Liam took off the moment that Xander released him. Hell, he practically blurred as he turned around and raced for the door. Xander, for his part, turned to shoot me a look that seemed to ask me what I thought I had been doing with a man like that, or something. Some days I wished I could read minds then I wouldn’t have to guess what people were not saying.

  It took him a minute of the two of us staring at each other before he finally let out a sigh, wiped his face, and voiced his question. “Why are you hanging out with the wolves little fox?”

  Well, that was a new nickname and one that I didn’t know if I liked or not. Eyes slightly narrowed, I responded with a question of my own. “Why does it matter who I hang out with?” Okay, so I agreed with him. Liam was probably not the best person for me to be near, then again it wasn’t like I was being given a choice in the matter.

  “Because I won't always be there to protect you if something goes wrong or someone targets you…again.”

  “Just because it happened once…” I started only to stop and sigh at his raised eyebrow. “I don’t count nearly dying when I was a bystander in an attack on a different person.” When his eyebrow didn’t lower, I rolled my eyes and huffed out, “You're right, you won’t always be there to protect me. So shouldn’t I learn how to protect myself? Make connections myself? Learn to survive on my own?”

  “There are better people to learn from than those of his kind.” He spat.

  His words pissed me off. “HIS KIND?!” Rage at the implied meaning behind his words tinged my voice. “Since when have you cared about someone’s race? Or is it because he is getting close to me and you don’t like that?” Judging by the ever-so-slight flick of a finger, I knew I was right. Still, I wasn’t going to let up on this. “But, even if hasn’t occurred to you, I AM one of HIS KIND! I AM a shifter just as much as any of those that look up to him.”

  It was as if I had slapped him. His face was filled with horror as he finally realized what I was saying. I hadn’t realized just how much of myself was centered around his accepting of me until I saw the look on his face. Seeing it there now, it hurt. It felt as though my heart had been turned to ice and was in the process of being shattered into countless pieces.

  I found that I could no longer even look in his direction. My eyes turned to the side just as he started to stammer something out, likely something along the lines of ‘but you’re different’ or some other bullshit, and I cut him off. My voice was raspy but I managed to get the words out. “Get out.” The world turned cold and froze. Almost as if even the world around us was waiting to see what the man might do. To my surprise, he didn’t argue. In fact, he didn’t so much as make a sound. He simply stood there for a moment before he turned and walked out of the room.

  The moment the door latch snicked shut, a sob wracked my body. My arms reached up to cover my face and to muffle some of the noise. I was completely alone and there was nothing I could do about it. Hell, if that was how he felt about shifters, then I doubted he would let his sister near me. Sure, she would fight him, but he could be a stubborn asshole. Maybe it would be better for everyone if I took some time and returned to Earth. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about nearly dying again as I worked on figuring out what I was going to do next. Or I could simply veg out on a few older movies or something. Anything to distract myself from what had just happened.

  Too bad my mind was too scattered to think through all the commands required to return to my pod. I was going to have to physically hit the hovering buttons and navigate through the menus until I could manually hit the button. It wasn’t difficult, just annoying.

  One hand swiped at my eyes and nose as my other hand moved to press the final button that would send me back to Earth. An inch away from the button, a man in a white lab coat strode into the room as if he owned it. He didn’t even bother to look up from whatever was on the clipboard in his hand as he spoke. His entrance startled me enough that my finger jerked back from the button. “It looks like you are very lucky.” Hah, lucky, right. “Another five or so minutes and you would have been just as dead as all the other people in that room.”

  Well that was blunt. His words made it sound as though their deaths were mere inconveniences. Sure, they would respawn, but that didn’t mean their mental health didn’t suffer. Hell, I was going to likely have some issues eating food for a little bit…maybe. Though, I could go for a pie.

  “The metallic bone composite structure that was growing in your chest was surgically removed and your wounds healed.” He said, pulling me out of my head. He sighed as he continued. “If that was the only damage done to your body, you could have been healed and released days ago—” Wait, did he just say days? “Unfortunately, someone healed you with a skill that left a ton of mutation, cancerous growths, and significant damage in its wake. All of that had to be removed and regrown at a slower rate to make sure that none of the damage remained.”

  Oops. I think that was me. Then again, I am pretty sure I would have died if I did not use the skill. Seeing as he was taking a second to read something on whatever was on the clipboard, I spoke up. “Is there any reason for me to stay here?”

  He lowered his arms and looked me in the eyes for the first time since he had entered the room. Both of his irises were a pale yellow color that reminded me of mustard. “While I would prefer that we monitor you for at least another day, not really.” And with that, I slowly rotated until my legs were over the edge of the bed. “However, we will need to see you in a few days for a follow-up.” There goes my escape idea. Not that it was much of an idea. There were few places I could go that wouldn’t lead to my death and even fewer ways to get to them.

  Something about what he said earlier suddenly crossed my mind. Curious about what he had meant, I asked him about it. “Earlier you mentioned a metallic bone composite structure. What did you mean by that?”

