Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 51: Part 1: Ignorance is Bliss

A/N: Be prepared for information overload. This chapter is short, highly unedited, and action packed people, so strap in...

Chapter 51: Part 1: Ignorance is Bliss

"Are you telling me that all human mates are somehow related to those monsters?"

The information that John had just given me made my pulse quicken and my breathing increase in disbelief and disgust. John sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Not in the way that you are thinking." John explained. He paused for a moment, seeming to contemplate his next words carefully. "True Shifters and Non-shifters do share a common ancestral tree, but the branches diverged thousands of years ago. Like how Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are not the same species, but they still carried common ancestry and could in fact inter-mate. Think of Non-shifters are more of the bridge between species."

"A bridge between species?" I echoed, his words bringing no ease to the disgust I had been feeling.

"You see, True shifters and Pure Humans cannot inter-mate. The Pure Human's body will reject any cells expressing the transmutation protein, making pregnancy impossible.  A Non-shifter does not create the immune response because their body doesn't mark the protein as foreign, which allows them to carry a pregnancy from a True Shifter but they can also inter-mate with Pure Humans because their cells do not express the protein." John attempted to explain.

The sickening feeling in my stomach only got worse the more that John spoke. My thoughts racing through the new information, automatically trying to deny what he was saying.

"Then why do I have allergic reactions to werewolf blood?" I asked, a little hope filling my chest. Surely that meant that I was somehow incompatible? That John was somehow wrong about this theory. John tilted his head and studied me quietly, a sympathetic look on his face.

"I think that has more to do with the leaves that your Doctor friend has been giving you than an actual hyper sensitivity."  He stated regrettably.

My Doctor friend?

Kind deep brown eyes, a bright smile, and an intense sense of comfort filled my mind's eye. He was talking about Kyrie? The leaves that Kyrie gave me would stop pregnancy, I never thought of what exactly they were until John told me about his Mother's pregnancy prevention garden.

"Wolfsbane." I stated, feeling the explanation start to click into place.

"While the variety that Kyrie grew generally would be harmless to a Non-shifter it is highly cytotoxic to shifter cells, particularly red and white blood cells. If the non-shifter is on a high dose of wolfsbane and any cells from a werewolf are absorbed, there can be hyper sensitivity reactions. I have a theory that prolonged low level exposure could even be considered a carcinogen."

I thought about my history and paled as his explanation seemed to fit. The first time I had received werewolf blood, when the Monster almost made me bleed to death, I had not taken any of the leaves yet and had no reaction. The first time I had a reaction was after I bit the Monster and ingested a mouthful of his blood. I had been taking the leaves for quiet some time then...and in truth, some days I took more than Kyrie had prescribed out of fear. After that I had only every been exposed to the plasma, a portion of the blood without any cells.

"Did Kyrie know about this?" I asked, a sick feeling of doubt creeping into my mind. If Carlos had lied about things, would Kyrie have lied or kept things from me too?

John shook his head immediately.

"Estaban didn't send me any of your medical files until the night of your escape. Your friend Kyrie's notes were meticulous. From his notes I gathered that he honestly thought most human mates developed sensitivity, especially after chronic exposure to werewolf blood. He couldn't have known otherwise."