The Hybrid Trials Book 1
Автор
Jen Cooper
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One
MACKENZIE
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS FROM NOW
“You belong to us now.” That’s what the scientist said as they took away my contact with the outside world and pushed me into this tiny room.
With him.
Alpha Ryken stood in the doorway, blocking my only way out. He eyed me up and down and I stared straight at him, refusing to falter.
“Hey Alpha,” I smiled sweetly.
“Not your Alpha,” he growled, prickly.
“Keep telling yourself that, Alpha,” I taunted with a grin, patting his chest. I went to step out, thinking he would move.
He didn’t, his broad body still taking up more than his fair share of space. I raised a brow at him. “Need something?”
He smirked at that. “When you’re in the room, always.” His eyes roamed over me, setting me on fire.
Fucking hell. I knew what he was doing. He was using our attraction to his advantage.
It was working.
His words doused me in need. I licked my lips, my eyes not leaving his. “Take what you need then, Alpha,” I challenged.
He stepped closer. I stepped back. He closed us into the small space, leaning down so my oxygen intake was tainted with his scent. My body burned, my legs shaking as his lips brushed my ear.
“Killing is against the rules,” he whispered.
NOW
“Mackenzie Murlow!” The nurse called out my name and I tensed. My leg stopped shaking as I swallowed hard.
I wasn’t sure why I was even there. I was not who they were looking for. I was a hybrid, a waste of space, an abomination.
There was no way these scientists could fix what my genetics had broken.
But money could fix everything else. I needed that.
It was stupid and shallow to sign up for being a test subject for the scientists but I was running out of options. I was living off nothing and this was the first time ever that they had offered a cash incentive.
It used to be that people were happy to sign up. The scientists promoted themselves as being for the greater good. They were running experiments for cures on diseases we had no escape from like dementia and cancer.
But then people had stopped coming back from the experiments, so now they had to resort to paying. Luckily for me.
I was at college, scraping by, using my body as payment for most things and scrounging for whatever scraps I could. Which wasn’t much.
I was just tired of it all, tired of being a hybrid in a world where humans and wolves co-existed but refused the idea that something could exist between those two categories.
Everyone was supposed to stay in their lane, only procreate with our own species. When someone broke those rules, it was considered the ultimate sin.
I stood up from the chair, trying to hold in my shaking as I stepped through the crowd of people towards the nurse. People hissed and snarled as I brushed past and I ignored it. I had to.
I wanted that money reward. I needed it so I could stop fucking my way through campus just for a warm bed for the night or a hot meal.
So I ignored their asshole behavior and smiled at the nurse.
“That’s me,” I said and she nodded, a stiff look on her wrinkled face, her gray eyes glazed over as if she was on autopilot.
“Come with me,” she ordered and I followed her behind a door, down an echoing white hall that reminded me of the hospitals I had spent half my life in.
The nurse yanked a curtain aside, revealing a little cubby that looked like a shower cubicle. There were two white gowns hanging there.
“Put that on. Stay here until you are called for,” she said, then shut the curtain before I could agree.
I turned to the gown, stripping out of my sweater. I had no bra on underneath because those things cost more than my organs were worth on the black market.
I should’ve probably worn one though, my eyes drifting to the white material of the gown. It was very thin and transparent.
But for fifty-thousand dollars? I’d wear whatever they wanted.
I gripped the gown in my fist just as the curtain clinked open. I gasped, spinning toward who I assumed was the nurse.
My breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t the nurse. It was the last person in the world I wanted to be stuck in a cubicle with.
Alpha Ryken Storm of the Storm Blood Pack.
Even just thinking his name had a stone sinking in my gut. His eyes dipped to where I was covering my chest before he closed himself in the cubicle and the nurse wandered off again.
That indifference cut me deeper than I’d ever admit.
I clutched the gown to my naked chest, breathing hard as I stared, but he ignored me. I fought the ache that throbbed painfully against my ribcage.
He looked so different than last time I had seen him. Back when I was ten and he was only a little older, he’d smiled so easily at me. He hadn’t cared what I was.
But that had changed and so had he. Now, he was a giant–so fucking tall.
His dark hair was pulled into a braid down his back, his eyes bright blue, his lips full. He looked so much like his asshole father and maybe that cut me deepest of all. Because just seeing his face again, reminded me of everything he had promised and every word he had broken.
“Alpha Ryken,” I shivered, dipping my head, trying to be civil so he didn’t read into the silence and work out that he could still hurt me. He looked over me and then sneered, his body suffocating the tiny space.
