Page 84 of Dark Gambit: The Play

He chuckled. "Maybe you'd rather remain human than grow fangs, which by the way, our females don't have. But seriously, the transition is not easy, and many transitioning Dormants lose consciousness. Some are out for a day or two, while others are out for weeks. There is also a very low risk of death."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How low?"

"We haven't lost a transitioning Dormant yet, and the younger and healthier you are, the less risky it is. You really have nothing to worry about, but I would be remiss if I didn't warn you of the risks."

"Makes sense, and I appreciate that you are not trying to sugarcoat it. I have a question, though. How do you know that a Kra-ell male can't activate one of your Dormants?"

"Emmett had been having sex with a dormant lady for many years, and he failed to activate her despite biting her numerous times. She transitioned after falling in love with one of us. Still, he's a hybrid, so perhaps a pureblood can do that."

She nodded. "That's why you were asking me whether I had sex with any hybrids or purebloods."

"Yes. Did you?"

She glared at him. "I've already told you that I didn't."

He lifted his hands. "Just double-checking. You might have felt bad about being coerced."

"I haven't been coerced." She winced. "At least not as far as I know. If some of them can make people forget things, they could have done that to me, but I really doubt that."

"Good. Since no one aside from me had ever injected you with venom, there is a chance that mine can activate your dormant genes."

66

SOFIA

Hope surged in Sofia's chest, but she didn't allow it to soar too high.

What Marcel was proposing had never been done before, and it probably wouldn't work. They weren't even the same species.

Both of them were half-human, or three-quarters in her case. Was his mother a goddess? Were gods from mythology still around?

"I have so many questions."

"That's what I'm here for. Ask away."

"How old are you?"

"Three hundred and twenty-seven."

"Oh, wow. That's old."

He chuckled. "Thanks."

"Is your mother a goddess?"

"My mother is an immortal, and so was her mother before her, and so on. The females of our clan kept us from going extinct by having children with human fathers. But unlike you, we didn't grow up with those fathers. To keep our existence a secret, long-term relationships with humans were discouraged, or rather disallowed, and the men who sired us were not even told about having us."

She scrunched her nose. "So your blood must be heavily diluted. Are you sure you can activate me?"

Marcel nodded. "If you can be activated, I can surely do that. Our doctor says that eventually our genes will become too diluted to produce Dormants, but we still have a long time until that happens. You need to change your thinking from the Kra-ell's ability to produce just one generation of hybrids to the immortals' ability to produce them in perpetuity."

"Your people's genetics must be superior to ours."

"As I mentioned before, the theory is that the gods were genetically enhanced. The Kra-ell might have been the original. We are all dying to get a pureblood in our hands so we can finally learn the truth about our past. The gods were just as bad about keeping information from the next generation of even their own pureblooded children as the Kra-ell are. I wonder if that has to do with cultural issues or if they both share such a shameful past that they prefer to keep it where it belongs?"

"Are any of the gods still around?"

"None of the original ones, but a few of their pureblooded children survived. The head of our clan is a goddess. Kian is her son, and he leads the American arm of the clan. There aren't many of us, but there is another group of immortals who are led by a god's son, and who have many thousands of warriors. We are not on good terms with them, and that's putting it mildly, but if the Kra-ell turn out to be a bigger threat than we anticipate, we might get those other immortals involved. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe having a mutual enemy would finally end the animosity between our two groups, although I doubt it. Our feud has been going on for thousands of years."

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