Page 162 of Rose and Shadows
I’d spent enough time around them when they’d taken me into their home so sweetly to understand their dynamic.
Cornelius hated Warlow being in any sort of danger, so agreeing to allow him to be on the frontlines now wasn’t sitting well with him, hence him needing to maintain a physical hold on him.
Warlow had come out as the first hybrid known across the supernatural world publicly.
Well, he’d been outed.
Before that he’d been in hiding, because Chimera Circle had wanted access to him as he’d been a born hybrid like Lazriel was, something even rarer twenty years back when this had all gone down. So this battle, these enemies specifically being about hybrid hate… it got under Cornelius’ skin like nothing else.
But just like those two thousand here now, Warlow needed this. To stand up, come out of protection, just like he had when he’d formed our Crossborn team.
“Velra,” Warlow greeted me warmly. “Nyx.” He gave Cassius and Kai a chin lift each.
“My dear,” Cornelius spoke. “We must stop meeting under such awful circumstances.” He smiled politely at Cassius, then winked out at Nyx and Kai.
“Totally agree,” I responded.
“It will only be awful for them,” Warlow seethed, glaring out into the trees in the distance enveloping the massive two acre clearing.
“Certainly,” Cornelius agreed, squeezing him to him.
A dragon call sounded from Vorzyr above.
Kai stepped forward, calling his rose-gold power to either palm, his long leather coat flapping behind him with his sudden movements. “He’s sensed a shift in the air,” he told us.
We were expecting the enemy to come in via magical means, but a shift like that was the run up to that.
Warlow gave a solemn nod, then tugged on Cornelius’ hand, and then he was leading them over to the front of the assembled hybrids, while Cassius, me, Nyx, and Kai stayed off to the left side, readying ourselves, all of us calling our power.
I watched as Warlow turned to address everyone as Cornelius remained facing outward toward the trees in the distance, watching and on guard.
I had never seen so many hybrids gathered in one place like this.
So many different beings—wolf-vampire, wolf-sorcerers like Warlow, vampire-sorcerers, Light Fae-sorcerers, Basilisk-vampires, Shadowmancer-vampires, even Dark Fae-wolves and vampires, some Dark Fae-Light Fae—the Dark Fae weren’t all with the enemy. Those ones had just made themselves far too pronounced as pureblood Dark Fae.
So many beings with so many different hybridized natures. Nyx was an Incubus-Sorcerer. Me with my Wraith-Dark Fae nature. The combinations were virtually endless.
They stood there, some in metal armor, some in tactical gear similar to Lazriel, some in leathers like me, but most of them just in their own everyday wear, whether that was jeans and T-Shirts, slinky dresses, or magical robes. There was no single set way of looking or being, there was so much variety, so much difference now brought together under a common cause of protection and freedom from persecution.
How couldPuritashate what couldn’t even be properly quantified or put in a box as being any particular individual thing?
How? They were insane, hopped up on power, fear of the unknown, and unfounded hate.
Well, they were about to see the power in what we were, inwhowe all were.
“We stand here against those who would persecute us, against those who have tried to force us from our lives, to inspire shame in us, to have us doubt that we belong in the world alongside everyone else,” Warlow began, his vehemence rolling right through me. I felt Nyx squeeze my hand, feeling it too. “The world is changing, evolving. We are creating systems that understand and adapt tousnow, not the other way around. We don’t need to tiptoe around. We don’t need to take only what we can get. We don’t need to accept lack of understanding and support. This isourtime now! We are done being hidden away, done being afraid of what will become of us. We are here claiming our place in the world. And the world has answered. It’s here with us.Puritasis an old guard rhetoric that will fall here this very day.” He thrust his fist in the air. “Itendshere and we rise here!”
Applause, wolf-whistles and hearty cheers rang out and it had the four of us doing the same. I let out a whistle, Nyx thrust his fist in the air like Warlow, and Kai clapped intensely. And then Cassius had me grinning as he shot off a spark of his white power into the air that formed a massive heart with a sword through it, before it then morphed to Crossborn’s logo.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
He smiled at me through the stunned and awed reaction from the crowd. “Thought you’d enjoy that.”
The moment of elation was far too short-lived, though, as dragon cries rang out from above, just moments before magical eruptions suddenly started happening.
Portals burst open, dozens coming through each one.
Others teleported in directly.
