Alek

Verity pulled me inside her apartment. "You'll never guess who was here."

My heart thumped in my chest, partly because I liked the way she'd twisted her finger in my t-shirt to yank me closer to her, and partly because I was imagining who she'd just spent alone time with. The prospects weren't good.

"Was it Chip?"

"What? God no." She sniffed at my collar. "Why do you smell like the time my father forgot he'd put a pizza in the oven and nearly started the house on fire?"

No use in beating around the bush.

"Someone burned down the archives." I eyed the dim interior of her apartment, wanting to inch my way further inside, but not if it meant she'd have to release me from her grip.

"Holy shit." To my disappointment, she pulled her hand free of my shirt, then gestured with it towards the living room. "I told you it was dangerous to go back there. Are you alright?"

"The fire was already underway by the time I arrived. I saw it, and then I got the hell out of there." I took a seat on her couch.

"All those documents." Her shoulders slumped. "All our potential answers... just gone!"

"Maybe. My guess is they went in and pulled whatever they really needed before setting the fire. Or maybe they thought it was safer just to destroy everything." That last thought was the scariest, that we were onto something so big, they felt the need to destroy all record of it.

"Any idea where they would have moved everything?"

"No clue." I shrugged. "So, who was here?"

"Oh, just my father."

The tension in my chest eased. "Why?"

"He was in the neighborhood. Anyways, I took the opportunity to ask him some questions. Talking to him about my mom is never easy unless I stick to completely mundane subjects."

"Which I take it you didn't do."

"I asked him about her death." She sat next to me. Like, brushing up against me next to me. Close enough that my skin tingled, along with a few key organs. She placed a hand on my thigh. "And now I'm going to ask you about it too. What do you know that you're not telling me?"

"I...um." If her aim was to distract me so that I was caught off guard by her question, mission accomplished. "I was only six, Verity."

"I didn't ask you what you remember firsthand. I asked what you know right now. Because my father did remember something. Something I'm guessing you are aware of."

I focused on her hand. If she moved it over, just a bit, I wouldn't be thinking about the day I became an orphan anymore. "What did your father say?"

"According to him, my mom was receiving treatments for psychosis from an experimental clinic. He said the word clinic, but I'm guessing that clinic is actually the lab listed on our intake form. AV Laboratory. Such a generic name. I didn't connect it to you at first. AV. Aurum Venari."

I kept my face as passive as possible, but I wasn't hiding anything from her. Not anymore. It was all going to come out now. "What about it?"

"Treasure Adventures. Your treasure hunting business. I saw the invoice. It's owned by Aurum Venari LLC."

"Verity—"

"It gets better," she continued. "My dad mentioned the name of one of the doctors running the clinic. Can you guess what that doctor's name was?"

I could more than guess. "Does it rhyme with Finclair?"

She blinked her eyes slow, like a cat. "So, you did know."

"Yes." I turned towards her, keeping contact with her leg. Pretty soon, she wouldn't want to have any contact with me so I was going to keep this connection as long as she allowed it. "Please, hear me out. I just watched the archive go up in smoke. And now all I have left is the one bit of awful truth that's been given to me. It's not the full picture, and I'm still terrified to tell it to you, but I will if you want me to."

"What is so terrible that you've been keeping it from me? Did... did your dad..." Her voice caught and she paused to gulp down a sob. "Did he kill my mother?"

"What?" Holy shit, she truly had no idea. "No. Both my parents ran the clinic, or the lab or whatever." I brushed a strand of hair away from her face, worrying that she'd slap me away and then order me out of her home. Instead, she stayed where she was, saying nothing.

"You were told your mom took her own life, right?"

She nodded.

"That's a lie. She was killed. But not by my parents."

Tears slid down her cheeks. "How do you know?" she said with a dose of bitterness. "If they were in charge, then they were responsible. If their experiment ended badly, or... Whatever happened to her, they—"

"They didn't kill her. She killed them."

"No." She sat back, wiping away her tears. "That's not true."

"Remember how I said I'd seen a werewolf when I was a kid? Well, it was your mom. Your mom was a werewolf, and she killed my parents as though they were sewer rats."

She shook next to me. I was entering dangerous territory here, but she wanted the truth and I didn't want to hide it anymore.

"And you saw this happen, Alek?"

"I saw her transform. I was young but I remember. Blond hair turned into a golden pelt. Sharp teeth bared. But no. I wasn't there when she... when she did it."

"So, you can't know for sure."

"I do know." I spoke with more calm than I felt. Of course, she'd have trouble accepting this. Anyone would. "That's what happened. It was awful. I lost both my parents. It sucks, but it's the truth."

