"Bugger."
"Could have been." He glanced at me. "It was Rhoan who found you. He just started walking, and before we knew it, there you were."
Thank God for the connection of twins. "I'll have to tell him to walk a little faster next time."
A smile touched his lips, but his eyes were all seriousness. "You know what I'm here to say, don't you?"
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. "The job is only half-done."
We'd found the source of the clones, but while Talon had been flirting with crossbreeding, his labs were not the main source of the crossbreeds. And definitely not the source of that weird-looking blue thing that had attacked me in the parking garage
Jack nodded. "Everything I've found in that lab suggests Talon was not working alone."
"He said he'd worked with Misha in the past." Talon had been so sure of his success that he'd blabbed far more than he should have. "He also said that he wasn't responsible for those two men kidnapping me and that the person behind it all was someone I apparently know quite well."
"Yes. He's been quite talkative in the past hour or so, as well."
Not willingly, I'd bet. "So what has he said?"
He hesitated. "His idea to get you pregnant was all his own."
"No surprise there."
Jack nodded. "No, but apparently, it's been happening for well over a year. ARC1-23 was not the first fertility drug he'd tried, though all the others were legal."
Meaning lack of success had forced him to try other drugs. Meaning I might be as infertile as the doctors had feared. I closed my eyes, not really sure how I felt about that despite the lump that rose in my throat
"So why wasn't this picked up in my six-month checks?"
He grimaced. "I checked, and it was. But fertility drugs are not on the reportable list, so it never made the overall summary."
"I'm gathering it will in the future?"
My voice was dry, and he grimaced. "Anything out of the ordinary will be reported from now on."
Even though it might be a case of shutting the barn door after the stock had bolted
"Of course," Jack continued lightly, "Talon's desire to create the ultimate werewolf is quite amusing considering he himself is not entirely wolf."
I stared at him. "What?"
"He's a dhampire, just like you."
"He said he was a werewolf."
"And still insists he is. Our tests reveal otherwise."
So much for Talon thinking he was the pinnacle of wolf breeding. "So if Talon is an example of what was achievable, how come everything is going balls up now?"
"Because his father was a very powerful, very wealthy maverick working on his own, and much of his research was lost in a fire that destroyed his lab and took his life."
"That suggests that maybe Talon's not the only successful creation."
"Exactly."
"And maybe one or more of those creations are running the other lab." Which might or might not be called Libraska
Jack gave me another of his pleased smiles, but I was too tired to get annoyed by it