“I am not your Alpha, hybrid,” he spat and I rolled my eyes. That was what I got for showing some respect. Fine then, fuck the respect, he could have the scorn.
“You should be if my mother’s bloodline meant anything to you. But since your pack can’t handle a little hybrid amongst its ranks, I suppose you are right. You are not my Alpha,” I snapped back, turning away and yanking on my gown.
I shimmied out of my jeans and underwear before putting them in the provided wire basket and waited, silently seething over his hatred toward me.
He had no right to feel it. So I was a hybrid? At least I knew how to keep a promise. At least I was loyal. He was too much like his father to ever know the meaning of that word.
Ryken glowered at me, pulling his shirt over his head. He didn’t bother to answer me.
“What is an Alpha doing signing up to be a test subject for the scientists?” I asked, annoyed that my competition was an Alpha.
A hint of wary suspicion tingled in my mind. The last I heard through the werewolf whispers on campus, Cerberus only let his pack work with the scientists if their experiments were exclusively for wolves. The second humans got involved, he wanted nothing to do with them. This experiment was open to everyone.
“None of your business.”
“Right,” I breathed shakily, trying to pull oxygen in, but all I could smell was the fucking Alpha.
His scent was intoxicating, a heady combination of coffee and pine with a hint of musk. That scent pulled at memories I had buried a long time ago. I had let that scent and his smile fool me when I was ten. I hadn’t expected to see him ever again, let alone in a cubicle with him. It hit me hard, but I swallowed it down and fought back the memories. They hurt too much to keep exposed.
Ryken didn’t seem to have the same problem. He didn’t seem hurt or sorry for what he had done. His entire body radiated fury. He moved with rough, jagged movements, his jaw clenched as he pulled on his own gown. He yanked off his boots and jeans, standing tall and stretching out his body that was entirely too lithe and stacked. It was unnatural how overwhelming and big he was.
“Please state your name and species,” a robotic woman’s voice said from overhead.
I cleared my throat. “Mackenzie Murlow. Hybrid. Werewolf. Human.”
“Ryken Storm. Alpha. Werewolf,” he boomed, his deep voice triggering something buried within me.
The Storm Blood Pack was meant to be my pack. My mother had been a part of it. She had been a werewolf under them for years until she met my father, a human. They had fallen in love and she had decided to stop shifting so she could be with him. They had shown me what love was, what it meant to be mates.
Since then, I knew what my mother and father had shared was something special and rare. And once the shifting magic stopped, she had me. But then they were murdered on my tenth birthday by wolves who didn’t accept what my mother had done. Storm Blood Pack wolves under Cerberus’ command. According to him, my mother had chosen a human over her own kind and that was not allowed. I saw it as choosing love over loneliness, but the Storm Blood wolves had made it very clear that they didn’t give a fuck what I thought.
They would have killed me too, if I hadn’t escaped after Cerberus brought me back to the packhouse, my parents’ blood still on my clothes. He kept me there for twenty-four hours pretending like he and the pack were deciding my fate. It was just long enough for Ryken to make me believe they would treat me differently. That they wouldn’t judge me for what my parents had chosen. But they were always going to reject me. And by the time they did, I barely had enough time to get out.
“Please read the contract terms and conditions. Then sign at the bottom,” the mechanical voice said, interrupting my thoughts as a tablet stretched out in front of us on a mechanical arm. I swallowed hard and stepped closer to the tablet, acutely aware that it meant stepping closer to Ryken. He stayed where he was though, refusing to step closer to me, which made no sense. I was the one who had been betrayed, if either of us deserved anger, it was me.
Ignoring that deep pit of hurt and resentment turning in my stomach, I read over the fine print.
By signing this document, you agree to undergo tests to support your application. This helps us determine whether you will be the right fit for our experiment.
Should you be selected, you agree to stay exclusively in our controlled housing for the duration of the experiment, where we will be assessing and recording you. You agree to cut off all contact with external parties for the entirety of the summer.
Our prerequisite tests include blood testing, a physical exam, a questionnaire, and a social experiment.
By signing, you consent to these tests to determine the success of your application.
I swallowed hard and blew out a breath as Ryken reached around me. I held another breath as his warmth doused my body, his skin so close I could see the sinewy muscle up his forearms. He grabbed the stylus and signed the bottom.
“Do you know what the scientists are working on?” I asked. “They said they needed applicants, but has anyone actually heard what drug is being tested?”
Ryken barely looked my way as he tidied his things in a neat, folded pile. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not,” I muttered, then signed my name at the bottom, my heart racing as I did. The scientists were always elusive, but the last time they had run one of these things for the experiment they were working on, it had meant a new world. One where humans and werewolves could co-exist: They’d created a medication for wolves to be able to control their shifting.
