Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
My wrists were parted, each of my hands caught and held. Dark, fearsome, he said, “Think hard before you answer. Do you want me to start a war for you? These things you demand can only be provided if humans are removed from power.”
He wasn’t joking.
Shaking my head, frightened, I surrendered. “You know I’m not equipped to answer that. I know nothing about this world except what you have deigned to teach me! And let’s be honest—over the years, you haven’t proved to be a reliable source. You ask me to trust you, when the life you’ve made me live has been a lie!”
“Remember this. And should the day come that you want the president’s head on a platter, I will give it to you, so long as you understand the consequences. And when it is done, you will give me a home and fill it with children who will never have to go to an academy.”
This was more than longing. Cyderial wanted me to unleash him on the city. He wanted me to have all the things I begged for. As my mate, he would give them to me… at the price of many lives.
Human and hybrid.
That was not a power I was comfortable wielding.
“If you can be patient, young one, everything you desire, you will have in time. But I cannot give it to you now, not without blood running in the streets.” Raising me from the floor, Cyderial signaled that the conversation was at an end. “Tomorrow, you will come with me to the academy. We will walk through your ideas, and I will be open to reasonable negotiations should there be room and safety at such concessions. That does not mean you will have your way in most things. Change will happen more slowly than you would prefer, and we will argue a great deal about it over the years; I am sure. Advocate—the children need you, but understand humans will kill them all if recruits cannot serve. They will kill them if they grow complacent and their test scores are too low. They will kill them for unexpected deformities. They will kill them for speaking out. They will kill them for sport. It is our duty to ensure they can survive.”
I wasn’t built for the responsibility he would thrust upon me. “And so our own kind beats the spirit right out of its children.”
Taking my chin between his forefinger and thumb, soothing in tone, he asked, “Do you think we don’t love them too? Your instructors are not monsters. They have seen humans cull entire generations of our kind. Humans in power write off such massacres as genetic sequencing errors. They do not mourn them. We are desperate to keep our children alive. One broken pinky finger might hurt, but it sure as hell will ensure the child pays attention in their next class.”
I had never heard of any such mass murder of hybrids; such a secret had never been whispered in the academy halls. “How can we tolerate this?”
Sadness was in his voice. “Maybe now you are starting to understand why I kept you so close and drove you so hard.”
“You’re trying to distract me with horrors so I shift my anger from hybrid males to humans. But our own kind enacts violence against my sisters.” Hybrid males were my adversaries when it came to their control over unmated females. “Give me something to show you mean what you say. Teach the older girls just what will happen to them once they put their names on the list. That has nothing to do with the humans at all.”
A glitter came to his verdant green eyes. “Tonight, you can wage your war on the scrupulous generals. Tomorrow, you can face off against the academy hierarchy. But right now, I want you to know I have heard you, and I ask you to give this a chance.”
I had never been particularly patient, but I was naturally tenacious. “You think I should sacrifice my ideals, because you took from me without asking? What did you have to lose in order to claim my song?”
“In order to deserve you and keep you safe,” he said with no preamble or shame, “I had to willingly execute failed recruits. I have murdered those you were fond of. Unfailingly devoted myself to a position that built animosity between us. Signed off on your torture. I made you hate me. But you are alive, and you are mine.”
Closing my eyes to him, hearing the blood rush in my ears, I let out a shaky breath. “You took it further than that.”
Sighing, he said, “You have no idea.”
“You know I am terrified of you.” Even if we did share some unexpectedly easy moments. Even if I did feel sexual excitement when he poured his attention upon me.