Page 56 of Shadow Master
“You could just swim,” Hyde suggested.
Lugh looked at the water and then took a step back. “I do not swim.”
“You mean, you can’t?” Hyde pressed. From the look on his face, he was enjoying seeing Lugh being brought down a peg by an inadequacy. Hyde shook his head and walked forward. “I’ll get it.”
“No!” Abram said again. “Only the royal blood may retrieve the talisman from its resting place.”
I looked at him. “Did the journal tell you that too?”
He nodded. “The talisman is warded. It will kill all who touch it except those with royal blood.”
Shit.
What now?
I will take him, Athos said.
I nodded, but no one else seemed to care. Wait … They were fomorian, surely they understood him? Didn’t they?
“Abram … didn’t you hear what Athos said?”
Abram frowned. “What hesaid?” He looked at the hound. “He growled, if that’s what you mean.”
“You can’t understand him?”
“You can?” Abram looked perplexed.
The league was staring at me now.
I held out my arm and pulled up my feytech skin to reveal the mark Abram had etched into my skin all those weeks ago. “You did this. You allowed me to understand you.”
He stared at the mark. “The glyph allows you to understand fomorian, nothing more.”
Then how could I communicate with Athos? “Harmon can understand him, too, mostly.”
“Gusta used a variety of materials when experimenting on your friend. He may have employed hound blood.”
Hound DNA?
Harmon’s lip curled, and his chest rumbled.
“And what about me?” Hyde asked. “I can gauge a hound’s intentions and communicate mine.”
Abram smiled. “Ah, your shadow gene must have come from the royal guard—fomorians chosen for their ability to bond with the battle hounds. Back in the day, the guard and his hound were one, working as a team. They were connected, able to feel each other’s emotions and respond accordingly. If I recall my history correctly, the guard were mostly instructed to sow their seed amongst the purest feybloods.”
Orion’s bloodlines … The royal guard gene, mingled with Orion’s bloodline, must have created a potent combination. No wonder Hyde and Bourne males usually ended up carrying the shadow gene. But not all of them manifested the ability of the guard like Hyde.
Abram’s eyes widened and locked on me. “Wait, this could explain your ability to speak directly to the hounds. If your shadow gene came from a royal guard, the mark I gave you could have somehow enhanced your ability to communicate with the hounds.”
Well, that made sense. A royal guard who’d decided to procreate with a nightblood instead. It was the only time in history that the nightbloods had allowed an outside influence into their gene pool. They’d done it to protect the mortal world but then pretended that it had been a mistake—an invasion of the enemy, when, in fact, they’d been complicit to the plan.
I rubbed the mark through the feytech skin covering my arm.
Harmon was vibrating with indignation. “So, Hyde and Justice get a royal guard gene, and I get sown with hound DNA.”
I placed a hand on his arm to calm him. “I’m sorry, babe.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. We need to get the talisman, get Brady back, and make our way home. That’s all that matters. There’s a war coming.”
