So instead, she took a deep breath and attempted to see this situation from his perspective, trying to understand why he was turning his back on something like this. She thought yesterday’s fight with the other hybrids had demonstrated better than anything why he couldn’t keep acting like he could hide from the animal inside.
Some of his reluctance probably had to do with the fact that he didn’t want to get his hopes up only to have them dashed if the antidote didn’t work. She could understand that. She’d be the first to admit she’d been working on this cure for a long time without success. But if that was the reason, why couldn’t he simply tell her that? Then she could discuss all the medical possibilities and probabilities. She might not understand men, but science? That she got.
“Have you tested it on anyone else?” Tanner asked suddenly. “Any other hybrid, I mean? Like Minka or Diaz?”
Zarina was so surprised by the question that all she could do was stare at him. A minute ago, he’d told her he wasn’t interested in the antidote. Now, he wanted to know if she’d tested it on the feline hybrid, Minka Pajari, and the Special Forces soldier, Carlos Diaz.
“No. I haven’t tested the antiserum on anyone else,” she said after a moment. “I designed it specifically for the first-generation hybrids Stutmeir made, like you. It wouldn’t work on Minka, because she’s a third-generation hybrid made from Ivy’s DNA, and it wouldn’t work on Diaz, because he’s a natural-born shifter.”
Tanner did a double take. “Diaz is a shifter? I thought he turned into a hybrid because he’d been bitten by one.”
Zarina frowned. Had Tanner forgotten the last time he’d seen Diaz? It had been the night the hybrids had attacked the DCO complex. Tanner had completely lost control and nearly killed the Special Forces soldier. Diaz had survived, but only because he was a shifter. Tanner had almost certainly smelled Diaz and recognized him for what he was.
Then again, maybe his hybrid episodes were like an alcoholic having a blackout when almost all the memories were lost. Zarina wasn’t sure which would be worse, knowing you’d lost control and having no memory of it, or losing control and remembering every horrible detail.
She opened her mouth to ask what he remembered of that night but then thought better of it. He’d obviously remembered enough to force him to go on the run. There was no reason to make him relive events he’d likely prefer to forget.
“I told Diaz a dozen times it wasn’t possible for a person to become a hybrid from a bite, so I have no idea why he insisted he was one,” she said instead. “He’s a coyote shifter. A late bloomer, but still a full shifter.”
“A late bloomer?” Tanner grunted. “I know he’s a small guy, but I had no idea he was still waiting to go through puberty.”
“Very funny.” She made a face. “That’s not the kind of late bloomer I’m talking about. It’s something I’ve learned since you left. It turns out that being a shifter is a bit more complex than we originally thought. There are a lot more people in the world with shifter DNA in their system than we ever imagined, maybe as much as one percent of the population. For most people, that DNA stays in a dormant state for their entire lives, but for a very small number, the chemicals released into the body during puberty activate the dormant gene and turn them into shifters. In Diaz’s case, for some reason, the change occurred really, really late in his male growth cycle instead of early on in the process.”
“Huh.” Tanner shook his head. “Diaz must be disappointed. He was all in on the theory that the bite was what changed him.”
“You have no idea,” she muttered. “As much as he wants to blame the hybrid bite for changing him, in reality, it was pure coincidence that his body decided to go through the change at that point.”
Tanner muttered something under his breath she didn’t quite catch. “I don’t know what he’s complaining about. Better to have shifter DNA in your blood than hybrid. God knows I’d rather be a shifter.”
Zarina chewed on her lip. “Actually, in a way, you are.”
He slammed the blade of the ax into the top of the next log and turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean by that?”
“That’s something else I learned after you left,” she told him. “It also explains why some people made it through the various hybrid experiments while others didn’t. It turns out having dormant shifter DNA in your blood is essential to surviving the hybrid serum.”
“You mean…” His voice trailed off.
She nodded. “Yes, you have shifter DNA. So do Minka and Sage. Not enough to start the change on its own, but enough that you all survived the hybrid serum when the drug killed so many others.”
That suddenly made Zarina wonder about Spencer and the other hybrids at the prepper camp. None of them had possessed a discernible pulse when they’d been dragged out of the lodge. But the more she thought about it, the less surprised she was that their bodies had somehow revived themselves. If certain people were already genetically predisposed to surviving the hybrid process, was it that crazy to believe they’d be able to put themselves into some kind of coma-like stasis to help them live through the worst of the changes? It was an interesting hypothesis for sure, and one she’d love to study.
Zarina’s big reveal seemed to have put Tanner into a thoughtful mood, because he went back to splitting logs, his expression showing he was struggling with something. She let him think for a while but then stood up and moved closer. He stopped what he was doing, lowering the ax