Before that, the werewolves had been in hiding, trying not to expose themselves every full moon for fear of being killed by the humans who outnumbered them. Until the Scientists. They were born human but carried a genetic marker that allowed them to manipulate the supernatural.
Once they realized it was possible, the humans came to them with a request. Create something to control the shifting. And they had. It had taken years to get it right but eventually, it worked.
Now, ten years later, every wolf that took it was allowed out in society, the others—the rogues—were still feral and were usually killed as soon as they neared the human dwellings. I hadn’t needed it, my genetic markers were mostly human, meaning I couldn’t fully shift. I could pop some pretty wicked fangs and claws, but other than that? Boring.
“Arm out please,” the voice said, drawing my attention back to the experiment and the resounding throb in my head saying ‘is it worth it?’ I wasn’t sure being around Ryken or his pack again was worth it but I had already signed so I held my arm out. Ryken did too—his was much larger than mine. His had tattoos all over it and more muscle than my leg, but I was a scrawny little thing, too used to skipping meals.
Another mechanical arm came out of the sterile white walls on either side, gripping our arms a second before a needle came down. I sucked in a breath, wincing as it got closer, a prickly sweat dampening my skin. I was not a fan of those things. My head swam a little as the needle dug into my skin, blood pouring into the connected test tube.
“Uh, excuse me? Robot voice thing? Any chance I can sit down and do this? Does the hand thing move?” I asked but was answered with nothing.
I looked down at the blood and needle again, a shaky breath leaving me as I swallowed down the nausea. I swayed a little until a strong hand gripped my other arm, holding me steady.
“Don’t look at it,” Ryken said. I looked up to see him staring down at me. His blue eyes held mine, chasing the nausea away, captivating every part of me. Even if I wanted to look away, I couldn’t. His eyes were too intense. They were blue but had a thick black outline that stood out.
His dark lashes framed his eyes so seductively that every time he blinked, I imagined them brushing against my skin as he kissed it. I wasn’t meant to think that way about the Alpha, but it was a stupid rule considering how insanely beautiful he was. He held my gaze until the needle pinched my skin and withdrew.
I let out a shaky breath as his hand let my wrist go. I held it to my chest, rubbing the tingling away as he looked straight ahead. “Thanks,” I murmured, turning to face the wall ahead as well. He nodded once and I cleared my throat, hating that it was so awkward.
My mom had lived with their pack for years, devoted herself to them, and as soon as she found her mate, they showed her nothing but contempt. It made me so angry and yet I wanted to be a part of it so badly. I felt my wolf inside me, the craving to be part of a pack.
Despite everything they had done to me, I still wanted desperately to belong. It was instinctual when I was standing next to the very Alpha that was meant to be my own. And no other pack would take me, anyway—even if I wasn’t a hybrid, I didn’t have their blood. It was Storm Blood Pack or nothing. Which meant it would always be nothing.
“Mackenzie Murlow,” the voice said. “Blood type A-. Storm Blood Pack. Refractive Error requiring corrective lenses. Heart murmur as a result of a minor congenital heart defect—a faulty valve that has been repaired. Cannot fully shift. Malnourished. Human healing. Blood work complete.”
The list of all my shit embarrassed the hell out of me. Werewolves didn’t have heart defects, they didn’t need glasses and they definitely were not malnourished. Everything that voice listed was another twist of the knife that was embedded deep in my hybrid soul. It proved everything Ryken probably already thought. I didn’t belong in the pack.
I twisted my hands in front of me, refusing to acknowledge the heat in my cheeks. “Ryken Storm. Blood type—supernatural. Werewolf. Storm Blood Pack—Alpha blood. No other abnormalities. Accelerated healing. Blood work completed,” the voice said and I winced from the salt it rubbed in my wounds.
“Of course you’re perfect,” I huffed under my breath.
“Of course you’re not,” he bit back.
I opened my mouth to respond, but the robotic voice beat me to it. “Compatibility calculating.” My head snapped toward the ceiling, where the voice came from, then to Ryken. “Did that thing just say—”
“Compatibility,” he said, his voice low, like he also couldn’t believe it. His eyes on me still had that fire of hate, but there was something else in them too. Confusion, intrigue. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. What could possibly be compatible between us? And what did that have to do with the experi—
“Calculation complete,” the voice said, freezing us both solid. Ryken and I locked eyes as it spoke again. “Highly compatible.”
There was a beat of dead silence, then we both spoke at the same time.
“Highly compatible?” he spat.
While I said, “What the fuck?”
