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saying no and begging Zane to stop hitting him. Zane would just hit him again and ask how many times the guy had ignored others saying the same things. When he thought the guy had enough, he took my hand and pulled me out of there.”
    “What happened then?” Diane wanted to know. Good grief, she couldn’t control the fact she was feeling a bit jealous. Had Zane comforted Kenzie? Kissed her? Jesus! Had Kenzie been fuck buddies with Zane, as well?
    “He chewed my ass out when I woke up,” Kenzie admitted with a shudder. “Lord, I’ve never seen him so mad. He was absolutely livid with me. Told me he didn’t care what I was dealing with, there was no excuse for stupid.”
    “Oh, my,” Diane breathed out. Would he be mad at her for this plan to save him? “Sounds like he helped you out of tight spot. Wait a minute, what do you mean when you woke up?”
    What had happened between Kenzie and Zane that had exhausted the woman? Kenzie gave a snort of laughter.
    “What?” Diane demanded and even she could hear the growl in her voice. Good grief. She wasn’t even a shifter.
    “Not what you think,” Kenzie stated. “I’ve never been anything more than friends with Zane. Never. To be honest, he scares me a little. He’s all intensity and control and intimidation without even saying a word.”
    Diane knew what she meant, but where it scared Kenzie, it just turned Diane on. She wanted Zane like she’d never wanted another man. Truthfully, there was a part of her who relished the thought he would be her first lover, and if they were mates like she suspected, her only lover.
    “So what happened after?” Diane asked again. “You said he didn’t say anything until you woke up.”
    “My drink was drugged. Apparently, the bar was a known place where women have a tendency to disappear. Zane was checking into it, and there I was. It might have taken me a little longer to lose consciousness under the drug they were lacing my drinks with, but I would have been as much at their mercy as a human woman when I did.”
    “But you’re a shifter,” Diane argued.
    Kenzie stopped and shifted from foot to foot. She skimmed her gaze around them, but Diane sensed a nervous tension in the other woman. “That doesn’t make me invincible, Diane. I can still be drugged, killed.”
    “But couldn’t you have shifted? Saved yourself?” Diane asked.
    “No,” Kenzie admitted.
    “Too dangerous to shift?”
    Kenzie blew out a breath, and the look in her eyes when she finally met Diane’s gaze sent a shiver of foreboding through Diane.
    “I can’t shift,” Kenzie confessed. “That’s why the Professor came to me and asked for my help.”
    “No,” Diane countered, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. You have the same coding as the others. Your blood work shows a strong shifter hormone in your blood, similar to Clara’s. There’s nothing to make us think your animal’s recessive like Finn’s.”
    “It’s another anomaly. Didn’t you ever notice my canines?” Kenzie opened her lips wide again, and Diane stared at the shorter canines more similar to hers than Clara’s. How had she not paid attention to that before?
    “How did the Professor know?” Diane demanded, and why hadn’t he told Diane?
    “He approached me after he ran the first blood test. I told him I wasn’t ready to come forward, yet. He was okay with it, but wanted to ask me some questions,” Kenzie explained. “I couldn’t answer them all. I admitted to him that I couldn’t shift, that I never had. Have to admit, I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”
    “I’m not,” Diane grunted. Oh, she’d have plenty to say to the Professor when she got back. Then another thought occurred to her.
    “Can you even smell Zane?” she demanded.
    “Yes. I have all the enhanced senses of a shifter. I can even manage claws when I need them. But I’ve never been able to pull off a full shift. I often wonder if my birth parents knew I was defective and