~ ZEV ~

"There'd been an outbreak," he ground out. "That's what they told me. Nick took me aside the day before I'd planned to return and said he was so, so grateful they'd taken me out and been controlling my contact, because there'd been an outbreak here, and Chimera were dying. It was the same germ, probably spread by the young. But it was beginning to take some of the adults. And it wasn't safe for me to return until they had confirmed why I could resist it, to ensure there was no risk that I could contract it with extended contact."

He gritted his teeth and forced himself not to see the images flashing through his mind—the carnage they'd described. The fear of the people, and his own guilt and relief that he was safe and could do what was needed to protect all of them… It was sick. So sick.

"Nick convinced me that our purpose was even more important than ever. I had to stay. I had to continue to take any willing female, to attempt to build the resilience of our species. That if we lost too many and the research couldn't continue, that those who made the decisions would stop funding it and the Chimera would be executed so they couldn't fall into the hands of anyone else.

"He said this outbreak put us at just as much risk—because if too many were lost, it would have the same result. He pleaded with me, tears in his eyes, to stay, to sacrifice my freedom. He made it sound noble and as if I had been given a purpose by God.

"I questioned the mating bond. But he was certain: I couldn't form it, so the females wouldn't either. By mating them, by bringing offspring into the world who were resistant as I was... He had me convinced."

He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair. "It sounds so stupid now—so many things I could have asked or done to make sure this was real. But it hadn't occurred to me. I knew there were a lot of our young who were sick. I had seen through a window four females in a lab room there who were near death—and they were all coughing. I had no reason to believe… Nick had always seemed so focused on keeping the Chimera alive and thriving… I was na?ve and stupid, and I regret it every day," he said, his voice a low, hollow husk.

The other males began to murmur between themselves discussing what he'd said, and he let them because he had to tell Sasha something. He caught her eye and she squeezed his arm again, but he could smell the thick dread in her—fear of what he was going to say, and revulsion over what he'd already described.

When he spoke into her head, it startled her. He prayed no one else noticed.

They also dangled you in front of me like fresh meat, he said, his voice heavy with grief. The promise of seeing you again, of knowing I was so much closer that… that there was a chance… I was getting updates on you every few days instead of every few months, and I was like a… a drug addict. Wanting more and more… it pushed my priorities off balance and made me… I can't tell them this, Sasha, but it made me easier to convince. I wanted to reason to have to stay. Because I knew I couldn't choose it. But being forced to it… Nick knew how to make it attractive to me to stay.

"Why didn't you visit? Check in? Why not come back to see for yourself and inform us?" Lhars growled from the other side of the fire.

Zev sighed. "After the outbreak—or, when they told me there was one—I recorded messages for the hierarchy, describing how you were to manage without me, and why I was allowing the humans to come through more often. I believed they were taking medications and assistance to you—along with my messages. Nick was terrified of risking me before they were certain I was immune. But I did keep asking.

"As I understood it, you knew exactly what was going on. What changed it all was when… when he told me that they'd been forced to bring a hundred or more Chimera back to this world, to treat them more effectively. They said that they were trying to contain the outbreak, stop it spreading. And they told me… told me that the males were stronger against it. That they'd left most of the males back in Thana, along with the healthy females and young.

"I thought… I thought our people were split. I asked to see those that had been brought through. But Nick wouldn't let me risk getting this terrible disease. He said once they were healthy he'd start letting me meet with them one by one.

"But over months, the only ones I saw were females—younger females, never mated. And Nick told me… told me that the bond never took for them. That I wasn't creating any problems for them. That having my pups was going to change the genetics of the wolf pack and allow them to study, so they could figure out the gene switch—that's what he called it. He said genes were things they could turn on and off, and that they had to identify how to flip the one that stopped me from getting ill, so they could switch it in others. And I fell for it…"

He heard his own words and they made him ill. How he hadn't seen this sooner, how he hadn't realized for so long… he shook his head and bit back tears. He had not only failed Sasha, he'd failed his people. And he was back now to put it right. To correct what he could, and to ensure that his people were never put in that position again.

Zev dropped his head into his hands, unable to look at any of them. "I sent a message six months in that I felt a new Alpha should be chosen and followed. Someone who was on the ground here and could see what was needed. I urged you to caution about the process. Not to weaken yourselves. I thought… I'd been told you were being loyal and waiting. It was all lies," he spat. "All lies. And I fell for it. I will not again!" He lifted his head then to meet their eyes, to let them see that he understood what he'd done, that he knew he'd failed them. And he was determined to never see it happen again.

"I ask for your forgiveness," he asked. "Over time I was depressed and… hollowed out by all of this. I'd spent so much time stifling everything I felt and thought that I was turning into one of their machines. I was certain you were all better off without me. I… I gave up. I thought I hadn't been able to fix what was broken, so I left you. It was wrong, and I regret it. But you need to be certain," he snarled, "I did not understand what had happened here. Had I done so, I would have fought to the death to return, to stop the… the enslavement of our people. And now… I intend to do that now. I will make this up to you. I will correct the mistakes that I made.. And I will not leave you in human hands, ever again."