Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

14. Aha Moment

Volya didn't want to take it easy, but Liam's almost-embrace was more comfortable than all the LazyBoy chairs in the lounge combined. He surrendered to it, let his ass connect fully with the chair, and leaned back. He sat, biting his lips, while the scientists settled down after his outburst. They didn't seem to mind it that much.

Heck, daSilva's grin barely fit on his long, swarthy face. The man couldn't have looked happier if a million dollars rained down from the ceiling. He was so obviously itching to exclaim, I am glad you've asked! it was half-way between hilarious and pathetic. Instead, this Dr. Ever Stranger cleared his throat. "The DNA chain of the Alpha-female that Dr. Young had located—and yours, Volya—contains a peculiar spacer. Very peculiar. It plays a similar role to CRISPR, but not quite."

Volya didn't gulp, but his blank expression must have spoken volumes. At any rate, it was potent enough for DaSilva to shake his hands in the air in frustration over losing him. He then cringed and spelled it out: "CRISPR is a genetic sequence that allows one organism to emulate the genome of another."

While daSilva cringed over this gross oversimplification, Volya caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: Anabelle. And he was not alone slanting his eyes at her at first, then openly gawking. They all did, despite their fine manners.

Instead of dying from embarrassment, Anabelle climbed to her feet and turned in a slow circle. "One organism imitates another... Example: a human who emulates a horse."

She was so well-adjusted, it was practically epic.

"Am I... like Anabelle?" Volya addressed himself to Marina, because in his opinion, she was the least likely to be deluded. In the hush that once again commanded the room, his quiet voice carried. Good thing he spoke in Russian.

"No!" all the scientists replied in one voice, not even slowed down, let alone deterred, by the language barrier. Apparently, he wasn't destined to be a misunderstood antihero.

"Anabelle is not the genetic carrier of the Alpha-CRISPR, Volya. You're the only one in this room who has it," Lydia said. "Something, or rather, someone, had triggered a catastrophic mutation in my daughter when she had accidently interfaced with the Mnemosyne."

Volya blinked. "The Mne-what-now?"

"The ancestral memory interface," Marina inserted quickly. 

Volya blinked again, waiting for her to elaborate, until she didn't, obviously assuming that everyone in the room functioned on a high enough level to understand what it meant. He felt a tiny bit flattered and very much confused.

Lydia milked the dramatic pause that fell after Marina's remark for all it was worth, then threw her arms upward, elegantly bent at the wrists, shawl trailing to win back their attention.

"In terms we can all understand, Anabelle was cursed to merge with her horse, resulting in a synthetic creature."

"A centaur," Anabelle said helpfully.

Volya almost whined, I knew that, changing at the last moment to a pertinent question. "Cursed by whom?" 

"As best as we could tell, the individual Anabelle saw in her memory was one of your Alpha ancestors during the war with the Yamnaya," Lydia said.

"And all the evidence points to the wolves as the animal group they had been interdependent with," Young added. 

Wolves? Volya Wolkov, the Will of the Wolves... or Freedom of the Wolves. Taina Wolkova, the Secret of the Wolves. 

Volya capped Liam's hand resting on his shoulder. Squeezed it. "If Anabelle is a centaur, am I... am I a werewolf?"

"Of course," Lydia said.