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He had sworn to me that I would love him one day. Deep down, I was terrified that day would come far sooner than it should. “I haven’t been locked away. He puts effort into my care. He’s taken time to educate himself for my benefit. He even brought you into his home to help remedy a mistake. I can respect and appreciate those things. Considering our history, that is sufficient for now.”
Chuckling, Miranda pulled a face. “Idealistic and magnanimous—no wonder he’s madly taken with you.”
I felt like I’d been slapped.
“Why are we not on the same side in this?” My sisters at the academy would’ve never actively worked against the betterment of the whole.
She clicked her tongue, shaking her head at me. “You misunderstand. I am your greatest supporter. As someone who is much older and far wiser, I have knowledge that has yet to fit into your innocent noodle. But one thing I will not tolerate is self-delusion.”
Eager to say her piece, Miranda continued, “You’re confused by your feelings. He’s claimed you against your will, and you woke up to find your personal demon is now all affection and sweetness. How could you possibly fit the two extremes into one character? He has given you liberties few hybrid females have ever known, promised you support to confront his comrades’ exploitation of unmated females.” Her eyes narrowed. “The same man who executed a boy caught out of the dorms in a private math lesson with a little Lorieyn, who was only intent on saving him from failing and subsequent execution.”
Miranda brushed it off like it was nothing, gesturing at my tight expression. “Yes, he told me that you have refused the truth of the matter. Private Cullen—was that his name?—confessed he intended to assault you. It is Cyderial’s duty to mete out punishment, and considering the boy was only hung and not ripped limb from limb, I would say he was even temperate. But you refuse to see what was done was done out of necessity, and even done well. My mate would have gutted the boy and rolled around in the viscera. I may have been served his hearts for dessert.”
Commenting on an experience she had not lived fueled my antagonism. “You think that is the only issue between us? You told me to get on my knees and please him for your cause.” I was angrier about her inferences than I realized, my tone very unfriendly. “You expected this of me, knowing he raped me days before!”
Eyebrows waggling, Miranda pursed her lips. “And you are still angry that he forced you into a bond you didn’t ask for. Let’s talk about that, shall we? For years, you manipulated your test scores in hopes you’d be assigned the position of surveyor.” Looking to the engrossed women watching us spar, she said, “Our little dove here craves the fog, an eager explorer hellbent on self-destruction.” Then those terrible green eyes came right back to me. “When Cyderial denied your graduation and confronted you about the deception, you took matters into your own hands. Armed with a fragment of misinformation, you snuck out of the academy, seeking any male to ruin you, under the impression that once it was done, there would be no barrier between yourself and the position you desired so greatly.”
Wagging a finger at me, she spilled my secrets to every woman watching. “But things did not go as you thought they would. You didn’t know how men would behave. Several pursued you and your foolish cohort across the city in a mad rampage. You ran home to the academy for shelter. You ran right to the very man who must have aged a thousand years to learn you somehow slipped his trap. He almost lost you.”
Tilting her head as if considering it all from a new angle, Miranda sighed. “Cyderial waited all those years, urging you to choose the list, so he might court you properly. Yet, he was compelled to clip your wings before you hurt yourself. You forced him to act. Yes, he raped you, but only because you played your hand and lost.”
I had lost. I had lost everything and gained a life I didn’t know how to handle. “And if I had known the truth of men, I would have come up with a different plan. I had no useful concept of sex or the repercussions.”
Her finger came out to boop my nose, the woman obviously unafraid of any reaction I might have. “And that right there is why the men will not support educating the females about sex. We’re too wily when we’re free of a bond. They want to keep us in a little fishbowl and pluck us out when we’re old enough to breed, not instruct us on how to evade them.”
“It’s wrong!” I snarled, an aggressive rumble breaking free of my chest.
The drumming was pure threat and purely unintentional. Catching myself on a choking swallow, I put my hands to my chest as if I might hold back the offensive noise, saying, “Forgive me.”
Several of the women at the table had shifted away, looking at me as if I were a vorec toeing the fog and looking to charge. But not Miranda.
She appeared only impressed. “I forgive you, but turn around and give your mate a wave,” Miranda said, cocking her chin at the male who was no doubt glowering at my back. “You clearly do not realize you are dangerous or that your reactions are currently being cataloged by a man who will never forget a single frown you make. We do not want Cyderial coming down on us or our mates. And he will, if you do that again. Your sweetheart is a very somber fellow. Keep him calm, please.”
Peering over my shoulder, I found not only Cyderial but every last male staring right at me, tense as if ready to spring. All of them unblinking and hyper-focused.
Forcing a smile, I gave him a wave.
Cyderial measured me a good while before nodding. When he looked away, the males followed his lead in perfect sync, conversation starting up again as if nothing untoward had taken place.
“They are strange creatures, aren’t they?” Miranda murmured, watching the same display. “Beautiful, yet far more vorec than human. Sometimes they remind me of a school of fish in their uniformity. But a school of fish cannot wreak the same kind of devastation a single untethered hybrid male can. When they have a mind to work as one, even we can’t stop them.”
And that was the root of our suffering, wasn’t it? “I don’t understand them at all. Their need to control us causes harm.”
Abandoning my observation of the men, I gave them my back and settled into my chair.
Miranda waited, chin on her knuckles and a knowing curl of her lip. “I think you understand him perfectly.”
If he were reduced down to the drive to fuck, feed, and breed a mate, perhaps I did. But he was a complex person and so much more than sheer animal drive. “He gives me the illusion of control when I have none. That, I know.”
It was as if I was finally understanding her point, Miranda lighting up as she nodded. “Except, you have control over one thing and one thing only.”
I took a sip of my drink, calming my breath and waiting for the relaxing effect I had been promised would kick in. “Children?”
Nodding in agreement, the old woman said, “You want to get your way? Let’s see how you can do it. We know General Thayer heard your friend Maeve’s song. He’s already registered the intended mating. That is one who may support you if you sell your friend to him. The mated males will not hear you at all. But what about the other unmated males?” Miranda popped her lips. “If you want their support, you will have to give them a reason to take on the risk. Remember, they don’t want their little princesses vulnerable to the attentions of another.”
Countering, I said, “I’m only asking to teach them about sex, not to let them run around the city. They would still be locked away… for now.”
Valentyna spoke up at my side. “My duty is to catalog hybrid lineages, which gives me access to certain information. There is a subsection of older males who have had terrible luck with the list of available females. Each of them shares a common vorec ancestor that has only produced male hybrids. The female embryos created from that vorec’s genetics were highly unstable, resulting in zero live births. Your genetic code was labeled as coming from a different source, but I have looked over your DNA. Markers of that vorec are there. I believe your mother’s egg must have been impregnated with mislabeled sperm. Your genetics adapted in the womb and, through some miracle, you made it to term. The first healthy female born of that line.”
