The Wolf Within (Purgatory 1)

“I don’t want a science lesson!” Duncan snarled. Wasting time, wasting—

“Where do you think the DNA comes from? It’s no random mutation.”

“It’s passed down,” Holly said, her body sliding closer to Duncan’s.

Connor nodded.

“Werewolves and humans…we’re separate, but we can mate. But the half-breeds…they can’t always change,” Connor murmured.

“The genetics are there,” Holly said to Duncan. “They would still pass down…in children, grandchildren.”

Connor’s stare was back on him. “We’re everywhere, you see. The teacher in your school. The cop walking his beat.”

Me.

“They’re us, and they don’t know it.” His teeth snapped together. “Not until they get the bite.”

“The bite must activate the dormant DNA.” Holly’s arm brushed his. “That’s why some humans can change and others can’t. Those who can…they’ve got an ancestor who was a werewolf. I should have realized it before. It’s not about mutations—it’s…” Her head turned and her gaze found his. Softer, she finished, “It’s just family.”

Duncan’s hands fisted. His claws were trying to break free. “Werewolves killed my family.”

“Is that what you were told?” Connor asked, words rumbling.

“It’s what I saw.” He glared at the wolf, glared and heard—Help me! Duncan! Duncan! A child’s voice.

His eyes squeezed closed.

“Hearing voices are you? Those screams again?” Connor taunted. “Careful, or even your vamp will start to think you’re going crazy.”

His eyelids flew open. “I. Know. You.”

“And I know you,” Connor fired right back. In that instant, the mask he wore dropped. Rage burned fire-hot in his eyes as his fangs extended. “I know your face. I know your scent. I’ve looked for you…for years. And I found you, hunting me. Hunting our kind!”

“There’s no ‘our kind’ here! Werewolves killed—”

Holly wrapped her arms around Duncan and pulled him back from the cell. “Elias is coming back.”

The thunder of his heartbeat had drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps.

Connor’s cheeks were flushed. His claws out. His chest heaving.

Duncan’s claws were out. His chest heaving.

“Alphas aren’t made,” Connor told him. “We’re born. One generation to the next. Alphas only come from alphas.”

The door was opening behind him.

Duncan didn’t look back. He couldn’t. He remembered what Connor had told him when he’d burst into that basement room, so desperate to reach Holly.

“Hello, brother.”

His eyes swept over Connor’s face. “Have you gotten his DNA?” Duncan asked Holly.

“Yes. A sample was taken when he first came in to the facility.”

They had the best lab in the nation there. With equipment most couldn’t even dream of.

Connor smirked at him. “Figuring it out, are you?”

“How?”

“The ten minutes are up,” Elias said before Connor could speak. “And I just saw Pate in the hall. He’s coming this way.”

Because Pate would have been listening. He would have realized exactly what or rather, who, Connor was to Duncan.

“It can’t be possible.”

“What? That you were always the monster you hated? Trust me,” Connor growled, “it’s possible. Welcome to my nightmare.”

“I don’t have a brother.” Why dance around this anymore? “Holly will check your DNA against mine, and this BS you’re spilling won’t fly.”

But Connor just stared back at him.

“It won’t. I don’t have a brother.”

Connor lunged forward in an instant. His hands wrapped around the silver bars and smoke rose from his flesh. “Because you let that bastard take me! I begged you to save me. I was four! Fucking four! You were supposed to watch out for me. You were supposed to save me!”

Duncan couldn’t speak.

“You let him take me.” Connor’s gaze slid to Holly. “Now I’ll take everything from you.”

Holly had stiffened beside him.

“The hell you will,” Duncan snarled. No one was taking Holly. No one was hurting her.

“It’s already started,” Connor said, voice lowering. “You don’t even realize it. The moment you were bitten…it was all planned. Your humans? They sold you out. They gave you to me. This time, you’ll be the one to scream and beg. And there will be no one to save you—or her.”

Chapter Eight

They were brothers. Duncan and Connor. She’d done Y Chromosome testing, and the proof was right there for her to see. They shared the same father.

Alphas are born, not made.

Their father had been a werewolf alpha, and now, so were both Duncan and Connor.

The two men also shared the same mother. She’d been lucky enough to get DNA from the ME who’d worked Katrina McGuire’s murder case that had confirmed their link.

“It’s true.” Duncan’s voice. Flat. Cold. And coming from right behind her.

She pressed her hands against the table. Thanks to the high-end equipment that Pate had stocked in her lab, she’d had the results in just a few hours. Hours that Duncan had spent pacing.

She turned toward him. “Same mother. Same father.” A father who’d been a werewolf.

Duncan shook his head. “I don’t remember a brother, I don’t—”

“You remember his screams. Now that you’ve seen him again, you’ll probably start to remember even more.” She walked toward him. Duncan’s body was thick with tension and the room seemed charged with his desperate energy. “You were a kid then, too, you—”

“I was five. I would have remembered him. Not just screams. Him.”

Holly swallowed. “You survived a blood bath. Your mother was slaughtered. You must have been in shock when the authorities found you.”

“And I—what? Just pretended my own brother didn’t exist?”

“You were a child,” she said as she tried to keep her voice soothing. “You can’t blame yourself for something that happened back then.”

“He blames me. He hates me.”

Connor certainly seemed to. “Well, if Pate’s intel on him is right, the guy is psychotic so he probably blames a lot of people for—”