Healing Cherri (3 page)

So the experiments began. Could the humans elongate their lives the same way without being a shifter? Of course, changing people wasn’t an option. Because of the results of the DNA testing, they found the Rogue shifters had missing links. The humans didn’t want to go through all that pain to find they were actually an
Ulfer
and then be putdown. So that’s when the laws began to be made, and the testing doubled in effort.

The positive, the humans found a way to live longer with part of an isolated gene from a shifter. Not as long as a normal magical person, but long enough to be satisfied. Then there was the war. The shifters had been pissed about being test subjects and were constantly ordered to help the humans. Some of the old superiority came back, being stronger and faster, they revolted.

You would think that the shifters could have taken over things. But, there had been that hinky shit going on, Cherri thought. She knew with her studies that something was not adding up in the medical community. Since she had no one to really go to except her boss, Cherri had been gathering the evidence and waiting.

The problem was, when the medical community began to study the shifters more closely, they found that abnormality on the DNA. Normally, it would be like a genetic marker, but shift into a three hundred-pound bear with no honey, and they had a definite issue. What was strange though was when the abnormality began to show up. According to her paperwork, it was when the humans began the testing. And there was no way they were sophisticated at that time to change a shifter's DNA. There was something else behind this and Cherri just had to figure out what. The changes had occurred after the second war according to her documents, now the question was why. And that was what she was going to approach her friends with when this shit settled down.

This was really only discovered because the testing had been uncovered, Cherri had been surprised at the advanced technology they had used. What they found was that some shifters lacked the DNA structure that controlled their animal side after their first shift, in turn while in their human side, they had no conscience. They could and would kill at will, for no other reason than they were pissed off at someone spilling coffee on their shoes. It was stupid.

After the last week of discoveries, they found out their ancestors fought similar shifters; they just called them Rouges. Well, now they would be called the
Ulfer
and they were fucking nasty. As they evolved over the many years, the DNA missing link had to have only increased, or been manufactured, causing them to be not just assholes, but complete assholes.

The Drekinn Agency is the one who discovered this data in the archives some years ago, but had never known what it really meant. Cherri hated patting herself on the back, but not many of the shifters had three Doctorates which helped with deciphering all the files, well, in fact, none but her held the three key degrees needed to read the reports. Someone wanted to hide something, and not wanting to freak the poor human population out, they kept a lid on things to a point. The leadership of the humans knew only what we told them, which were the basics. Nonetheless, this discovery had changed the dynamics of the Agency all those years ago because they figured out about the instability of the shifters.

Now they had many different levels, all in the effort to track and protect the humans and shifters from the volatile
Ulfer
. The sad part was they had to hide things from the humans because they tended to overreact to situations. The
Ulfer
were hard to find most of the time; it was only when they committed a crime that they were found. They were getting a little more frequent, which led her to believe there was something else going on.

The official levels to the Drekinn were the Enforcers, for lack of a better word, the medical, and the factitious Shifter Services. They had three different official buildings, and four different secret facilities. They were housed in the administrative and Enforcer building with some of their floors off limits. All very
woo woo
and secret.

Calli, her best friend, was the Head Enforcer of the Drekinn Agency, and now her mate was her partner. Basically, they were the shit. Cherri certainly wouldn’t fuck around with them, well not seriously at least. Rissa and she decided years ago that if it was discovered that they had the missing DNA, Calli would take them out without blinking an eye or shedding a tear. That’s what made her a good leader. However, both girls slept with a gun under their pillow just in case they wanted to make sure they could get the drop on her.

All the girls rose through the Agency because of their multiple degrees. Most shifters went to college because of their extended life, there wasn’t much to do if you didn’t get into trouble, or have a family right away. But all this shit was starting to wear on her.

Cherri was a doctor, a biochemist and a psychologist. No one really expected it out of her, which she loved. All except her mother, who claimed to this day that when she was born, Cherri had looked intelligent. Now all of them were the heads of their sections at the Drekinn Agency. It was something they had all been proud of, and put a huge ass target on their backs in the process.
All of this was manageable
, Cherri thought, and looked around the room
, but mates, that was another story.

Even that would be semi-manageable if it weren’t for last week, everything changed. They were told about their past, being a descendant of a group called the Chosen. Apparently, they were destined to bring the shifters back to living in harmony with the humans.
It sounded like a fucking old movie,
Cherri thought,
like they were all gonna get together and have a freakin’ hug fest.
Ha, like she would even think about hugging the leader of the humans. She had met him once, he was sweaty and gross. Once again the song came to mind, and she shook her head.

They owned their building so space wasn’t really an issue, they could afford to lead a Pack. They planned to live together even when they were mated, once again not an issue. But then they found out they were gonna be a freaking Pack, in such a matter-of-fact way that there had been upheaval and chaos, two things Cherri didn’t deal well with. So, they bought another building, kicked out all the tenants, and were moving the members of the Pack who were being identified, like fucking daily. It was frightening. All of them were somehow, in one way or another, connected to the Chosen people or someone on the silly Senate. It was crazy.

Not that Cherri minded, really she didn’t, and she was just feeling a little out of sorts because of the attack. During this entire revelation thing they had going on, they also had to try to solve the whole ‘hit being put out on them’, although they knew why, it was the timing that was strange. It just didn’t explain everything. For Cherri, that was a problem, if someone wanted to kill her ass, then she had better understand why.

