Tegan slowly shook his head. “All but one.”
“Not counting the two who reportedly died of UV exposure soon after their ship crashed on Earth,” Lucan added.
“How did the one survive?” Phaedra asked, horrified to consider one of those monsters had been loose in the world until just two decades ago.
“Someone hid him away until he was ready to make use of him,” Gideon answered grimly.
Brynne scoffed. “Someone every bit as dangerous and savage as any of the Ancients. I ought to know. I’m a product of both of them.”
Lucan grunted. “You’re one of the few good things to come out of Dragos’s twisted laboratory experiments, Brynne. You and your sister, Tavia, both. Strange as it is, we also have him to thank for some of the Hunters who’ve either joined our ranks or proven themselves to be trustworthy allies.”
Phaedra sat back in her chair, overwhelmed with all of this new information—not to mention dozens of new questions she was dying to ask.
Before she had the chance to sort her thoughts, the sound of voices carried from the corridor outside the open war room. Everyone at the table rose as a big blond Breed male led a group of three warriors and three women inside.
A dozen conversations bubbled at the same time as the new arrivals were welcomed. It seemed like a happy reunion, even though an undercurrent of seriousness seemed to run through the handshakes and brotherly embraces of the men.
Phaedra hung back, feeling like the awkward outsider as smiles and friendly greetings were exchanged and the din of conversation filled the room.
Micah stood at the periphery of the crowd, too, though not for long.
A petite blonde who’d been caught in Tegan’s strong arms from the instant she arrived now broke away and burst through the crowd to race toward Micah. “Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed, her voice choked with emotion as she captured him in a tight hold.
“Mom,” he said quietly, encircling her tiny frame in his muscled embrace. “It’s okay,” he reassured her as she wept against his broad chest. “Everything’s okay. Ah, Christ. Please, don’t cry.”
“I was so afraid I lost you.” She drew back, eyes the same lavender color as his welled with tears. She held them back, tipping her head up to look at her son’s stern face. “I don’t want you leaving ever again, Micah. Promise me.”
“I wish I could.” His deep voice was as gentle as Phaedra had ever heard it. “You know I can’t make you that promise, Mom.”
“She knows,” Tegan said, joining them now. “Don’t you, Elise?”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She leaned into him, nodding shakily. “You two are everything to me. I can’t bear the thought of ever losing either of you.”
“You won’t,” father and son said at the same time.
There was so much similarity between them. But some of Tegan’s hard exterior smoothed away now that he was close to his pretty mate. Seeing the love between them made a tightness bloom in Phaedra’s breast.
The sense of loneliness took her by surprise. So did the sudden awareness that Micah was staring at her, his piercing gaze unblinking. Far too knowing.
Why must she always feel such a jolt whenever this male looked at her? If it was a mistake of fate that put them into the Dreamscape together, she only hoped she’d be able to purge him from her thoughts once she returned home to Rome.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.
Eager for a distraction from their unsettling eye contact and the tender family reunion she had no business eavesdropping on, she turned her head. At the same time, one of the Breed warriors strode toward her with an ethereal platinum-blonde female at his side.
Phaedra knew instantly that she was looking at a fellow Atlantean. The woman understood the same thing, her smile beamed as she approached.
“Hello,” she said, her warm gaze sparkling like the sea. “You must be Phaedra.”
“Yes. And you, of course, are Jordana.” Phaedra barely resisted the impulse to sink into a bow before Selene’s granddaughter, the only living heir to the Atlantean throne. Mesmerized, she couldn’t keep herself from staring. “You look so much like both your parents. You have Cassianus’s fair hair, but your beauty is all your mother, Soraya’s.”
Jordana inhaled a shallow breath. “You knew them?”
“Yes, I did. A long time ago.”
“Oh.” The young woman linked hands with the ebony-haired male at her side, as if she needed the grounding. When she spoke, there was a quiet wonderment in her voice. “I would love to hear about them, Phaedra. If it would be all right with you, that is.”
“It would be my pleasure. I’ll tell you whatever you’d like to know.”
