A weight dropped into the pit of Trey’s stomach and settled there. The thought of the whole SWAT team and their mates leaving the homes they’d built in Dallas was gut-wrenching. But that was why their pack alpha and team commander had a plan in place to do exactly that if and when this very situation came up.
“Connor’s right,” Hale said. “Either you talk to Gage and prepare for the likelihood that we’ll all have to leave the country. Or trust in the soul-mate connection and talk to Samantha.”
***
Samantha was so preoccupied with thoughts of Trey that she didn’t realize her electric toothbrush had turned off and she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror slowly pushing the bristles back and forth across her teeth like a robot. Considering how much foam was in her mouth, she could have been brushing for the last ten minutes for all she knew.
She spit, then rinsed, her mind still spinning with everything Trey had been through that evening. The anguish in his voice as he’d talked about Kyson, the agony in his eyes when he’d looked at the photo of the two of them together when they’d been younger, the desolation that had seemed to consume him as he’d talked about failing his friend. Seeing him like that had hurt her like nothing she’d ever experienced. She swore it was like she was grieving over a loss of her own.
When Trey told her that he was going to head home, the urge to stop him and make him stay there so she could take care of him was so overwhelming it was almost scary. To make matters worse, the worry she’d felt for him all night had actually gotten more magnified when he left. She was terrified he was sitting in his apartment right now, alone with his grief. The thought of Trey being in pain was enough to make her want to cry. The idea of going to bed and trying to sleep was ridiculous. There was no way she’d be able to do anything but stare at the ceiling all night.
When she heard the soft knock on her door a moment later, Samantha didn’t even pause to think. She was certain Trey had come back. Pulse racing, she hurried to the door and jerked it open without looking through the peephole.
“Trey, thank God!”
Only it wasn’t the big sexy cop she was very quickly falling for.
“No, sorry.” Loralei looked at her in concern as she stepped inside. “Did you guys have a fight or something?”
Samantha closed the door and turned to follow her sister. “No. He just learned that a friend of his passed away and he took it pretty hard.”
Loralei nodded and sat down on the couch. “Sorry to come over so late, but I got the initial DNA results on those blood samples you gave me and thought you might want to hear what I found. Even if none of it makes sense.”
Samantha’s heart beat a little faster. “What do you mean it doesn’t make sense?”
Her sister frowned. “The blood you gave me matched two of the other profiles you provided—the ones labeled Airport Sample Six and Loft Sample Three—but that isn’t the freaky part.”
“Freaky?” Sam repeated softly, still trying to come to grips with the confirmation that Trey’s DNA was on two of the bodies that coyotes had supposedly nibbled on. Airport Sample Six was from the throat wound of a body recovered from the scene where the SWAT team had gone toe-to-toe with a band of criminals working for an organized crime family. Loft Sample Three was from the throat of an Albanian criminal SWAT had tangled with a few months later. Cause of death in both cases had been rapid exsanguination—common when a person gets their throat ripped out. Of course, the final reports out of the ME’s office had implied the initial wounds could have been from a gunshot with the majority of the damage coming postmortem courtesy of the apparently invisible coyotes. But while Samantha had never believed that part, nothing in her wildest dreams had made her think she’d find Trey’s DNA in the wounds.
“Yeah, freaky,” Loralei said. “What else would you call human and wolf DNA blended together? Are you sure the samples didn’t get mixed together somehow?”
Samantha was sure she’d heard her sister wrong. “Definitely not. I watched the blood pour out of the guy’s hand after he cut it open, so I know for a fact they weren’t contaminated.”
“Not contaminated,” Loralei said. “Blended. As in there are pieces of wolf DNA attached perfectly to the human genetic material. It’s not corrupted in any way, but it’s—”
“Impossible,” Samantha finished.
Her head was really spinning now. What her sister was describing didn’t make sense. But then the little voice in her head reminded her that the other sample she’d sent to an outside lab had come back contaminated with wolf DNA as well.
Samantha took a deep breath. “I know you’re really good at what you do, but is there any way you might have contaminated the sample?”
Her sister shook her ahead. “I thought the same thing when I first came up with the anomaly. So I started with a fresh sample and ran it again and got the same results. I thought maybe you’d been messing around with some gene-splicing techniques and were trying to see if I would catch it, but I’m guessing from the look on your face that isn’t the case?”
Samantha sank down on the couch beside her sister. “I wish I could tell you that was the answer.”
Loralei pulled up a knee, turning to face Samantha. “Well, as long as we’re complicating the situation, I might as well tell you what else I discovered.”
“There’s more?” Samantha asked, not sure she wanted to know.
“Afraid so. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it looks like the wolf DNA I found is slightly…unusual, I guess is the best way to describe it. I have to run some other comparisons to be sure, but I think the material is prehistoric.”
“Huh?” Samantha croaked, not even trying to come across as intelligent at this point. This whole thing was getting too strange for words.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly.” Her sister smiled. “And before you say it, yes, I know how crazy this sounds. But there’s no other explanation for the fact that the genetic material is definitely in the Canis genus, with wolflike traits, and yet it doesn’t quite match anything in our current database.”
Samantha didn’t say anything, too busy trying to figure out what all of it meant. How could Trey have prehistoric wolf DNA blended with his own? Even if it were possible, what did it mean?
“This feels like something out of a Marvel movie.” Her sister leaned forward and grabbed one of Samantha’s hands. “What the hell did you get yourself involved in?”
“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t,” she said softly. “At least not right now. I’m going to need you to trust me, okay?”
Loralei gazed at her for a long time before squeezing her hand again. “Okay, I won’t push for now. But you will tell me at some point, right?”