"Are you sure you want to do this?" Dana asked in a hushed voice, glancing around the side of the van to see if anyone was coming.

"You tested both serums on yourself? Nothing happened?" Christen asked.

From the guilty look on her sister's face, she hit the nail on the head.

"I couldn't inject you with something I wasn't sure would work and didn't have the time to test," Dana whispered.

Christen could see the difference in Dana when her sibling stepped from her borrowed Opel. A car that was so inconspicuous that it blended right in. Nothing as flashy as Dana's Mustang or her Mercedes SUV would go unnoticed in a town full of aliens pretending they're human.

"Do it quickly," Christen instructed.

With a frown, Dana lifted the sleeve of Christen's T-shirt and jabbed the needle into her upper arm. It stung a little, but the injection did something. Dana's touch revealed how their connection had strengthened, and the serum created from her blood had worked. Dana wasn't human anymore in the same way as Doc, but more so, since she had been exposed to Alexander's blood.

"Get out of here. I'll let you know what happens," Christen urged.

Dana retrieved a cooler from her car. "This stuff is potent. The container would be enough to augment a thousand samples. I'll make more," Dana said, taking off when Christen accepted the plastic container.

She could already hear the others returning from the store and didn't have much time to hide the cooler between the other containers in the van.

"Good to go?" Kendra asked.

Christen nodded, feeling like she had stolen diamonds from a bank vault. This was for the greater good. Wasn't it?

She got into the car with the beginnings of a splitting headache.

*The headache is normal. I've shut down your HUD on our computers. They think it is malfunctioning, but I can still access it if needed, and so can you. Their technology may be good, but it is not as good as the stuff we have now. They can't access your HUD, not even with their computers, and just so you know, they have tried.*

Dana spoke inside Christen's mind like Alexander always did, and their proximity allowed the connection.

She missed Alexander's calm. A splitting pain pierced her brain, and she had trouble keeping herself still.

By the time they reached the compound, Christen had a fever. No matter how she felt, she still had to get to that container, go to training like every day this week, and find Doc—who worked in the serum facility now—so they could add their own serum to the one already created.

Christen could not explain her absolute certainty or trust that this would work. She had no idea what it would do to their people, only that it was the only way they could fight the Morgal and win.

They arrived at the compound, and she barely managed to knick the container without being seen by the cameras or her friends. She hid it away and made it to the nearest toilet, violenting retching before she could properly close the door.

"What is wrong with you?" Doc asked, rushing into the cubicle and closing the door.

Christen could only shake her head.

Her insides were on fire, and she'd forgotten that Doc would know something was wrong with her. Just like Dana would if she was still near enough.

*Dana injected the serum into me,* Christen admitted.

Doc took a sealed wipe from her pocket and cleaned off Christen's face with it after tearing it open with her teeth. It seemed like an unexpectedly violent action.

*Are you nuts?* Doc yelled in her head, and Christen flinched.

She didn't mean 'you' as in Christen; she meant 'you' as in Christen and Dana.

*No, I am not. I know this will do what they said it would. Everything else has been accurate, and I feel this in my bones. I brought a container with me, and I want you to add it to the samples. Trust me. This is the only way to save us all,* Christen assured her with the certainty that only Doc's trust in her would make her believe, although she disagreed.

*I'm not taking the injection. Dana took it, and you took it. If something goes wrong, one of us needs to be able to function,* Doc obstinately insisted.

Christen nodded, agreeing with the wisdom in that, but if something went wrong, it was beyond even Doc and Dana to fix what might happen. She vomited again, and Doc almost swore, but someone had entered the bathroom.

"Christen, are you in here?" Kendra asked.

"Be out in a minute. Having some growing pains, I think. Nausea and a headache," Christen said as Doc quietly closed the toilet seat and got onto it so Kendra would not see her feet.

Her scent was too much like Christen's now for Kendra to pick up on the difference. With the flushing of the toilet and the way her hammered as if to escape her chest, it would make it hard to hear anything else. But Doc could slow her vitals down until Kendra would not detect her.

Christen nodded, got to her feet, and left the stall, leading Kendra away. They couldn't afford to look like they were conspiring.

"Yes, that would be normal for you. Didn't I see Doc come in here earlier?" Kendra asked.

"Not that I know of," Christen denied and almost fainted.

Kendra caught her. "Let's get you to the medical center."

"For growing pains?" Christen scoffed.

"There may be something wrong," Kendra said with a frown.

"There isn't."

"How would you know?'

"I know, and I am not spending the rest of the day getting prodded and poked. But I would like to lie down."

She didn't really want to go to bed, but she didn't want the other woman to notice Doc wasn't where she was supposed to be.

Kendra took her to her room. "Should I stay with you?" she asked.

"No. I think I am ready for a nap."

Christen felt better after a while, apart from flashing images she couldn't discern and the way her senses unexpectedly shifted into overdrive at odd moments.

"Are you ready for evening training?" Kendra asked some hours later, bringing her a snack.

"I feel great, actually," she said, stretching and yawning.

"Then let's see how you fare," Kendra said, tossing gym clothes at her.

Christen had no problem with the warmups. She had a friendly match with Kera that strained her teacher's resourcefulness and made her frown at the vast improvement Christen had made in a week.