"But..." She squirmed next to me, uncertain, perhaps in how to transition from my last statement. "If that really happened, what about my mom? How did she..." Gulping, she turned her head away.

"Norvin—that's my boss and the man who raised me—he saw her attack my parents and he killed her. He had no choice. You can see that, right?"

She shook her head. "None of this makes sense."

"It's a shock. I'm sorry."

"No. I mean, yes, it's a shock. But that's not it. My mom... wasn't she like me? Not a... I guess I'm going to call it a traditional werewolf. The regular kind. If I'm this special kind of werewolf, wouldn't that have been passed down from her?"

"I don't know how you came to be like you are. But one thing I do know, she was a traditional werewolf. She might have been a wonderful human, but she was also a horrible monster."

She sat for a while without speaking. I let her exist in silent thought, grateful that our legs still touched, slight though the connection was. Finally, she spoke. "Something still doesn't add up."

"What doesn't?"

"If my mom killed your parents, then she was alive longer than they were."

"Briefly, but yeah. Of course."

"How is it then that your father, Dr. Sinclair, called my father to tell him about my mother's supposed suicide? Did he reach out from beyond the grave?"

I flinched like someone had slapped me. This had to be a mistake. "That's not possible."

"My father said he received that phone call late in the night. Do you remember what time your parents were killed?"

"Yes." It was one of the few details I did remember. "I'd been sent home with a babysitter because my parents had to work through the evening. We'd just arrived home and my babysitter said, 'it's nine o'clock, time for bed.' Then the phone rang. I'll never forget the way her eyes welled up. She froze in place, staring at me as she spoke in a low voice to the person on the other end of the line."

"So, your parents were killed before my father got his phone call, which makes no sense at all, does it?"

All I could do was sigh and agree. "Not even a little."

"You know what, Alek? The two of us have been told so many half-truths and outright lies, we don't know how to tell the difference anymore."

I struggled to come up with an explanation. Maybe someone else had called Martin and impersonated my father. But if so, why?

"No wonder you hate me," she said under her breath. "No wonder you're afraid of me."

"I don't hate you. I couldn't. Not after I'd gotten to know you. Not the popstar Verity or the potential werewolf Verity, but the true Verity."

"But you're still afraid of me, aren't you? You made me leave my wolf self outside the archive because you thought I might attack you. You thought I'd be like my mom after all, ready to kill off the one remaining Sinclair she hadn't."

"No, I..." She had a point. But it didn't paint the whole picture. "Anyone can become angry and lash out. Most people don't have a predatory animal in them to do the lashing out, though."

"I wouldn't do that! Not me as a human or as a wolf."

"I know. I don't think you're like your mother, Verity. Or like Chip. You're something good. Something better."

"So, you're saying you're not afraid of me?"

I slid an arm around her shoulders and sighed with relief as she nestled into my side. If we could have this closeness, despite everything, maybe there was still hope. "I'm terrified of you, but for very non-wolf, very human reasons."

She turned her face up towards mine. "And what's that?"

Her lips were so close, I could smell the cherry lip balm she wore.

"I'm afraid that I'm about to take a huge risk with you, and it's one you aren't interested in taking with me. Especially after what you know now. All this shit, our parents, our pasts. It's a lot to take in. There are so many reasons for you to..."

"For me to what?"

I tried to keep talking but my throat had dried up.

"What if I told you to screw those reasons." She reached a hand up to my cheek. "What if I told you that there is a wild animal in both of us. Not a wolf or werewolf or anything like that. But an animal nonetheless, with animal needs." She brushed her hand down the side of my face and kept going.

Down, down, down.

"What if," she said, "all this tension that's existed between us since the day we met only makes me want you more."

I forgot to breathe. The already darkened room dimmed further. There was nothing in it but Verity and the animals inside of us, about to come out and play. She brought her lips to mine, and I kissed her, hard and deep, before flipping her on top of me.

"The truth is all I wanted from you," she whispered to me as I scooped her up to carry her into the bedroom.

"I hope you want a little more than that from me right now." I lay her down on the bed. Whatever she wanted, whatever animal needs she had, I intended to fulfill every one of them.

___

Author's Note: Well... it's about time! The truth is out. Or at least, a lot of it. Alek still has more to fess up to but... I think he might have gotten a tad distracted. 

So, what more does he have to reveal? And now that he seems to be thoroughly Team Verity, how is Norvin going to react? Is Alek in danger?

Thanks for sticking with this story! xoxoxo