Greykin Valley

| 19 | That Ominous Feeling

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| Jackson |

After an hour of trekking through the woods, everyone seemed to relax a little. Sebastien assured the pack that there weren't any human auras within five miles of them, and they hadn't come across any more silver traps, either. But Jackson wasn't going to let his guard down. Anything could happen at any moment. Sebastien couldn't sense cadejo, could he? There could be zombies out there and they wouldn't know unless they saw them.

He glanced at Damon, who was leading the way with Remus and Sebastien. Then, he looked at Wilson, who was walking on his left. He didn't want to leave his friend to walk alone, but he knew that Damon wasn't going to come anywhere near Wilson, and it made him feel upset that he had to choose between walking with his friend or walking with his mate.

Jackson sighed quietly and focused on the path ahead. Was it wishful thinking to hope that Wilson and Damon might eventually learn to get along? Neither of them was going anywhere, but if he had to keep choosing between who he sat with and who he walked with, he felt as though his sadness might begin to turn into frustration.

But he didn't want to let himself get worked up. That was the last thing anyone needed right now. So, he exhaled quietly and tried to keep calm.

"Hey, Jack," Wilson whispered.

He looked at the tiger. "What?"

Wilson nodded in Sebastien's direction.

Jackson watched as the winged hound started falling back, leaving Damon to lead on his own with Remus. He knew what Wilson was getting at, though. Earlier, they'd hypothesized that Sebastien might know more about all of this than he was letting on. Of course, Jackson wanted to know as much as Wilson did, but would Sebastien tell the truth?

He waited to see where Sebastien was going, and when the hound stopped beside him—but a few feet away—he looked over at him and frowned curiously. "Uh...Sebastien?"

The hound glanced at him. "Yeah?"

"Do you...well, do the Venaticus and Nosferatu know about El'Vorian industries? Wilson and I were looking into it, and—"

"I found all these off-book shipments and saw unmarked vans delivering stuff to El'Vorian," Wilson interjected, "the pharmaceutical company we think is a front for Lyca Corp."

Sebastien nodded slowly. "Yeah, you guys gathered quite the little evidence package, didn't you?"

Wilson and Jackson frowned, and then both asked, "You were listening to us?"

The hound scoffed. "Duh. Why wouldn't we listen?"

Jackson pouted and Wilson snarled.

"But yes, the Nosferatu were investigating Lyca Corp years before you two kids were. At the time, we didn't know why they were trying to create hybrids, but we did know that was what their goal was. They captured demons and wolf walkers from places the Nosferatu doesn't have much power—like Ascela—and shipped them to their facilities. That's what all those shipping containers and vans were carrying."

That made sense. "Facilities?"

"Horrible places," Sebastien grumbled. "They experiment on Caeleste."

"Experiment?" Julian questioned with a grimace.

"So, it's not just wolf walkers they were doing shit to, then?" Wilson asked before Jackson could.

"Nope," Sebastien answered as Damon led them up a hill. "Thirty-two years ago, Lyca Corp wasn't even on our radar. The company was owned by a human, yet it specialized in lycanthropes. They created medicines for lycans, provided medical expertise, and trained doctors to better understand lycans. Hence the name Lyca Corp. But what we didn't know was that they had a sub-division, and in that division, they experimented on lycans. That was how they got all their answers."