The moment Christen faced Michael, something shifted and changed.

She sensed a presence inside herself, some primal part of her psyche trying to assert itself. It wanted Michael. Saw him as property and this fight as a game, foreplay, to be exact. Controlling that part of her distracted Christen. He frowned when she made the third rookie mistake in a row, but then she lifted her head, and her blue eyes turned yellow.

***

Michael saw it happen. Her posture changed, her fingers turned to claws, and her manner changed.

He could smell the primal animal under her skin, and something in him reacted to it. Christen flashed him a fierce challenging grin, and some part of him surged to the front before he could stop it.

This was no fight for their lives but a mating dance. What was this about? Why was it happening to them? He had to fight to control her and prove himself worthy of her.

He shook his head but couldn't alter his thoughts.

***

"So you made the other potion, the one in the book, and it works," Darius asked from the doorway.

They glanced at him, and he saw it in her eyes—the animal beneath the surface. The prophecy brought full circle.

"What is this?" Kendra demanded with her usual impatience.

"The answer to why the Morgal has the same base genetic structure as us. We evolved from the same species, but they chose violence, and we opted for peace. Each side lost something of themselves until they forgot they were once one. The only way we can win this war is to fight it on equal ground, but we will still have our base beliefs. We will not be driven by greed, hate, and bloodlust. We have reason and purpose, and we do not hate.

"We know who we are, and even when we embrace who we were, we won't forget who we are. We will not become like them. We denied our true nature and washed our hands of our brothers, but it is time to stop this war. Time to remember that we are one people. Leave these two alone. Let them do what their natures demand. Come Kera; they will come to no harm. Forget the ceremony. It is part of the past," he asked, holding his hand out to her.

***

Only Darius' certainty made her walk away when every fiber of her being told her that Michael was in danger.

She glanced back and hurried her step. She didn't want to see what was already happening on the mat.

***

Hours later, Christen traced her fingers over the naked expanse of Michael's chest as they lay panting on the mat.

Michael had taken the combined serum when she offered it to him. It was unfair to wait until he was drugged with her presence, but she knew he would have taken it anyway. He couldn't be her equal without it, and he wanted that more than anything in his life.

It affected him as it did her but caused more visible outward changes in him than in her. He was bulkier, taller, more impatient with his wants, but gentler in an odd way.

Christine hadn't wanted their first time to be this rough and tumble jumble of needs, wants, and almost animal desire, but it had blown her mind.

She also now knew why her... father said the ceremony would be a moot point after this. Right in the middle of their intense lovemaking, something changed and shifted in both of them. Their world opened to each other, and they could hear each other's thoughts and feel each other's feelings. Instead of seeming like a violation, it was fitting—like it should always have been like this.

It was different than sharing thoughts with Dana and Doc. Intimate, like allowing someone else inside your mind and denying them no space in your head. She should have hated the feeling but loved it. She had been designed for this moment and this union.

"Really?" Michael asked, kissing her shoulder.

"You're going to be unbearable now that you know my mind all of the time, aren't you," She asked.

He kissed her neck, nipping the skin and making her shudder. Their, for lack of a better description, animal part had been nothing like they expected. There was a moment when they shifted forms briefly into something purer than the Morgal but a lot different from the human-looking aspect they wore now.

"You were still pretty, just different. A little bulkier, a little taller, a bit dangerous looking, I'd know those azure eyes anywhere, and I loved the claws. Michael said, kissing her again, but the others would be getting worried.

"Do we have to? My clothes won't fit, and if I go out looking like this, every girl will leave their man to get a piece of this action," Michael teased and made her look down just long enough for her animal to almost rip free.

"Arrogant beast. You wouldn't touch any of them, even if they offered themselves to you naked and in a group. You're mine. They can drool if they want to. Now get up. You can shift into your normal form at a thought. I didn't look like Amazon Christen or Hulk Christen when I entered, so why don't you go dress?

"We have work to do and a planet to save," Christen instructed.

Now that she knew her animal wouldn't be in control of her, she trusted that they made the right decision. She was just surprised that her father knew about this when he couldn't read the last part of the book.

Were there cameras in that room? Probably, she was a stranger. Why would they have trusted her with their most dangerous secret?

Christen stretched her muscles, and her clothes protested. She loved the sensation of finally fitting in her own skin. Power ran in her veins, and for a second, she wanted to run until she couldn't run anymore, lay down in the fields, and stare up at the sky, but she had to speak to Kendra and the man that her brain kept calling father.

The cat was out of the bag. She needed them to know what must be done to create their army and defeat the Morgal before their enemies crashed over the earth like a tsunami and destroyed what they could not understand.

Another part of her brain couldn't let go of her last image of Michael as he shifted into himself, which also didn't quite look like him.

Man, that was one extraordinary specimen of a man, and after today, he was all hers. Their bonding can never be broken, and they were as good as married. Mated for life. One. Even now, she could feel him and his thoughts, and he was thinking of her too. Eventually, they would get better at hiding their thoughts when they were not alone, but, for now, it didn't bother her that he knew her every thought, and she knew his. He wanted to distract her with naughty images, but she laughed at him.