Adele was busy peering into her microscope, her eyes narrowed in intense concentration as she furiously scribbled down notes. A sudden gust of wind swept through the room, causing her to jump and whip around.
"Asher..." she gasped, clutching her chest as her heart pounded. "You should have knocked."
"Of course, I would," Asher replied casually, stepping further into the room. He pointed behind, "But then, you put out the ’Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. So, I figured I’d bypass the rule." He said as though ignoring boundaries was a normal thing.
Adele slowly shifted her body, trying to block the experiment behind her, but Asher’s eyes had already locked onto it. Before she could get a word out, Asher already wolf-sped across the room, so quick it was almost a blur.
"No—Don’t!" she tried to stop him, reaching out, but Asher easily brushed her aside.
His eyes fell on the table and spread across it were slides, notes, tubes of dark, clotted liquid, and a single jar containing what looked like a blood sample in an advanced state of decay. Asher’s frown deepened at the sight, his stare lingering on the bizarre texture and color of the blood.
He scanned the piles of paper, picking one up. The corner of his mouth tensed. "You’re running a test on Violet?" he asked with a clipped tone.
"Yes," Adele confirmed quietly, silently bracing herself. She knew exactly how obsessed Asher was with Violet, and she fully expected a reaction.
"Good," Asher said simply.
"Good?" Adele blinked in disbelief.
"What did you find out?" he pressed, not bothering to give her time to gather her wits.
"What?" Adele stammered, still taken aback by his calm reaction. Then realization dawned, and she inhaled. "You know, don’t you? You suspect she isn’t human?"
"If you can suspect it, then you already have the answer. What do the results say?" He tapped the paper in his hand, impatiently.
At once, Adele brightened, her excitement returning. "I did find out something but that’s where the issue begins."
"Issues?" Asher repeated, brows knitting together.
Stepping to one side, Adele snatched the remaining vial of blood off the rack and handed it to him. "I drew this sample from Violet just a few days ago. Look closely. Tell me what you notice."
Asher accepted the vial and tilted it in the light. The blood inside had coagulated into a dense, semi-solid mass with a dark, almost tar-like color. He brought it closer to his nose, only to grimace in disgust. "It stinks," he pointed out. "Are you sure this is fresh blood?"
"Exactly. I thought I was losing my mind. But minutes after Violet left my office, the sample degraded into this."
"That’s impossible," Asher snapped. "Even minimal knowledge of biology would tell you blood doesn’t degrade like that without an extreme catalyst."
Although Alaric was the unbeatable science geek, Asher was still smart and could hold his own.
"Which is the point!" Adele exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "DNA, even if it degrades over time due to poor storage, extreme temperatures, or chemical exposure, and a whole lot of other factors, it simply does not degrade so fast...." She swallowed, "But this... this happened within minutes. Maybe even seconds. I was not exactly observant until it was time for me to begin the test."
Asher fell silent, processing the implications. Finally, he said, "Even degraded samples can still yield partial results with advanced techniques. You left for the whole day. Tell me you found something."
"You don’t get it, do you?" Adele said, exasperated. "Violet’s DNA sample was completely dead—dead dead. I couldn’t extract a thing from it. The molecules were... inactive. There was no way to replicate or even parse them."
Asher clicked his tongue. "That is quite a loss."
"If I was a clueless human, I’d call Violet a freak," Adele confessed. "But I’m a werewolf, and I’ve seen enough supernatural messes to know that something is deliberately masking her identity. And considering we know nothing about her parentage, I suspect larger powers are at play here."
She glanced up at Asher’s and winked. "You’re right, though. I did discover something else."
That comment seemed to stir Asher’s interest and his eyes gleamed with anticipation. "Show me."
His purple queen was a mystery and he loved himself a good puzzle.
Adele nodded and led Asher to another part of the lab table. This area was partially concealed by a sheet of cloth, masking rows of slides, tiny test tubes, and petri dishes arranged meticulously.
She peeled the cover back, revealing a setup of monitors, color indicators, and a sealed container with a precise temperature control gauge. Nearby, a digital readout blinked.
"I ran a werewolf test," Adele explained, gesturing to the equipment. "Basically, a standard assay to confirm or deny whether Violet had any werewolf markers. As we guessed... there was nothing. The normal triggers we see in typical werewolf blood—lycanthropic proteins, certain anomalies in the genetic code—didn’t show up at all. Her blood killed it off as expected."
She let that sink in before continuing. "But then, this crazy idea hit me and I decided to run a different approach. I compared Violet’s blood to another werewolf sample... and the strangest thing happened."
Asher glanced from the monitors to Adele. "What did you see?"
Adele picked up a small, sealed dish. Two distinct blotches of dried blood were visible: one labeled "V" and another labeled "W," presumably for "Werewolf." Slight lines separated them, though they overlapped near the center.
Adele tapped the dish lightly, and Asher could see that the area where the two samples merged had turned dark, like it had corroded or eroded the second smear.
"That is Violet’s sample on the left," Adele showed him, "and the other is the werewolf sample. The moment I introduced the second blood, Violet’s seemingly dead sample ate it up, dissolving it like acid. Within minutes, the entire sample labeled ’W’ was—" she trailed off, struggling to find the right word. "Well, gone, essentially. The meltdown happened so fast I barely caught it on the instruments. It was as though Violet’s blood overcame the other sample on a molecular level."
Asher’s expression darkened with intrigue, all traces of casual arrogance gone.
"Whose werewolf sample did you use for that test?" he demanded suddenly, his voice tensed.
Adele looked him dead in the eye, and answered, "Alaric Storm."