Yet Hope caught colds, now broke bones that she couldn’t heal, and often suffered from headaches. “I’ve been thinking about this since I formed the squad, and there’s only one theory thatreally works.”
“After setting your arm, I have a theory too, but I don’t love it,”Emma muttered.
Hope already had an inkling of what that theory would be, but she needed to hear the only doctor she’d ever known say the words. “You know, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything,” Emma admitted. “However, I have spent decades studying the issue and trying to figure out a way to makeyou stronger.”
“Why haven’t you ever told me?” Hope asked.
Emma shrugged and chewed on the candy. “Why would I? I didn’t have any hard and fast answers. Hoping that you’d get stronger and be invincible by the time you hit twenty-five seemed to work for both of us. But apparently, we’ve both been ruminating on the problema lot lately.”
“Ah, crap,” Hope said. “We’re on the same track, aren’t we?”
Emma chuckled. “You haven’t said anything, so I can’t confirmor deny that.”
Hope chewed on her lip, feeling much better now that the IV had dripped whatever magical concoction Emma had created into her veins. Her headache was slowly subsiding. “Liam and Collin have a vampire-demon father and awitch mother.”
“Yep,” Emma said, reaching into her pocket for a piece of candy to toss to Hope.
Hope caught it one-handed. As usual, it was butterscotch. “However,” she continued, “the twins are vampires. They have all the characteristics of vampires, not demons or witches, even though they could’ve easily gonethe other way.”
Emma nodded. “Yep. Immortals can only take on one aspect of their heritage. That’s why Derrick is more witch than vampire, even though his father is one of the most powerful vampires alive. His mother’s pretty tough too.”
Hope’s thoughts turned traitorously to Paxton. He was much more a demon than a vampire, which pleased him, since his mom had been a kind demon and his dad an asshole vampire. “So I can only inherit the traits of one part of my entire heritage.”
Emma took out another piece of candy. She was obviously feeling uneasy, or she wouldn’t be pounding candy like a two-year-old. “That’s what I surmise.”
“You know what thatmeans, right?”
“Maybe,” Emma allowed.
Hope just had to say the words out loud. “My traits are those of a human.” Her mother was human while her father had all sorts of interesting ancestors. When humans mated immortals, they always, and that meantalways,had immortal children.
“Never in the history of the immortal world have progeny from an immortal ended up human,” Emma said, her tone reassuring but her eyes giving her concern away.
Hope ripped open the paper protecting the candy. “True. But there has never been a female vampire, either.” Vampires only made males. Period.Except for her.
“That’s true,” Emma said.
“So I’m human. Or mostly human.” Hope shoved the treat in her mouth. “What does that mean for me?”
Emma rolled her neck. “Being human isn’t so bad. There are a lot of great ones out there.”
That wasn’t the issue. Hope glanced down again at her offending arm and then back up at her aunt. “Am Ieven immortal?”
Emma slowly unwrapped another piece of butterscotch candy. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Chapter Six
Paxton sat in the well-guarded cell, his head still pounding from whatever drug had been in those darts. It felt like the backs of his eyeballs were trying to force their way through the front. Even so, he kept a bored expression on his face as he sat on the rough dirt floor. He had to make sure Hope had been able to heal her fractured arm, and so far, nobody would give him the answers he needed.
They’d left him in there all day, no doubt as an interrogation tactic. What they didn’t know was that he could remain still for days and not give a fuck. His training had been more extensive than anybody would ever realize. A door opened in the distance, and heavy footsteps sounded down the long hallway, stopping in front of his cell, which was covered and protected by steel bars that even he couldn’t open. He looked up as three figures loomed on the other side. “I wondered if the trifecta of power and glory would appear atthe same time.”
He was being a complete jerk, but when faced with three of the most powerful badasses on the planet, a guy had to have some pride. Plus, they knew him and might be able to get into his head. He had to prevent that at any cost.
The King of the Realm, Dage Kayrs, stood on the far left, tension and boiling fury in every line of his body. Even though he was hundreds of years old, his hair was mostly black, his eyes silver, and he could probably take down an ancient redwood with his pinky finger.
Next to him stood his brother, Talen Kayrs, who was the strategic leader of the Realm and had probably racked up a body count Pax couldn’t imagine. He was also Hope’s grandfather but still looked thirty with his dark hair, golden eyes, and dense muscles. One barely there silver strip showed in his hair from his surviving a plague years ago.
