Bane of My Existence

Chapter 22

Damon rolled his shoulders back, fighting the chill of the air around the fence. He entered his truck and cranked the heating up. By the time he turned off the long windy driveway for the main road, he was sweating and switched the heat off.

Half an hour later, Damon pulled into the hospital parking lot. Joel was slumped in a chair in the foyer, staring blankly at a magazine. When he sensed Damon's presence, he jumped to his feet, at attention. "Sir. How's it going, Alpha?"

Damon clapped the cougar shifter's shoulder with a disarming smile. The man was always so uptight when he was around; he felt like he had to prove his worth in the pack because he was one of the few cat shifters who worked in Lone Wolf.

"Keeping busy, as always. How are the little ones? Kaily is turning five soon, right?"

Joel beamed with pride at the mention of his oldest daughter. There were far more male shifters than females, but he was blessed with three little girls. "That's right, sir. All of her friends from school are coming over on Saturday. If I don't show up for work on Monday, you know where my mate's buried me."

"If you're feeling outnumbered, Dayton is always ready to back you up."

Joel chuckled, easing up a bit. "Oh, the girls would love his wolf. And I'd love to see him let them pull on his tail."

Damon would have loved to see that too. Dayton needed to learn how to lighten up, to enjoy the life he was given.

"Shall I let him know you're here?" Joel offered.

Damon shook his head. "Nah. I'll meet him down there. Take care, Joel."

The cougar shifter nodded firmly and saluted. Ignoring the formalities, Damon set course for the morgue.

He hated hospitals. They smelt like bleach and sickness. An overall air of hopelessness and despair hung above him, like a looming shadow. It got worse when he arrived at the morgue. He bit back a gag at the stench of prolonged decay. He quickly found Observation Room Two and shut the door behind him, finding a small reprieve for his nose.

Dayton and Kalem were already here, the former glaring at him and tapping his watch. "You're an hour late. Where have you been? Marcus is almost done."

Damon approached the window they stood in front of, gazing down at the body in the operating room. It was missing a key feature.

"Where's his head?"

"Blew up," Dayton grunted. "Camen and I were just about to put him in the truck when his brains scattered. I got a bit in my mouth."

Kalem grimaced. "Lovely."

His brothers got to the Corporation's gross little experiment before they could send a clean up crew, so they figured they'd make it impossible to identify him and trace him back to the Corporation.

Good thing they didn't need to identify him.

"What have we got so far?" Damon asked Marcus on the speaker.

The wolf flashed in the doctor's eyes when he looked up at Damon; he inclined his head respectfully. "Good afternoon, Alpha. It appears here the intel you gathered is correct. They've found a way to give humans shifter qualities. I couldn't cut through the subject's skin with my scalpel, I had to use my claw. His bone structure is entirely human, no give for a shift, but the marrow is denser than a typical human's. However, x-rays confirmed that the subject can summon claws at will. I will run some blood tests afterwards to tell you what kind of regenerative properties the subject possessed, but I can tell you right now it's not as effective as ours. The subject has scars. Cattle prod, from the looks of it."