Last week, Calli and Kade were investigating the now-infamous kidnapping, when they found the only person who had seen
Mr. Twisted
, like ever. It was Kiki, she,
shit,
he, was a Drag Queen and a damn fine one too. But when they went to get her and offer protection, they had fought off a small attack. Doing what they did the best, Kade and Calli kept investigating, which led them to a cell of
Ulfers
who were planning on killing them. It was a big coo to actually find them. Unfortunately, Kiki was wounded in the fight. Shot in the head. Fast forward, and now things didn’t make sense again. They were too pat, and Cherri was feeling very unsettled.

Cherri had been working around the clock watching and helping to heal him. But so far he hadn't woken up. It didn’t make any sense since his body was healed and all of his vital signs being normal, hell, better than normal. She woke up last night with an idea; one she was sure was going to work. So she had come into to check it out on the computer in her lab. The only one that had all of her crazy-ass ideas and she found this mess.
Back to the present
, she thought.

Too much was changing too fast, and Cherri just wasn’t ready. She had plans, well, not so much plans, but more like guidelines. She wanted to do a few more things, and she refused to have a mate tagging along behind trying to get her to heel. It was just not gonna happen. Besides, she didn’t need a man; she had her trusty, butterfly vibrator, which had only been improved over the centuries. She also had all the money she would ever need to make sure she could get her nails and hair done twice a month, every Thursday, then on Wednesdays was her weekly massage and facial. It was all about the planning.

Her friend laughed in her ear and said, “Neither was I, and looked how well it’s working out.” Calli could strangely read her mind when Cherri got to thinking too much.

“
Yeah, you live on the floor below, and we're installing a staircase in the middle of the fucking apartment so we can expand. What's next? An escalator, or whatever the fuck they used to call them. You know those moving stair things,” Cherri whispered loudly.

“
Hey,” Kade said, sounding hurt that she was bitching about Calli moving out.

“
Hush,” Calli said, knowing her friend well enough to know that something was coming, and she listened.

Just then, the third of the
Trio of Darkness
, as they had been dubbed this last weekend, walked through the door looking down at the papers in her hand, not paying attention to the fact they had a guy spread-eagled against a table, and everyone was holding a weapon but Cherri.

“
Hey, Barbie, I need to run something by you,” Rissa said, again without looking up and walked right to where they were standing. Classic Rissa, head buried in the sand until they slapped the shit out of her to wake her up and pay attention. However, she had degrees in computer programming and electronics that covered bomb making, so she came in handy every once in a while. Besides, she was the one who made all the money. Her guard and shadow, Trina, looked into the room and frowned before pulling out her gun.

“
Fuck you, duh, crisis, Geek Squaweek. Open thy eyes bitch, and Trina, no guns,” Cherri ground out, and her friend looked up and her eyes went wide.

“
Who is the cute dude being frisked? Hey, is Kade gonna do a cavity search?” Rissa snickered and looked at her friend's mate and grinned. “I mean, I would like to watch and everything.”

Kade shook his head and put a hand up to his nose and pinched the bridge. “Ladies, we need to settle this, so can we move this pow wow along?”

Cherri stepped up and stuck a finger in his chest and pushed. “Listen Conan, we're having a deep conversation, take all these people and go lift some weights somewhere and let us talk, then we'll come and see you when we're damn good and ready.”

Kade rolled his eyes and looked over her head at his mate who was chuckling behind her. All three of the women were Alphas. According to the whole creepy history thingy, Rissa, Cherri and their mates were destined to be the Betas of the Pack, which made them just as formidable. She wasn’t sure what that meant yet; they were still researching, but it sounded like a serious fucking hassle. And she was high maintenance enough without adding more drama.

“
Fine, Sabrina and Thomas, take Country here, and go to the conference room; we will call Brooks and Ms. Praton and meet you there in a few. But don’t take too long, I don’t want to have to hunt your asses down again. Trina, you have the girls, just ignore whatever they say and don’t become too scarred,” Kade warned, and Cherri smiled sweetly at him.

Just two days ago, the girls told him they were going to get their hair done, and they went to investigate another report of the
Ulfers
. Kade had been pissed, and he was certain that she was not ready to sit through another lecture again. Hell, like that had even made the list of ‘the stupid things’ they had done. Kade was just a little higher strung than most.

The man who claimed to be her mate seemed to be arguing a little with Kade, who put a hand on his shoulder and calmed him down. Cherri felt a sigh of relief when they finally left the room. She turned back to her friends and put her hands on her well rounded hips.

“
Well bitches, now we have a huge problem.” Cherri huffed and sat down on the floor.

Her friends looked at each other, and then shrugged. “Okay, I’ll bite, what’s the problem?” Calli asked, sinking down across from her.

“
I hate when we sit on the floor, seriously, do you know where we are? This is like the lab, you know where they do experiments, and do you know what could be on the floor? Hell, we could catch some weird freaky disease Cherri is mutating. And then we would be in the hospital dying, and the moms would be totally freaking, and then…” Rissa said, slipping down the wall.

“
Rissa, take a deep breath, when was the last time you slept?” Calli said.

“
Uh, like I don’t know, maybe yesterday,” Rissa said and shrugged.

“
You need a nap,” Calli said and then Cherri threw up her hands and yelled at her friends.