Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,97
possess.
“I hope you’ll forgive my confusion,” I managed, gathering myself. “But wouldn’t a creature born of shadowkind nature mingled with humanity be weaker than a pure shadowkind, not stronger?”
“One would wish it was so, but that is not the case. Do not approach and especially do not provoke this being when you come across her. The unnatural bond in her natures creates a connection to both realms. She can inflict all the damage her powers allow on both without bringing any harm to herself from either side. If we could have snuffed out that alchemy when she was a mere infant… Now it will have had time to grow within her. All it will take is a little fuel, and she will set our realm and theirs alight in the most searing flames.”
The Highest had been wrong about a lot of things in their time. Their understanding of the mortal realm was utterly second-hand, and they’d admitted themselves that the only other two hybrid beings they were aware of, they’d slaughtered in infancy. But their words brought back the momentary terror I’d seen in Sorsha’s expression now and then when we’d fought. Her warnings that she might be able to hurt me more than I could imagine.
She’d sensed something in herself, something more than I’d been able to see. Maybe I shouldn’t have dismissed her fears so quickly.
But still—how could I wrap my head around the idea that the sassy thief who liked nothing more than to tease the beast out of me and sing songs to her own lyrics was some kind of destructive force on a global scale?
I couldn’t, not yet. Maybe when I saw her again, knowing what the Highest had told me—
And then what? They’d called in their last favor. I would never be free until I fulfilled it. They would never believe I’d fulfilled it until they were sure “Ruby” was dead. Even speaking of what I’d learned today might mean I met the same fate as Tempest after all this time despite everything I’d sacrificed.
I reined in that inner turmoil. I couldn’t make the decision now in front of these ancient goliaths—that much I was sure of.
“I understand,” I said, even though there was a hell of a lot I still didn’t, and then another thought struck me, slicing straight through the core of me. I gathered myself and forced out one more question. “If this hybrid mortal-shadowkind has had time to mature… might she not have created children of her own?”
Could the fiery union I’d remembered fondly be an even bigger disaster waiting to happen?
“We are unsure if this monstrosity would even be fertile. If she has mated with another human, perhaps it is possible, but their offspring would not have the same balance of powers that gives her such potency. You could destroy those without threat to yourself.”
“And if she’s mated with another shadowkind?”
The Highest who’d spoken let out a sound like a huff. “That would require the same ceremony of abasement as that of her mother. We expect that to be exceedingly unlikely—and even if so, the balance would again be skewed. Ruby herself should be your primary concern.”
And so she was. I had to assume this ceremony was more than simply allowing oneself to mash genitals with a mortal, or there’d be a hell of a lot more hybrids running around just of my stock, not to mention the many incubi and succubi of all existence. I was safe from hellhound pups for the time being, apparently. That hardly solved my larger problem.
I made a gesture of deference. “Any trace I discover of her, I’ll pass on to you as soon as I hear of it.”
“We will be waiting,” another of the Highest said in a tone that sounded more like a threat than a promise, and I felt their dismissal with a lightening of the constriction around my neck.
As I made my way through the shadows, my thoughts whirled, but I didn’t try to pin down any one thread. An insistent pull drew me onward—not to one of the rifts that would have spilled me out into the San Francisco area, but one that would return me to Austin.
I tore through the boundary between shadow and mortal realms with the quivering electricity the transition always provoked. Roaming from shadow to shadow, I made my way to the office that held the city’s records. The one where Sorsha had tried and failed to find evidence of her birth.