My Lycan Mate of Suicide Forest

"I don't imagine there is anything that will fit me," he said doubtfully.

"Of her stepfather's?" she tried.

"From what I know of him, I imagine him being quite a… small male," he grunted and cleared his throat.

"Is he compensating for his size with this house?" she chuckled.

"Among other things," he said simply. It sounded to Graeme like Alan was both emotionally and physically abusive, and it was this knowledge that brought him to the conclusion that he must feel personally inadequate in some way if he had to dominate through those means. But perhaps Graeme was wrong.

"You are not wrong. I met him," Penelope laughed softly, and Graeme found himself chuckling along with her.

"So why are you not with your mate, Graeme?" she asked.

"I needed an excuse to come find you and talk with you, and the elders gave me the task of following August's mom home. I put a GPS on her car and drove straight through," he explained.

"Why?" she tilted her head in question.

"There are a few things from her past I wanted to… tend to," he said. "I wouldn't have left her for that, but it was an opportunity."

Penelope nodded her head and clasped her hands in her lap. She knew what Graeme was referring to, because she had all of the history on August. Ever since the experiment was known to be a success, she had been diving as deep into this girl's life as she could to find out more about her.

"Why did you want to speak with me? Because of the experiment?" she asked.

"That and… other things," he said. "But you haven't answered my question about why you are here."

She sighed. "Well, I imagine you won't be thrilled about the answer. After Susan came to Eliade to search for her daughter, the researchers decided it couldn't happen again. It would be too troublesome to have her continue poking around, and it's clear based on how much she loves her daughter that she won't give up."

"What were you sent her for?" he heard himself growl.

"I'm not going to hurt her, if that's what you mean," she said, raising her hands defensively again. "It's actually already been taken care of. But I needed to follow up with her room and home—every place where there are physical traces of her left."

"What does that mean?" his face scrunched in confusion.

"I performed an enchantment on her mother that extends to every human she has known or encountered prior to Eliade. She is… forgotten," Penelope said hesitantly, a flash of pain momentarily gracing her features.

"What?" Graeme asked in disbelief. "You can DO something like that?" his voice rose.

"I don't like to," she shook her head, hiding her eyes from him. "But it was necessary."

"Eliade knows your alyko?" he asked accusingly.

"No! No, of course not. They just think I bring insight of a very select, special kind of neuroscience. They don't know about the enchantment. They think I will be accomplishing it by a very extensive, very targeted amnesia," she explained before chuckling at how ludicrous that was. "Thankfully being what you call alyko makes me capable of convincing them of that. I would never tell them about us."

"So why are you helping them, Penelope?"

"It's a long, complex story, and not one I would typically tell a lycan. But since you are her mate, I know this concerns you, too," she said softly and slid her eyes back to his.

"It's really perfect, now that I think about it. That she would be paired with you. It's just such a shock—we don't typically have mates in that sense," she said, gesturing to his mark again. "The Moon Mother knows what she is doing, always."

Graeme continued to stare at her, waiting. He had so many questions. He didn't know where to start, so he hoped she would start from the beginning for him and save him the trouble of having to piece everything together.

"There's only so much I can tell you," she said finally, "but of that, I will tell you all of it. The reason why August is immune to the pandemic is because she is fae."

Graeme stared at her in disbelief, not understanding. "I'm sorry, fae?"

"Yes."

"She's human," he countered. "Or alyko… or something."

"She is human as well, but within her genetics there is just the right amount of fae. It must have come from both her mother and father, since the genes are recessive and typically stay hidden for generations. And, don't get me wrong, it was hidden within her as well. But paired with the virus, it has been magnified considerably. More so even than…"

Graeme sat down on the bed again, not hearing the rest. His head was swimming. Fae? Fae… existed? He had only heard about them in folklore. In fairy tales.

"Graeme, are you okay?" Penelope leaned forward and rested a hand on his knee. He nodded.

"Go on," he said.

"The alyko, Graeme. They are also fae—just a more diluted form," she said softly.

His eyebrows pinched together as he snapped his attention back to her.

"What?" His heart was in his throat. This was like finding out… you were adopted or something, although that wasn't the right comparison. But his thoughts were too jumbled to think more clearly than that.

"The alyko… my alyko? Maggie?" he whispered. "You know that they were innocent, don't you?"

"Yes, of course I do. They were innocent. I'm sorry," she said gently.

"Are you sure? Can fae be… be trusted?" he stood suddenly and backed away from her toward the door like he didn't even trust his own eyes anymore.

All those stories that Zoe had given him from the alyko files… what was all of this? What was he supposed to believe now when he had not known something this vital about his origins and his own people for so long?