STILL IN THE LIZARD ALPHA'S SWAMP
"Alpha! Alpha Kayden! Please, you must come quickly!"
Kayden flickered. The softness that had been in his eyes moments ago vanished. In its place was the hard, golden stare of a predator.
Mira pulled the blanket tighter around herself and watched him cross the room. His bare feet made no sound on the cold stone.
He opened the door.
Bryn stood in the hallway, his pale scales almost glowing in the torchlight. His hands were shaking. His tail twitched so violently it looked like it might fall off.
"What is it?" Kayden demanded.
Bryn swallowed hard. "The scientist, my Alpha. He has managed to cook up something with the little blood that is left. The sample we kept from the lycan—the virgin. He says he can do a test phase."
Kayden went very still.
"A test phase?"
"Yes, my Alpha. A small injection. Not enough to break the curse completely. But enough to see if the blood works. Enough to know if we are on the right path."
Kayden turned back to look at Mira. He was torn between staying in the room or going....The expression on his face was bland.
"Stay here," he commanded again. Then he followed Bryn out the door.
******
The lab was chaos.
Bubbling liquids spilled from every test tube. Hissing pipes made the lab noisy and scrolls spread across every surface.
The Lizard scientist, Dr Thess, stood hunched over a workstation.
Kayden entered and the room seemed to shrink.
"Dr. Thess," he said. "Explain."
Thess did not look up. His claws moved with surprising precision, adjusting vials, measuring droplets, muttering to himself in a language no one else understood.
Finally, he spoke.
"The blood we have, it is not much. It is only a few drops. It is what remained after the original tests." He gestured to a small glass vial on the table. Inside, a dark red liquid caught the light. "But it is enough. Enough to create a test solution."
"A test solution," Kayden repeated. "What does that mean?"
Thess turned, his eyes fixed on Kayden with an intensity that belied his age.
"It means, my Alpha, that we can inject you with a diluted version of the cure. Not the full potion. But enough to see if the lycan's blood truly has the properties we believe it has."
"Why not you? Why do you dare try to use your Alpha as a test experiment?" Alpha Kayden asked.
"No, Alpha," Dr. Thess defended himself. "I wanted to take permission from you. I would love to know if I should do it on myself or I should wait for you. Maybe you'd want to try."
Kayden stepped closer. "And what will happen to me?"
Thess gestured to a stone slab in the corner of the lab. It was covered in restraints, leather straps, iron buckles, claws that could tighten on command.
"The transformation will be... intense," Dr. Thess admitted. "The curse will fight back. Your body will resist. You will feel pain unlike anything you have experienced before."
Kayden's jaw tightened. "I have experienced pain for three hundred years. A few more hours will not break me."
Thess nodded slowly. "The test will last for over forty-eight hours. During that time, you will shift in and out of your forms uncontrollably. Your human side will try to emerge. Your reptilian side will try to hold on."
"And after forty-eight hours?"
"If the lycan's blood is true, if it carries the ancient gene, you will be able to hold your human form for longer than ever before. Hours, perhaps. Maybe even a full day."
Kayden's heart pounded. "And the full cure? The full potion that will break the curse forever?"
Thess turned back to his vials. "For that, we will need more blood. A particular pint. Fresh blood, drawn directly from the lycan's vein while she is alive and conscious. The potency is strongest that way."
Kayden's claws extended without him meaning to. "Then we will get it. We will find her. We will drain her, no matter whatever it takes."
Dr. Thess said nothing. He simply picked up a syringe and filled it with a pale gold liquid.
"Are you ready, my Alpha?"
Kayden looked at the syringe. Then at the restraints on the stone slab. Then at Bryn, who stood trembling in the corner, and at the other lab attendants who watched with wide, fearful eyes.
"Do it," he said.
He climbed onto the slab and lay down. Thess moved quickly, strapping his wrists, his ankles, his torso. The restraints tightened. The claws bit into his scales.
Kayden did not flinch.
Dr. Thess held up the syringe. The golden liquid caught the light.
"This will hurt," he said.
"I know."
Thess inserted the needle into Kayden's neck.
The effect was immediate.
Kayden's back arched. His mouth opened in a scream that was not entirely human. His scales rippled—darkening, lightening, shifting through colors that did not exist in nature. His tail lashed against the slab hard enough to leave gouges in the stone.
Bryn stumbled backward. "Is he...is he supposed to do that?"
Dr. Thess did not answer. He watched while taking notes.
Kayden's body convulsed. His human form tried to emerge but the scales fought back. They crawled up his arms, his chest and his face. Then they receded, returned and this transformation went over and over.
Alpha Kayden screamed, roared and whimpered...then he went silent.
For one horrible moment, Bryn thought the Alpha was dead.
Then Kayden's eyes opened and they were human.
"Forty-eight hours," Kayden whispered. His voice was raw. "I can survive forty-eight hours as a full human."
Dr. Thess nodded. "We will watch. We will wait. And when you wake, we will know if the lycan's blood is the answer we have been seeking."
Kayden closed his eyes and his body continued to shift again. He turned to human, lizard, human, lizard—but the intervals between shifts began to lengthen. Seconds became minutes and minutes became longer.
Bryn let out a breath he did not know he was holding.
"It is working," he said. "By the ancestors, it is actually working."
Dr. Thess did not celebrate. He simply turned back to his worktable and began preparing the next phase.
"The full potion will require more blood," he reminded the room. "We cannot celebrate yet. Not until we have the lycan in our grasp."
But Kayden was already dreaming.
In his dream, he walked through a marketplace with human feet and human hands.
For the first time in a long time, no one screamed, no one ran and no one tried to call the police.
The sun did not burn him.
Kayden loved this. And he would stop at nothing to make it real.
********
A few hours passed and Kayden lay on the slab, unconscious for most of it, twitching through the rest. Dr. Thess monitored his vitals. Bryn changed the IVs. Attendants came and went, bringing reports from the city, updates from the borders, news from the surface.
Finally! Finally!! Kayden opened his eyes and he was human.
He sat up slowly. The restraints had been removed hours ago. He swung his legs over the side of the slab and looked down at his bare feet.
"It lasted," he whispered.
Dr. Thess nodded. "Eight hours, my Alpha. You held your human form for eight hours."
Kayden stood and his legs wobbled. He grabbed the edge of the slab to steady himself.
"Eight hours," he repeated. "Imagine what I could do with fourty more hours."
He looked at Dr. Thess. "I am going to the human world," he announced. "I want to make a soft launch. A test run. I want to walk among them and I want to remember what it feels like."
Dr. Thess's eyes widened. "My Alpha, is that wise? The cure is not complete. You could shift back at any moment. What if you forget yourself before forty hours and someone sees you?"
"Then I will be careful." Kayden walked to a mirror on the wall. He studied his reflection. "I have waited three hundred years for this. I will not wait another day."
He turned to Bryn.
"Prepare my clothes. And find me a pair of shoes that fit."
Bryn stammered. "S-shoes, my Alpha?"
"Normal shoes, Bryn. Human loafers or sandals."
Bryn nodded and scurried away.
Kayden looked at his hands again. Turned them over and smiled.
"The human world," he said softly. "I am coming back to you."