I Bought the Wrong Beastman, and He Begged Me to Keep Him Chapter 09

I Bought the Wrong Beastman, and He Begged Me to Keep Him Chapter 09

I heard Tessa before I could even open my eyes.

“Maren, you absolute bitch, you are NOT allowed to end up in a coma, do you hear me?”

“I’ll rehome your golden boy to some random frat bro, hire someone to shake you awake twice a day, and bury you in the plot next to Adrian’s so you two can be miserable together for eternity!”

I jerked upright like I’d been shocked.

“WHAT?”

She threw herself at me, sobbing.

“What were you doing out there in the middle of the night? Are you out of your mind?”

She pulled back and wiped her face. “The doctor said you weren’t hurt badly, but you hit your head and they thought… they thought you might not wake up. I almost collapsed right there in the hallway.”

It took me a while to find my voice.

“What did you say about Adrian?”

Her whole body went still. Her arms dropped.

“They pulled the security footage. Adrian shoved you out of the way. The car hit him.”

Her voice broke. “Maren, he didn’t survive. He’s gone.”

The world went to static. A low, endless ringing filled my head, and nothing she said after that made sense.

I ripped the IV line out of my arm and lunged for the door.

Tessa caught me.

“There’s something else. Something I haven’t told you yet.”

“Adrian wasn’t a normal hybrid. He was a test subject from the illegal hybrid-modification experiments. He

survived the drugs they forced into him.”

The blood drained from my face. “Tessa, this isn’t a joke…”

She wasn’t smiling.

“I’m not joking. This is exactly why I’m here.”

“Remember how I told you Conrad’s been working that big case? The hybrid gene-modification trafficking

ring that the Everbrook FBI Field Office just busted. It hasn’t gone public yet.”

“The ring was running a front as an online hybrid agency. Behind the scenes, they were injecting hybrids with

gene-modifying drugs, turning ordinary breeds into designer ones.”

“There were ten test subjects total. Adrian was number eight.”

“He escaped from the lab before the anesthesia fully wore off. Hid in a transport van and ended up getting

sent to you.”

She paused. “All the other test subjects are dead. Every single one.”

My legs gave out. I hit the floor beside the bed.

Subject 8. That’s what the agency meant. That’s why they disappeared.

I dragged myself to the morgue at the Everbrook FBI Field Office. They let me see him.

When hybrids died, they reverted to their original form.

Small.

Cold…

“You always hated being dirty. Blood on your fur. You’d hate that. Let me clean it off…”

“Ma’am, you can’t touch him. This is an active federal investigation!”

They pulled me away.

I collapsed on the morgue floor and cried until there was nothing left.

Right before I passed out.

Theo came running in from the hallway. He was screaming.

“Maren!”

He’d always called me Miss Maren. Never just my name. So why did it sound exactly like Adrian…

Maybe he was just scared…