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Close to two hundred people filled that room. Two hundred supernaturals, aligned to expose the supernatural world--
No, maybe I was wrong. I'd guessed these were the people behind the uprising, but my only proof was Sierra and Severin. No way could there be this many supernaturals already aligned in a plan that everyone with a brain knew was madness. It'd be a damned suicide cult.
Giles was still emoting as he paced the stage. "--long have supernaturals waited for this day. We have waited patiently because we knew it would come. The signs would appear. The signs foretold in the Phalegian Prophecy."
Phalegian Prophecy? I searched for a memory of such a thing. Sure, supernaturals had prophecies, like any other group. Predictions of the future written by some nut-job, then warped and stretched to fit a current situation. Proof the world was going to end.
Proof that it was time to reveal ourselves, though? I'd never heard of that one.
"The signs have been clear," he continued. "Signs that our day of revelation is coming." He paused for a cheer. "Signs that our day of dominance is coming." A bigger cheer now, so loud it made my ears ring.
Dominance? Seriously? What? Supernaturals are going to take over the world? Were these people idiots? I'd barely passed high school math, and I could do the calculations. Humans outnumbered us by tens of thousands to one.
"Now we prepare to put our plan in motion . . ."
What plan? Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?
"First, though, we must complete the gathering of the signs. Once we have them all, others will come. They will join our cause and unite to make this the kind of world supernaturals deserve. A world where we don't need to hide. Don't need to cower. Don't need to fear persecution. And why should we fear persecution? We are supernaturals. We are superior. This is our birthright and we will seize it now!"
As the crowd roared, the sarcasm bled from my thoughts. I stared out at that room and I saw the exhilaration and the anger, the pride and the resentment. I looked out there and I saw myself.
This was a force that could grow into something beyond our worst nightmares because it didn't matter how illogical the plan was. What these people felt was not logical. It was a hunger and hatred that boiled in their veins. I'd grown up with that hunger and that hatred--that desire to make my power felt--and even now, I felt the pull of it.
I heard that voice inside me that said I was special. I was superior. That voice that had screamed every time a teacher tried to tell me what to do. Every time any human tried to tell me what to do. A voice that had begged me strike them down, blast them with a spell, and show them exactly who they were dealing with.
Growing up meant coming to terms with that voice. Recognizing it for what it really was. Misplaced pride. I'd done nothing to earn my magic. I was born to it, like a princess is born to her crown. In a land without princesses, that didn't earn me jack-shit. I could rail against my fate or I could say that it was only right, that deed, not birth, should earn privilege.
That egalitarian view didn't come from inside me. It was learned from the examples of those I saw around me, mainly from Paige and Lucas. Had I continued to grow up in my mother's world of dark magic, I could be sitting in that audience, believing that humans were weaklings to be manipulated, conned, fleeced, then mocked over rounds at the pub.
Yet my mother's crowd wouldn't join this movement. These were the next generation, the ones still naive enough to think they could expose their secrets without consequence, fight humans without selfannihilation. All it might take was some mystical crap about the planets being aligned or signs coming to pass.
Speaking of signs, that's what Giles was emoting about now.
"--born of two werewolves, male and female. Not just any two werewolves, but bitten wolves. One infected as a mere child and somehow surviving where adults could not. Then he bites his lover, and she survives. The strength of these two individuals alone must be incredible, but to come together, their blood already joined, and bear children? Twins, a boy and a girl. As it is written in our prophecy."
Prophecy? Like hell. If this guy was telling these kids that Elena and Clay's twins fulfilled some kind of fucking prophecy--
"Those children are the genesis of a new breed of werewolves. Part of the next step in our evolution. But they are only one part of that step. We have seen more. One stands before you now. A hybrid of the two spellcasting races, equally adept at both kinds of magic. And she is not the last. There is another, born of witch and sorcerer, a child just coming into her powers now."
Another witch-sorcerer? No way. I would have heard of it. Just like I would have heard of this goddamned prophecy.
Rage boiled up in me as I looked out over those stupid, gullible faces. I wanted to scream at them, knock some sense into their empty heads.
I shifted and glowered, and fought to keep my mouth shut. Faces turned toward me. Only they didn't look up with the dawning realization that they were falling for the blather of a crazy man. When they saw my anger, they saw proof that Giles was right. I was furious because he'd discovered the truth.
I reined in the anger, forced myself to stand still and listen.
"Clairvoyants have attained the next step of evolution, too," he continued. "Locked away, deep in the recesses of the Nast Cabal, there is a child, born of two clairvoyants, one of such incredible power his own people kept him hidden from the world. Now the Nasts hide this child because they know the truth--he is but the first of a new breed of clairvoyants that the Cabals are hell-bent on controlling, as they control everything else in our world."
A grumble quaked across the room. A few people shouted things I didn't quite catch, but I'm sure it wasn't "Long Live the Cabals!"
"Even the half-demons are evolving," Giles continued. "A child of Lucifer is pregnant with a babe of her own, the first grandchild this lord demon will ever see. Its mother is the key to winning us what may be the most undeniable proof that the gods of evolution have chosen us--supernaturals--as their champions. Proof that resides in the deepest cells of yet another Cabal. The Cortezes."
That's why Roni had been so interested in Hope. Damn it, I had to get out of here and warn her. I had to warn them all.
As I looked around--yeah, like a portal was going to miraculously appear and whisk me away--I replayed Giles's words.
He'd said that Hope was the key to getting them proof of advanced evolution, something that the Cortezes were keeping hidden.
