She looked him up and down. “Who says I haven’t?”
His lips twitched. “You’ve resisted. A werewolf not made by me wouldn’t be able to.”
“What good is that serum if you were all born demon-free?”
“It’s not for us,” Cade said. “It’s for every poor human being who’s been changed against their will.”
“But—” Alex began, then paused.
Cade didn’t appear to know about Edward’s cure. Or maybe he just didn’t care. According to Julian, being one of his wolves was super-cool. None of them wanted to go back.
In her experience, no werewolf wanted to. The ones that were possessed by the demon liked what they were. As the virus strangled the person they’d been before they were bitten, they embraced the evil. She had to wonder if, even after Edward’s cure, that person ever found their way back.
“But what?” Julian prompted.
“Nothing.” Alex was supposed to keep her secret Jäger-Sucher past a secret, which meant she wouldn’t know about a cure, either. She stuck out her arm toward Cade. “Do me.”
Julian choked. Cade fumbled the needle again.
At least she’d distracted them from further questions, and she did want to know why she could touch the other wolves without the serum. Or why she wanted to touch Barlow at all.
Alex watched the tube fill rapidly with her blood. Strange. It didn’t seem any different now than when she’d been human.
Cade removed the needle and turned away.
“Aren’t you gonna swab me with alcohol or anything?” Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t swabbed her arm before he’d stuck her, either.
“You aren’t going to get an infection,” Barlow said.
“Right.” A single drop of blood welled from the tiny pin-prick before it healed over.
Cade capped the tube and began to write something on a label. Alex moved closer, fascinated despite herself. “Why don’t you try and cure lycanthropy?” she asked.
“Why would I do that?” His voice was absent, his eyes focused on her blood and the mysteries it might solve.
“Wouldn’t it be more productive to cure the disease itself and not just one symptom of it?”
Cade glanced up, and his gaze had gone shrewd. “You sound like you don’t want to be a werewolf, Alex.”
“I d—”
Julian’s hand twitched. Several empty beakers flew off the table and crashed onto the floor. Cade’s attention turned to the mess. Alex glanced at Julian, who drew his finger across his throat. Dramatic, but it got the point across.
“Do,” she said. “I do want to be a werewolf.”
Her mind mocked, I do. I do. I dooo! in the voice of the Cowardly Lion.
“Mmm,” Cade said noncommittally. “From what I hear I don’t need to waste my time. The Jäger-Suchers have a cure.”
So he did know. Since Julian had, she shouldn’t be surprised.
“Not sure what it is, though.” Cade swept the glass into a dustpan with a tiny, handheld broom, then straightened and dumped the mess into the trash. The tinkling of the broken pieces sounded like distant church bells.
“If it were a serum or a pill, there’d be a lot less werewolves. Makes me think it’s some kind of spell that only one person can do. It takes a long time to rid the world of werewolves if you have to visit each and every one in order to do it.”
“What’s a Jäger-Sucher?” Alex asked.
Cade sighed and let his head drop between his shoulders. Which was good since Julian rolled his eyes, along with his head, to indicate his total disbelief at her gall. But Cade was suspicious, and if she wanted to prove she was here because she wanted to be, not because she had to be—for more reasons than one—Alex thought she should at least pretend to be as much of a nube as Julian said she was.