Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I agree. I nodded, making Frank narrow his eyes.
He studied both of us. “Interesting. So the synergy isn’t just physical, but mental.”
“What?” I wrinkled my nose, trying to follow.
“Has it become spiritual and emotional too?” Frank waved his hand. “What am I saying? Of course it has. I’m sure those neural and cellular pathways were formed the day you met.”
Something tightened around my throat. “The day we met?”
“Yes.” Frank nodded sagely. “Right here. In the lab.”
“Eh...” I blinked.
Lucien gave me an incredulous look. What?
The urge to ask my CEO a million questions swarmed me, but...Lucien was right. What if we couldn’t trust him?
Pushing past us, Dillon stalked into the hut and stomped his boots free from snow. “Because you won’t tell him and I’m sick of watching you both fade before my eyes, allow me to break the ice, as it were.” Pointing at us, he said, “I think they’ve turned telepathic. Pretty sure they’re dying too. The cat is sentient. The Requiem gene is in full swing. And the level of power they have destroyed an entire mountain range in China. Oh, and their blood is somehow black.”
Heading toward the single elevator that was the only thing in this tiny hut, Dillon added, “They also won’t hesitate to kill anyone who threatens the other, so...I suggest you all remain friends. Keeps my job simple, as well as the panther’s.”
Whisper huffed as if agreeing with Dillon, showing a hint of fang for Frank’s benefit.
“Hey.” I scowled. “What happened to being on my side and protecting our secrets?”
“I am protecting you. Starting with giving the benefit of the doubt to the very man who loves you like his own daughter. The one man who can hopefully save your life. However.” Dragging his finger over his throat as the elevator pinged and the metal doors opened, he pointed at Frank in warning. “If you hurt them, I’ll hurt you. Got it, Frank?”
Frank didn’t seem afraid or even shocked by Dillon’s revelations. “Yes, yes. You can hang, draw, and quarter me if I so much as give her a papercut. Now come in, come in.” Bustling me inside the hut, Frank waited for Lucien to step over the threshold, then eyed up Whisper as the panther joined us in the small space. “Well, I never.”
The massive panther padded silently to Lucien’s side, his hackles raised.
Frank closed the door, blocking out the glacier and relying on a single lightbulb swinging above. He couldn’t take his eyes off Whisper. “He’s even more magnificent than I imagined.”
A soft growl rose in volume the longer Whisper stared at Frank, almost as if he remembered him. His tail stiffened and the hint of fang became a full snarl.
“You’re alright, you stupid beast.” Lucien placed his hand on the panther’s scruff, grabbing a handful of fur just in case. Speaking to Frank, he added, “He won’t hurt you. As long as you don’t hurt us.”
Frank didn’t reply, hypnotised by the glowing golden eyes of the giant predator.
Whisper grumbled as if tempted to ignore Lucien’s command and eat my CEO but then Frank held out his hand, allowing Whisper to sniff him. “You remember me, don’t you, boy?”
Whisper curled his upper lip as he sniffed Frank’s knuckles. Sneezing with what looked like approval as well as disgust, the tension in the room eased.
Frank grinned. “I remember you being no bigger than a house cat when we first met.”
“Wait.” Lucien snapped upright. “So it was you? He’s one of your lab experiments?” He flicked me a look, remembering our conversation on the terrace when tipsy wonderings had questioned Whisper’s origins.
“Oh, he wasn’t an experiment.” Frank headed toward the lift where Dillon waited, holding the doors for us. “We couldn’t give him immortality because true cellular immortality will always be beyond our capabilities—no matter what anyone says. However, I could give him targeted epigenetic therapy.”
“And in English that means...” Lucien crossed his arms, refusing to get into the lift even though it was big enough for towers of gurneys and boxes. Being the main entry point to the labs, it had carried thousands of pallets, supplies, and equipment from the surface to subterranean over the years.
Frank shrugged as if he didn’t mind Lucien’s curtness. “It means we carefully edited his genetic expression at the molecular level. We upregulated telomerase production while reinforcing DNA repair mechanisms with synthetic proteins based on extremophile biology. It slowed cellular senescence dramatically. His body now ages at roughly one-third of a normal panther.”
“You’re talking all sciencey again,” I joked, slipping back into the useless owner of a company I’d run away from.
Frank scratched behind Whisper’s ear, smiling broadly as the panther shocked all of us with a soft purr. “I don’t know how to speak in layman’s terms, but...we also enhanced his neural plasticity and myelination in key areas of the brain. He’s significantly more intelligent than any natural panther—closer to the cognitive level of...well, us I suppose.”