Saving the Beast(21)

“So what happened after?” Diane asked again. “You said he didn’t say anything until you woke up.”

“My drink was drugged. Apparently, the bar was a known place where women have a tendency to disappear. Zane was checking into it, and there I was. It might have taken me a little longer to lose consciousness under the drug they were lacing my drinks with, but I would have been as much at their mercy as a human woman when I did.”

“But you’re a shifter,” Diane argued.

Kenzie stopped and shifted from foot to foot. She skimmed her gaze around them, but Diane sensed a nervous tension in the other woman. “That doesn’t make me invincible, Diane. I can still be drugged, killed.”

“But couldn’t you have shifted? Saved yourself?” Diane asked.

“No,” Kenzie admitted.

“Too dangerous to shift?”

Kenzie blew out a breath, and the look in her eyes when she finally met Diane’s gaze sent a shiver of foreboding through Diane.

“I can’t shift,” Kenzie confessed. “That’s why the Professor came to me and asked for my help.”

“No,” Diane countered, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. You have the same coding as the others. Your blood work shows a strong shifter hormone in your blood, similar to Clara’s. There’s nothing to make us think your animal’s recessive like Finn’s.”

“It’s another anomaly. Didn’t you ever notice my canines?” Kenzie opened her lips wide again, and Diane stared at the shorter canines more similar to hers than Clara’s. How had she not paid attention to that before?

“How did the Professor know?” Diane demanded, and why hadn’t he told Diane?

“He approached me after he ran the first blood test. I told him I wasn’t ready to come forward, yet. He was okay with it, but wanted to ask me some questions,” Kenzie explained. “I couldn’t answer them all. I admitted to him that I couldn’t shift, that I never had. Have to admit, I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”

“I’m not,” Diane grunted. Oh, she’d have plenty to say to the Professor when she got back. Then another thought occurred to her.

“Can you even smell Zane?” she demanded.

“Yes. I have all the enhanced senses of a shifter. I can even manage claws when I need them. But I’ve never been able to pull off a full shift. I often wonder if my birth parents knew I was defective and that’s why they gave me up for adoption. They thought I was normal and wanted me to have a normal life.”

Kenzie’s face took on a sad expression.

“But you didn’t?” Diane prompted.

“No, I didn’t. I told you I have shifter senses. Sometimes my ability to smell or see something I shouldn’t have been able to freaked people out. My adoptive family couldn’t wait to be rid of me. My bags were packed as soon as I hit eighteen. I stuck around until I graduated then took off and joined the Marines.”

“Oh, Kenzie, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s worked out for the best,” Kenzie said, but Diane didn’t think so. How would it feel to think you didn’t belong in either world?

“So how are you going to be able to protect me out here?” Diane asked, changing the subject and hoping to spark something other than sadness in Kenzie.

“I might not be a fully merged shifter, but I am a Marine. Trust me. I can kick ass with the best of them,” Kenzie assured her with a hard look.

Diane continued, wanting to banish any remaining crumbs of sadness that might remain. “Well, your story of Zane coming to the rescue hasn’t exactly invoked a confident feeling.”

“I was drugged.” Kenzie grunted, and Diane did her best to hide a smile. This was much better.

Diane’s phone started vibrating in her pocket again.

“I should probably answer, or we’re going to have a whole posse on our tails,” Diane said, pulling free her phone and answering. She hit the button to place the call on speaker.

“Hello.”

“What the fuck part of see me before you leave this house did you two not understand?” Tah’s voice was hard and lethal, and Diane was very happy she wasn’t there to see his face.

“Uhmm. What?” Diane mumbled.

“Put Kenzie on the phone, now,” Tah commanded furiously.

Kenzie sighed as Diane looked at her. “I’m here.”

“You’re most definitely not here or you’d feel the full brunt of my anger,” Tah seethed. “Do you have any clue what you’re walking into? What you’re taking Diane into?”

“I’m not a child, and you’re not my parent, Tah,” Kenzie fumed. “And yes, we’re both aware of what we’re doing and why.”