Omega's Truth - Nora Phoenix Page 0,87
himself again.
“Obviously, he never meant for all this to happen. He was concerned about the shifters disappearing, as were others, and some of them came together and funded private research. That’s how Project Maiitsoh got started. He named it, you know,” the voice continued.
Lidon’s blood ran cold. Surely his grandfather had never okayed the drug being used on innocent women. It would violate everything the man had stood for.
“Since he was still able to shift, they used his blood for tests and experiments. He passed away before the final drug was produced, but dozens of vials of his blood had been preserved. They kept using them after he’d passed, just like they kept using the grant he’d set aside…until the money ran out.”
Lidon’s heart beat wildly. They’d used his grandfather’s blood for their research? What did that mean?
“It took about nine more years before they were ready to start the clinical studies, which was when I got involved. By then, the political climate had changed. The shifters were gone, and while a certain nostalgia had remained, the people in power liked the changes it had brought. More privileges for the alphas. We realized we’d never get approval for a clinical trial and that if we tried, chances were our research would be destroyed, and the omegas we’d chosen for the new drug would be harassed and targeted. So we went rogue.”
This had to be Dr. Baig. He spoke of his own involvement, so it had to be the ob/gyn who had medicated those women without their consent.
“We didn’t know what the gene would do. I swear on everything I hold dear. We didn’t know, and had we known… I have no idea. Maybe we would’ve run the tests differently. I don’t know. But we wouldn’t have abandoned the project. We’d poured decades of research into finding out what was causing the shifting to stop…and how to bring it back. We wouldn’t have given up.”
Lidon had always found the moral judgment on the origins of the Melloni gene easy. Injecting women without their consent and creating a gene that had caused so much harm, how could he not condemn that? But this changed everything. Knowing that the intent had been to discover what was causing the shifters to disappear and to reverse that? Knowing that his grandfather had funded this study? Suddenly it wasn’t so black and white anymore.
“That’s all water under the bridge now anyway. The bottom line is that we didn’t take into account one major factor. Your bloodline.”
Lidon was confused for a moment until he realized they meant him, not Bray. But what did he have to do with it all? Something tickled in the back of his brain. They’d used his grandfather’s blood. What did that mean? What if…
“Professor Melloni did groundbreaking work on mapping the gene, but he was missing one vital bit of information that we did have, namely the origins of the gene. Your grandfather’s blood. His DNA. It held a power we couldn’t contain, a force we didn’t expect…and that’s what started this whole mess. The strong side effects of the gene? That’s because of that DNA. That bloodline was too strong, held powers we didn’t realize…and we’ve been scrambling ever since to mitigate them. But the other side effect was that you were able to shift an entire generation before we had expected it to work. The combination of your bloodline with that of a gene carrier created the perfect genetic storm. And the gods blessed you somehow.” His voice grew softer. “And there’s the legend of your grandfather transferring his powers to you before it was his time to go. He literally gave his life for you… No wonder we can feel your power. I can feel it even now. In fact, it’s gotten stronger in the last minutes.”
That was about as good an introduction as he was gonna get. Lidon shifted and opened the door. Damn hard to open doors in wolf shape. Two men tumbled outside, and he easily jumped over them, shifting fluidly in the same movement. Bray greeted him with a happy yelp, and Lidon trotted over and inspected him. He looked tired but otherwise okay. Lidon bumped his nose against Bray’s muzzle in appreciation of what the alpha had endured because of him.
“There’s… How…? Oh, God. You’re not…” one of the men stammered. Baig. The same man who’d been clearing his conscience before.
Lidon was done with this whole conversation. Oh, he had plenty more questions, but