Page 41 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Hawk didn’t add that the dead Alpha of the Roman colony—a brilliant geneticist in spite of being a homicidal maniac—had developed a serum that allowed all half-Bloods to survive the Transition. Which even at this moment, his insane, immortal son was using to develop a half-Blood army with which to wipe out the entire human race.
He didn’t think it would be prudent to mention that particular detail.
“Why didn’t the Alpha know it was forbidden?”
Hawk shrugged. “We only just discovered this colony a few years ago. The four confederate colonies have known about each other’s existence since our ancestors were hunted to near extinction in Egypt under Caesar Augustus. The remaining few fled and settled in small, isolated communities around the world—”
“Hunted? Egypt? Caesar Augustus?”
They came to a clearing in the thick underbrush. Through the trees, Hawk saw the waterfall he’d been able to hear during the past twenty minutes of their ascent up the hill. In spite of her ability to keep up with him, Jacqueline was tiring, evidenced by her breathing, which had become labored the higher they climbed. He gestured to a large rock several feet away, shaded by a corozo palm.
“Let’s rest a while.”
She sat with a groan, unlaced her boots, pulled them off, and began to massage her feet.
“So—you were saying?” she prompted, wincing as she pressed on the arch of her left foot. “Hunted?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve wanted to wipe us off the face of the planet,” Hawk said wearily, stretching his neck. “Even before Cleopatra, our interactions with humans were . . . treacherous, at best. One of you is always trying to exterminate us.”
Jacqueline had stilled. Holding her foot in hand, she stared at him with a look of incredulity. “Cleopatra? You’re saying Cleopatra was one of you?”
He smiled. “One of you, too.”
“Another half-Blood Queen?”
He nodded. “Clever and cunning, and extraordinarily powerful. Like all the Queens, including the new one. An Ikati Queen doesn’t come along often, but when she does, great changes swallow us.” He added darkly, “No doubt this time will be the same.”
“Why?”
Jacqueline stared at him with such laser-like intensity, Hawk felt as if he were a fly trapped in a web. A fly who almost—almost—didn’t want to escape.
Stupid, self-destructive fly. Serves you right if the spider eats your dumb ass.
“A Queen is always the most powerful of all of us, even more powerful than the Alphas. Because of that, she’s above the Law. She can do whatever she likes, without consequence. Combine all that power with complete freedom . . . let’s just say it’s never gone well.”
She sat a little straighter, her expression avid. “Would I know any of the others?”
Hawk debated for only a moment before deciding to be truthful. “Marie Antoinette.”
Jacqueline gasped. “No!”
“Yes. And you see how well that ended. Aside from those two and the new one, there hasn’t been a Queen in millennia. But you’d probably recognize a few others of our kind who’ve successfully lived among you.”
Jacqueline waited, unblinking, attuned to his every word. Hawk began to tick a list off his fingers.
“Sir Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni—”
“No!” Jacqueline exclaimed, louder.
He sent her a sardonic smile. “Yes. Michelangelo. One of your lauded examples of humanity in that lovely article you wrote.”
In a voice so hollow it sounded as if it emanated from the depths of a well, Jacqueline asked, “Michelangelo wasn’t human?”
“That doesn’t devalue his accomplishments. In fact, considering he lived with all the pressures and complications of successfully managing a secret life, I think it makes him even more impressive, don’t you?”
Jack looked at him for several long moments, examining his face. Her expression wavered somewhere between defeat and despair. “You’re telling me the truth.”
“The truth stings, doesn’t it?”
