“Someone was paying attention in history class,” Eddie taunted from behind us. Chayton made a rude gesture and kept going.
“Meri also imprisoned us, forced our kind into breeding experiments to try to create the perfect vessel for herself. The problem with stealing human hosts is that they never last long enough. Humans have needs that the higher races don’t. She needed a body that wouldn’t age, or be destroyed if she channeled too much power through it. We barely destroyed her before she succeeded.” He glanced around the room at the others. “The six of us fought beside each other in the war to end the Ultiori. It’s one of the reasons we’re so close. But it means we were also there at the end and got to witness our enemy’s death. It took nothing less than a god’s blood sacrifice to kill her. That sacrifice burned through the entire Bloodline, replacing Meri’s blood with the blood of the god. It was that divine blood that awakened the higher races blood you carry.”
“So you’re saying I’m the result of hundreds of years of experimentation. Am I one of them? An Ultiori?”
“Not just hundreds—thousands of years of experimentation. At least since the time of the Pharaohs in ancient Egypt when the six members of the Dragon Council were worshipped as gods. But no, you aren’t an Ultiori. There might be a few people who were part of Meri’s inner circle who survived, but the organization dissolved the second divine blood and a magic dagger erased Meri from existence.”
Tate let out a harsh curse that made me whip my head around. Gray was on his feet a second later, rushing to his friend, who stood at the shelf where most of the St. George family photos rested.
“You want to revise that answer?” Tate held up a framed photograph, jabbing a finger at one of the faces. Chayton rose, his brows furrowed, and went to look.
What in the world they could have seen in those old pictures was beyond me, but I went out of sheer curiosity.
Chayton took the photo from Tate and held it out. “Who the hell are you, April?”
I blinked and shook my head, looking at the photo that had been snapped more than twenty years ago, out on the rear deck of the house facing the Sound. My mom, my grandmother, and my grandmother’s close friend and colleague, Adele, all sat on the benches that lined the rails. Next to Mom sat Dad holding an angelic, curly-haired toddler in his arms. Me at around age three.
All six of the men stared at me like I was some kind of monster. Gray mostly looked disappointed and confused, but the rest were downright pissed, and I had no idea why. I suddenly felt like I was on trial, and I didn’t even know what I’d done.
“Guys, please. What am I supposed to see? It’s just my family. I don’t even remember when that photo was taken.”
Gray reached for the photo and pointed at my grandmother’s old friend, Adele, a strikingly beautiful woman with long, dark hair. “I missed it earlier, but now I know why this picture caught my eye. This woman was the leader of the Ultiori at the end. This is Meri.”
22
Tate
Despite the alarm bells clanging in my head over this discovery, my arms itched to embrace April when her world began to crumble.
It began with a small shake of her head, a whispered denial, but I was sure the others could see as well as I could when she first questioned what she knew as the truth. I wasn’t clear on many of those details beyond what Gray had shared, but clearly, she’d been left out in the dark about a lot.
“This can’t fucking be true. How could Dad never say anything? And my mother… Was she part of the Ultiori too? Was Adele the reason why Mom left us? Fuck, I think I’m going to be sick.”
She wrapped her arms around her midsection and slunk back to the sofa, plopping down and grabbing the bottle of vodka. I winced, seeing where this was headed, and strode to her, pulling the bottle away before she could swallow more than a shot.
“I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you had nothing to do with that woman,” I said, settling beside April and resting a hand on her back.
Stuart moved to sit on the hassock in front of her and leaned on his knees, looking into her abnormally pale face. “I’m sorry we jumped to conclusions,” Stuart said. “You were clearly just a baby in that photo. But do you have any memory of that time? Do you know anything about Adele Waters?”
She shook her head. “No, but if Dad were here he’d know. Grandma passed away, then Mom disappeared not long after that photo was taken. But there’s a whole fucking pile of signs around this place suggesting Mom’s been alive all this time. Even though I was told she’d died five years ago and deeded this property to me. Someone built that entire fucking studio for me within the last five years.”
“Guys, take a look at this.” Chayton slipped back into the armchair he’d been in earlier and leaned forward. He held the same photo in his hand, without the frame, turning it over to point out the writing on the back.
“Three generations of St. George women, plus friends, Andrew Vincent and Adele Waters, May 1993.”
“Does the name ring a bell?” Chayton asked.
“We already know Adele Waters was Meri’s alias. She always assumed the lives of her victims once she took over their bodies,” Gray said.
“No, the other name. St. George.” When the others just gave him blank looks he shook his head. “This may as well say two generations of Meri’s meat suits. April’s grandmother was Adele’s predecessor. She led the Ultiori in that body until around twenty years ago, which would have coincided with Adele’s time here with you. My guess is that Meri groomed Adele to be her host so she’d have one ready to go when your grandmother’s body wore out. What do you know about your grandmother, April?”
“Oh, wow.” April sat back and scrubbed her hands over her face. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glossy, though I guessed it was more from the vodka than the overwhelming emotions at this point. “Grandma was someone important. I mean, look at this place—she had money. She was the director of some fancy research institute. Alcatraz something?”
Putting the pieces together, I let out a curse. “The Alexandria Institute. Meryl St. George was the director for several decades. I remember now. When I was a guardian at the Windchaser portal, we’d receive files on the most wanted Ultiori every month. Meryl was at the top of the list for years. Then it was Adele. And this woman…” I pointed at the third woman, who had short, curly brown hair and an athlete’s physique.
“My mother. Cassandra,” April said.
“She was in the files too, but nobody knew her name, just her face. She was pretty high up the list, right there with Marcus, Naaz, and Sterlyn, the deadliest of all the Ultiori soldiers.”
“The Elites,” Chayton muttered. “I’m fucking glad they’re on our side now.”
April didn’t look comforted. “Was my mother one of these Elites?”
“We only ever knew of three. The Elites were soldiers with particularly strong concentrations of power thanks to their origins. They were all dragon-blessed as babies in their mothers’ wombs.”
“It’s a nice way of saying their moms all banged a dragon while they were pregnant,” Murdoc chimed in, then let out a sharp oof when Stuart whacked him in the center of his stomach.