“No. I don’t think they did. Marshall has a lot of money. I don’t know how he did it, but he tracked you down another way.”
“If he has so much money, why did he want to get involved with something as risky as large-scale drug sales?”
“Greed. People like Marshall can never have enough, can never be enough.”
“Are drugs how he got wealthy in the first place then?”
“No. His money came from the same place mine did. My grandfather was a wealthy man. Ours is a very old pack, going back thousands of years. They hoarded money, passed it down from generation to generation, but he and my father didn’t see eye to eye. He refused to pass his legacy on to him. Instead, he left it to me and Marshall when we turned eighteen.”
“What did your father do to make your grandfather so angry?”
“He married a woman who was part human.”
Leslie looked at him, shocked by the information. He had never said anything about his mother being human and it made no sense. Their pack had not allowed humans into their club until Tucker had recently changed that to allow for Mari to become their first human member.
“Your mother was a hybrid? And they still allowed your father to become the Alpha?”
“The pack didn’t know. My grandfather forbade him to tell them. My mother was from an unfamiliar pack and no one was really concerned about her origins. As far as they were concerned, she was just an Omega. She knew better than anyone how many packs look down upon those they consider weaker shifters.”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t they have noticed though?”
“No. How? She was able to shift like them. She kept her other gifts to herself.”
“Other gifts?”
“Yes. You don’t know about human-shifter hybrids?”
“Not really. We didn’t allow them in our pack, so Charlie is the first one I’ve encountered and he’s too young to really know anything about just yet.”
“When shifters mate with a human, it creates something different - not quite human, not quite shifter. They have the qualities of each, but they also have something else. It could be telepathy, the power to heal, the ability to foresee the future. It varies with each coupling.”
“What could your mother do?”
“She could take away people’s pain.”
“You mean in the physical sense?”
“Yes. With the right touch from her, people just no longer hurt. She was careful with it, so that people didn’t notice it. She became a surgical nurse to mask it.”
“Letting them think the doctor had cured them from their ailment when it had actually been her.”
“Yes. They thought the doctor she worked for was a miracle worker. Surgeries that most people would have only had moderate improvement from resulted in a complete repair that left them as good as new, and they were never the wiser. It was a private practice, a spinal specialist, so she was usually the nurse. He was a very good doctor, but there was only so much he could do. If she missed a surgery, she merely made a point of touching the patient in the correct way when they returned for a follow-up to finish what he had started.”
“That is fascinating. I’m assuming it is also why she only had two children. Her Omega side may have been a bit more challenged by her human side?”
“Most likely.”
“What about you . . . and Marshall. Does that carry on down the bloodline?”
“Yes, and a lot of shifters believe that it waters down the Alpha capabilities. They believe it makes us weaker, instead of stronger. The truth is, no one really knows the long-term effects, because only in the more recent years have some packs begun to allow for hybrid marriages, but the old wives tail says it can go either way. There are some hybrids that have no abilities beyond a normal human and then there are those who can shift into anything and possess additional abilities that would astound anyone who knew about them.”
“Your mother’s power. Do you have it as well?”
“I have a different power. I can sense a person’s inner feelings. I can’t tell you exactly what a person is thinking, but I know if they are a good person or a bad person. I can tell when they are lying. I can tell if they have ill intentions. I knew that Marshall had gone over to the dark side when I saw him at my father’s funeral. My Aunt Meredith confirmed my fears.”
“How did she know?”
“How do elderly aunts know anything?” he laughed. “They listen more than they talk, I guess.”
“Marshall had this power too then. He knew you wouldn’t play his game, but he also knew you were hiding something. He went looking for your weakness to expose it.”
“Yes.”
Leslie still wondered how he had found Blane, but realized it was something she might never know the answer to. Perhaps his power was different than Leslie’s. Was it possible that when he kissed her, it had enabled him to see her secrets? Could it be as simple as that. Then again, even if that was it, and she knew the truth about it, would it really make a different in anything? What was done was done, and there would be no one looking for her now. The last thing her old pack would be concerned with was an Omega they never cared for in the first place being missing.