On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(31)

She glanced my way, her eyes riddled with panic. “Gotta go, Sasha. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working the perimeter?” Tim asked, flaying Ann with a hard stare.

“Yes, Alpha. Just headed there now.” She very nearly sprinted from the room.

Tim watched her go before stalking through, not offering an acknowledgement of the respectful diffidence of the others in the room. His eyes burned into mine as I tried to rip my gaze away from the power in that stare. I was used to Stefan, however, and if my backbone wouldn’t allow me to drop my gaze before his, which was stronger and more forceful than this guy, I certainly wasn’t going to drop it for a near stranger.

“Sasha.” He seemed to be trying to soften his gravel-infused voice. Apparently thinking I scared easily. Probably not wanting to get hit with an unpredictable blast of magic.

“Hi, Tim,” I responded, scooting over so he could sit next to me.

He angled his body toward me, glancing at the book on my lap for a second before honing in on my face. “How goes it?”

“Not well. Toa lectures me about my magic, tells me how to use it, and then expects that to be enough. It just doesn’t sink in. So, I try to mimic him, and I blow things up or create monsters. Then he yells at me because I’m doing things in opposite land.”

I didn’t want to admit that Stefan was right to send Darla. That I wasn’t getting it; that I was letting him down.

“You need a practical lesson. I had a great many new subjects that had never attempted a controlled change. I needed to work through it with them. Explanations are for theoretical knowledge. They don’t help with actually doing something.”

“I know, but no one has my type of magic. No one can show me.”

“Well, keep at it. You’ll get it. Stefan seems to have faith in you, so you need to have faith in yourself. That is one of the biggest needs in any type of leadership role. You can’t second-guess yourself or wander around without a purpose. If you do, people will think you aren’t in control.”

“I’m not in control. And Stefan has so much faith he sent Darla into harm’s way.”

“He is a great statistician with risk and a great leader.” Tim paused for a moment, and then placed a comforting arm around my shoulders. “I don’t know if his actions were right or wrong, but I, too, thought he had more faith than to send reinforcements. Nonetheless, he has his reasons. Maybe the decision isn’t what it seems. Maybe he is vying for the Regional position and wants to leave a successor.”

“I don’t know, but crying about it isn’t going to help.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “What I really want to do is just punch her in the mouth.”

“Atta girl,” Tim said softly.

“How come you guys can change into animals?” I asked to sidetrack the conversation.

Tim sat farther back, his arm still around my shoulders, continuing to lend support which I took greedily. “We think it’s a mutation in a person’s genetic makeup. Unlike Stefan’s kind, we are all human. At some point in a person’s life, we develop what the doctors think is an advanced stage of cancer. We either get treatment or we get a terminal date. In some people, it takes a few months to make the change, some longer, but the body priming is a painful affair. The person affected stops eating, has to stay in bed, loses sleep—you can see why they continue to think it is cancer even though some medical tests might seem strange. At the end of the body’s transformation, the person undergoes their first full change, which is often scary and sometimes dangerous.

“We try to find these potential Shape Changers and help them through the change. We can smell it coming, you see. The body’s chemistry changes, changing a person’s scent. If we get there in time, we can help a person through it. If not, we have to hope they don’t endanger themselves or others. Some have gotten shot because the townspeople thought a wild animal prowled the streets.”

“I bet. If I was walking around willy-nilly and saw a giant wolf I’d be a bit nervous, all right.”

“Exactly. We are pretty good, though. We constantly have people looking. There aren’t so many that make the change.”

“But, that’s in this area. What about the rest of the world?”

“This…affliction happens all over the world. Like Stefan’s kind, we have a larger pack system. We’ve had to develop it to keep our people under the radar—keep us safe. If potential mutants landed in human hands, we’d spend our lives in a research facility or be hunted.”

I nodded, because that was a very realistic view of what scientists would do. And if they didn’t, the Homeland Security people would step in, trying to engineer a new weapon. Or just kill on sight.

“Is that why you are joining with Stefan? To unite forces?”

“It’s smart. Plus, we were approached by Andris. They are trying to organize a power shift with humans. They want to dominate, and to do that, they need to up their numbers. We were a logical choice, of course. We are human, and exist within the human society. What better group of people to infiltrate, and then bring the humans down from the inside. But in that way lies death, which Stefan and his Council know from experience. Andris is smart, but power hungry. He will eventually emerge from the shadows, but not until he has a clear way. I am trying to help Stefan put up a roadblock.”