Chapter 21: The Hybrid's Awakening
Selene
The clinic's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead—a human sound, mundane, utterly disconnected from the supernatural horror lying on the operating table.
I'd killed hundreds of Lycans. Thousands, maybe. Six centuries of war had made violence routine, death comfortable. But I'd never seen anything like Michael Corvin.
His chest rose and fell with breathing that seemed almost normal. His skin had stabilized to that strange blue-gray color—like a corpse left in cold water, but warm to the touch. When I'd checked his restraints earlier, his eyes had opened briefly. One blue. One gold. The eyes of something that shouldn't exist.
Lucius worked efficiently, drawing blood samples, examining tissue under a portable microscope, making notes in a battered journal. His movements were precise, clinical—surgeon's habits he'd mentioned once but never explained.
"The transformation is stable," he said without looking up. "Vampire and Lycan cells are co-existing. The Corvinus strain is acting as a bridge, preventing rejection."
"Will he survive?"
"Physically? Yes. Psychologically?" Lucius shrugged. "He was a trauma surgeon forty-eight hours ago. Now he's a hybrid predator with instincts from two species fighting for control. The adjustment period will be... difficult."
I turned away from the table, stared at the shuttered windows. Dawn was approaching—I could feel it, the ancient warning system that had kept me alive through centuries of daylight vulnerability.
Everything I'd believed was ash.
Viktor—my savior, my mentor, my purpose for six hundred years—had murdered my family. Not to protect me. To protect his secret. The location of William's prison, encoded in architecture my father had built, hidden in Sonja's pendant.
Sonja. Viktor's daughter. Burned alive for loving a Lycan.
I'd spent centuries hunting Lycans because I believed they'd killed my family. Every throat I'd torn, every heart I'd stopped—all of it built on a lie. Viktor had watched me become his weapon, knowing every kill drove the knife of his deception deeper.
"You're thinking about Viktor."
Lucius's voice cut through the spiral. He'd stopped working, was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"I'm thinking about six hundred years of lies."
"The truth doesn't change what you did. Only why you did it."
"That's supposed to comfort me?"
"No." He set down the blood sample, approached slowly—not threatening, just present. "It's supposed to focus you. Viktor lied. Kraven conspired. The war you fought was managed theatre. None of that changes the skills you developed, the power you earned, the warrior you became."
"A warrior built on murder and deception."
"A warrior who now knows the truth." He stopped three feet away, close enough to talk, far enough to respect boundaries. "What matters is what you do next."
Michael groaned on the table. His eyes flickered open—both colors now, fighting for dominance. His voice came out rough, damaged, unfamiliar.
"What... happened to me?"
Lucius moved to the table immediately. I followed, positioning myself on the opposite side—contained, controlled, ready for violence if the hybrid lost control.
"You were bitten by a Lycan," Lucius said. His voice was calm, clinical. "You were dying. We turned you vampire to stabilize the transformation. You're now a hybrid—first of your kind."
Michael's expression shifted through confusion, horror, denial, and something that looked like rage before settling on blank shock.
"I was... I was going to work. There were men following me, and then..." His hands rose to his face, found claws instead of fingers. The shock deepened. "What did you do to me?"
"We saved your life."
"I didn't ask to be saved." He tried to sit up, found himself restrained by chains I'd reinforced while he slept. Hybrid strength flexed—the chains held, but barely. "Let me go."
"Not yet. Your instincts are unstable. Both species are fighting for control of your nervous system. If we release you now, you might kill someone before you realize what you're doing."
"I'm a doctor." His voice cracked. "I don't kill people. I save them."
"You were a doctor." Lucius's voice remained steady, sympathetic but firm. "Now you're something else. Something that needs to learn control before it's released into the world."
Michael tested the chains again. Muscles I hadn't seen on his human form bulged beneath blue-gray skin. The metal groaned but held.
"What do you want from me?"