  His eyes lit up a little at my question, kind of reminding me of how someone looks after being asked about something interesting, at least to them anyway. “It’s a fascinating piece of organic material. It has properties similar to coral or antlers, yet not. While it is not alive in any normal sense of the word — if there is such a thing as normal when magic gets involved — it still eats and grows, albeit at a very slow rate.”

  If it was alive as he said it was, and it was made from parts of my body, would it not be able to be used to target me in spells and rituals? Many fantasy books insisted that there was a way to use parts of someone to target them with a curse, or other spell. While I had never seen or heard of such a spell here, I was fairly certain I didn’t want to risk someone getting ahold of even a sliver of that thing. “Do you mind if I take it with me?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  My question seemed to startle the doctor. He sputtered for a moment before saying, “But think about all the things we could learn from it. Things that would be applicable to healing patients and restoring limbs that spells are incapable of restoring. It would even be usable in…” his voice trailed off as he realized I didn’t care. “At least let us keep a few slivers.”

  “No.”

  “But…”

  “No.” Something told me that he was going to try and keep some of the material anyway. “In fact, I want to go with you to pick it up.”

  “Oh, there is no need for that.” His voice was a bit higher in pitch telling me that I was likely right. “Plus, you would be unable to go there anyway as it is in the secure research wing.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Fine.” He said as he turned toward the door and while I couldn’t see his eyes, something told me that they were seeing which of them could go around the outside edge fastest. “I will see what I can do. Anything else or do you want me to get the forms for your discharge.”

  With nothing to do but sit there and wait, I found myself looking over all my skills. Unsurprisingly, my Poison Resistance skill increased, by two levels. Apparently nearly dying from a poison and healing myself, albeit poorly, was enough to give me some natural ability to slowly heal the damage it did to my body. Given that it specified poison that affected the body, I didn’t think it would help all that much against poison that affected my mind or soul — if there was such a thing. The very idea that any poison might affect my soul was terrifying.

  Then again, at least that skill wasn’t snarky. My Self Sacrifice skill increased by another level and the system helpfully pointed out that it wasn’t something that I should keep doing if I didn’t want to die. So helpful. Okay, so the extra six charisma was nice. It was one of the stats that I just had a hard ass time figuring out ways to increase without skill bonuses like this one.

  What if I tried to lead a small group of people just long enough to get a leadership-related skill? Maybe that would give me some more points in charisma. But who could I get to follow me? So, not something I could do, at least not for a little while. Until then I could always dump a few points into the stat to keep it above the minimum threshold.

  Of course, the moment I considered my points and spending them on stats I just had to take a look at what I currently had.

  Welp, that was different. While I loved the change, I wondered why it had happened at all and who had initiated it. Sure, Hephaestus and Inari practically said that he had created the system. Wait, no, he had actually stated that he had built the thing with the help of a few other gods. He also said that he was constantly having to tweak it and fix things. Maybe this was a result of one of those changes. Whatever it was, I approved. Especially since I didn’t realize I had leveled until I noticed I got some points, something that I was pretty sure only came with leveling.

  And that would be why I still hurt. Apparently, I wasn’t fully healed. Not that I was all that mad about it. I was alive and that was all that mattered. It would all be healed by tomorrow, probably. For now, I needed to focus on getting out of this place and find somewhere to hide, I mean sleep, for a few days. By then, maybe I would have a plan for what to do next. Though, I was fairly sure that staying anywhere near Xander was a no-go. Not with how horrified and disgusted he had looked. And here I was thinking he wasn’t that sort of person. Just goes to show that one never truly knows even those they are close to.

  Xander:

  I didn’t know what to do. My words had clearly hurt Kyren, to the point that she broke down into tears the moment I left the room. It wasn’t like I wanted to hurt her. I just didn’t want that man whore to hurt her, to use her. Sure, he was powerful and likely a decent fuck given how many women chased after him, but that didn’t give him the right to do what he did with every woman he could. Not when shifters were supposed to be monogamous with their mates.

  When I had started really getting into checking everyone around me he had been one of those that I had issues getting information on. Mostly because the information was back on Earth and obfuscated to all hell. He had a wife that mysteriously disappeared a year after his daughter was born. I couldn’t tell if she was dead, missing, or simply hiding out somewhere. Not that anyone had searched for her. No one had the resources to waste on such a search, let alone cared about a random person vanishing.

  Still, ever since then, the man had a revolving door of women. It almost seemed as though there was something preventing the man from committing to one person. If not for Kyren being near him, I wouldn’t care. After all, it wasn’t my problem who he fucked and fucked over. But something told me he had taken a liking to my little fox and he would break her heart. I could not have that, even if she didn’t know why.

  I wonder if Ginger would be willing to help me prevent Kyren from getting involved with the fucker. She might even be willing to help me fuck him up, once I told her why we needed to. “Excuse me.” Kyren’s doctor said, his eyes focused on the clipboard with the information on her treatment and current condition. With a shake of my head at the focus the man had on his job, I moved to the side and started for the exit. I had a few plans I needed to set into motion involving a certain wolf.