The cube disappeared as the screen went blank.
The room’s occupants launched into an uproar.
I didn’t hear anything except for the resounding word ‘hybrid’ as it echoed in my head, pounding through my mind. My fear was uncontrollable. The spokesman had said hybrids created those creatures by mating with Commoners. Breeding with Commoners wasn’t supposed to be an actuality. It was supposed to be safe to have sex with them, our two kinds not compatible for conception, but…if hybrids should be dead at birth, weren’t supposed to exist, then what the Elders had taught the Mys community would have been the truth.
No hybrids equaled no mindless monstrosities.
Though if parents managed to hide their hybrid children, as my mother had with me, then more hybrids could exist. My brain felt as if it were imploding; there were so many implications for myself and for the Mystical people swimming through my thoughts. As the room began to darken, feeling myself start to slip into a dead faint, Ezra’s leg brushed against mine and rested there.
Tranquillity instantly suffused my clenched muscles and inside my mind. Other voices entered my previously chaotic awareness. My attention snapped to Ezra and his eyes met mine for a brief moment, expressing he was using his power to aid me so I didn’t do anything stupid. For example: faint, when I should be spitting fire and trying to figure this out, like everyone else in the room.
Swinging my gaze back to the table’s occupants, I didn’t dare move my leg from his. Ezra’s emotional gift was the only thing keeping everyone from turning their attention on me. I most certainly didn’t need trouble on this level, since everyone was only now figuring out that hybrids did, in fact, exist. And what they were capable of.
Conceiving slaying beings with Commoners.
“Wait!” Elder Talus barked an abrupt order. When the room quieted, he turned his attention to Elder Harcourt. “How do we know the video isn’t doctored? That a Commoner extremist group isn’t lying to start a war?”
Everyone held their breath, staring at the older Mage.
Elder Harcourt reclined on his seat, relaxed and cool. “The video wasn’t doctored.” He tilted his head toward the Elemental who had begun the meeting. “Elder Camden will explain.”
Gazes snapped to the elderly Elemental as he cleared his throat. Placing his fingertips on the marble table, he peered out to each occupant inside the conference room, his eyes meeting everyone’s. “Any hybrids who have escaped the Executioner are capable of breeding with Commoners.” His yellow eyebrows furrowed. “Their offspring are as the Com stated. They are ravenous Beasts that usually kill the mother from inside the womb. The pregnancy rarely goes to full-term. Ages ago this wasn’t so much an issue, because the Beast normally died along with the mother, but,” a glance at Elder Harcourt, then he again spoke the words strangely, “with technological advances in prenatal care,” his eyes met everyone’s shocked ones, “the Beasts can be born, even if the mother dies.”
I wondered if anyone else caught the words ‘usually’ and ‘normally’ he had used.
One of the four men who had been speaking with the Kings earlier growled low — a wolf Shifter. “You never thought to tell us this when we were working on the peace treaty?”
Huh. Those four must be the Kings who had come after Antonio and Cahal’s four, the politically sound ones who had worked so hard for peace between Commoners and Mysticals.
“This shouldn’t have been an issue. The information was kept secret and only passed down to the next senior Elders,” which meant he, and possibly Elder Harcourt, were the oldest Mystical Elders remaining, “specifically so the Beasts weren’t created.” Elder Camden shook his head. “It should have been enough that hybrids can’t do an Awakening.” Quickly, I scented the air, and found he spoke truth. He believed what he was saying. Thumping his aged fist onto the table, he expounded, “Plus, the goddamn Executioner should have taken care of any hybrids.”
“Obviously, he didn’t,” King Nelson muttered under his breath, his eyes flashing gold while staring at the ceiling.
Into the quiet, Antonio asked, “Elder Harcourt, what else do you know?”
Elder Harcourt’s lips tilted, the smile of the devil himself, making me do a double-take at the wrinkle-faced Mage. “Antonio, please be more specific.”