented on Spencer and Tanner came up with,” Zarina explained. “They used it to describe a person who’s half human, half animal.”
Lillie blinked. “So you really were there in that ski lodge with those lunatics who wanted to turn humans into monsters?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Zarina pushed her scrambled eggs around on the plate with her fork. “But like Tanner said, I wasn’t there because I wanted to be. The man who employed the doctors kidnapped me from my apartment in Moscow a few months before and forced me to help them come up with a drug to create hybrids.” Even now, she shuddered at the memory. “I tried everything I could to slow down and sabotage their work, but it didn’t help. I was able to get Tanner out, but I couldn’t do the same for Spencer and the others. I was sure they’d died.”
Lillie nibbled on her toast. “The guys don’t talk much about what happened in the lodge, but from what little they have told me, the doctors must have thought they were dead, too. They took their bodies into the woods and left them in shallow graves, probably thinking some wild animals would make everything disappear. But Spencer woke up and dragged his friends to a cave about a mile from where they’d been dumped.” She picked up her coffee mug and wrapped both hands around it. “That’s where Burt found them last January. It was in the middle of a blizzard, and they were freezing and starving to death. They’d been surviving on whatever food they could forage, too scared to go down into any of the nearby towns for food and shelter because they were worried they’d lose control and hurt someone. When Burt brought them back here, a lot of people in the camp were scared of them at first, but that changed as soon as Spencer and the other guys proved they could be trusted. My falling in love with Spencer probably helped a little with that, I guess.”
Zarina smiled. “Probably so.”
She and Lillie continued to talk while they ate, with Zarina telling her about hybrids, shifters, and Tanner, while Lillie told her how Spencer and the others helped out around the camp and worked to control their aggressive behaviors. Maybe it was simply because they’d both fallen in love with hybrids, but Zarina found it incredibly easy to talk to the girl despite the fact that they came from completely different backgrounds.
“Are you and Tanner getting married?” Lillie asked, setting her fork and knife on her empty plate and pushing it aside. “You can tell me to back off if it’s none of my business, but after seeing how he defended you yesterday, not to mention the look you get on your face every time you say his name, I’m figuring the two of you have been together for a while.” She shrugged. “I can’t help thinking if the two of you can make it work, then Spencer and I might, too.”
Zarina hesitated, hating to dash the girl’s hopes. But she couldn’t lie.
“No, we’re not getting married.” Tears stung her eyes as she suddenly realized marrying Tanner had been a dream buried deep in her heart all along. She swallowed hard and blinked them back. “Tanner and I care about each other, but in our case, it’s not enough to overcome the obstacles life throws in front of you.”
Lillie set her mug down on the table with a frown. “Sure it is.”
Zarina gave her a sad smile. “I wish it could be. But like Spencer, Tanner is constantly worried about hurting me or someone else who’s important to him. That’s why he’s been living out here on his own for the past two months. He thinks that’s the only way to keep other people safe.”
Lillie let out a sound of frustration. “What is it with guys? Spencer has said the exact same thing to me a dozen times. He thinks it’d be better for everyone if he goes up to Alaska and lives alone in the wilderness. Are all men born with that macho crap in their DNA?”
Zarina laughed. “Probably. The worst part is that it doesn’t have to be that way. I came out here with an antiserum that will make him human again, but Tanner won’t even consider taking it. He’s so damn stubborn, it drives me insane.”
Lillie’s eyes widened. “You have a cure for this hybrid thing? Would it work on Spencer?”
Zarina considered that. She hadn’t thought about it until now, but there was no reason it wouldn’t. “Almost certainly. I developed the antiserum specifically for Tanner’s type of hybrid DNA. Since Spencer and the others were created using the