"Your blood." Lucius produced a filled syringe—sample he'd already drawn while Michael slept. "Your genetic profile is unique. The Corvinus strain in your system allows you to survive infections that would kill any normal creature. That makes you invaluable to people who want to understand how hybrids work."
"Invaluable." Michael's laugh was bitter. "I'm a lab rat now?"
"You're a weapon. Whether you become a weapon for us, for the Lycans, or for Viktor—that's what we're trying to determine."
I watched the exchange with professional detachment. Lucius was handling the hybrid well—calm, honest, not making promises he couldn't keep. Michael's resistance was understandable but ultimately pointless. He was what we'd made him. The only question was whether he'd adapt or break.
"There's another choice," I said.
Both men looked at me.
"You could join us. Help expose the conspiracy that created you. The Lycans who bit you, the vampires who've been lying for centuries—they're all part of the same rot. We're going to burn it out."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you stay chained to that table until you change your mind or someone finds us."
Michael stared at me—the gold eye was brighter now, the Lycan half gaining ground. His jaw worked, processing, calculating.
"You're the one who shot those creatures in the subway. The woman in black."
"Selene. Death Dealer. Six hundred years of service to a liar." The admission came easier than expected. "I learned the truth tonight. Same as you. Difference is, I have centuries of practice at being what I am. You're going to need help."
Silence stretched. Michael's eyes flickered—blue dominant, then gold, then blue again. The internal war playing out in real time.
"I need time."
"You have hours." Lucius checked his watch. "Kraven is hunting us. The Lycans are hunting us. Viktor wakes in two weeks. Before any of that happens, we need to be ready."
"Ready for what?"
"War." Lucius's smile was cold. "Real war. Not the managed conflict they've been running for centuries. The kind that ends with one side destroyed and the other ruling whatever's left."
He moved to the clinic's back room, gathering supplies. I stayed with Michael, watching his face shift through emotions I remembered from my own turning—fear, rage, denial, the desperate hope that this was all a dream.
"It gets easier," I said quietly. "The hunger. The instincts. The knowledge of what you've become."
"How long?"
"Decades. Sometimes centuries. But you learn to function. To use what you are instead of fighting it."
"And if I don't want this?"
The question hung in the air. I'd asked it myself, once, in the early years when Viktor's manipulation was fresh and the killing hadn't yet become routine. The answer hadn't changed in six hundred years.
"Then you die. Slowly, fighting yourself. Or quickly, when someone stronger decides you're not worth the trouble." I leaned closer, letting him see the truth in my eyes. "But there's a third option. Accept what you are. Use it. Become something they can't control."
Michael's gaze steadied. The war in his eyes slowed, not stopping but reaching temporary truce.
"What do you need me to do?"
"For now? Stay chained. Let us handle the immediate threats. When you're stable enough to move without killing civilians, we'll discuss next steps."
Lucius returned, carrying a medical bag filled with stolen supplies. He injected something into Michael's IV—sedative, probably, to keep him calm during the waiting period.
"I need to hunt," he said to me. "One more feeding and I achieve something neither Viktor nor Marcus ever imagined. Can you guard him?"
"Where will you go?"
"There's a Death Dealer patrol in District X. Jonas—mid-tier, Kraven loyalist, won't be missed." His smile was predatory. "Perfect target."
I nodded, checking my weapons. "Go. I'll keep the hybrid alive until you return."
Lucius disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness, leaving me alone with the creature we'd created.
Michael's eyes were closing, sedative taking effect. His breathing slowed, muscles relaxing against the chains.
I sat in the corner, Berettas in my lap, and waited.
The first rays of dawn crept around the UV-proof shutters—golden light that would have killed me once, before everything changed. Now it was just light. Just another reminder that the world I'd known was ending.
Viktor would wake in two weeks. By then, I'd have my answers. My revenge.
And the hybrid lying on that table would be the weapon that made it possible.
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