“Any link between the two?”
“You could probably say so, yes. Your Atlantis was a world of perfect people. They were strong, intelligent, and beautiful. Atlanna wants that, too.”
I blinked over at him. “She thinks to make babies that can conquer the world?”
“No, nothing like that. Her desires run toward creating a perfect race of children she can sell. She does not have money like I do. Perfection always gains top dollar, does it not?” With a satisfied nod, he lifted the fresh stack of paper and eased beside me on the couch. Our knees brushed, causing that ever-present hunger to renew, white-hot and intense.
His eyes lifted, beseeching mine. “Are you ready for the entire truth?”
“Of course.”
“When you learn what I know, you will be faced with a decision. A decision I am not sure you are prepared to make.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” I said. I doubted whatever it was I needed to decide would be difficult. “You know that firsthand.”
A smile played at the corner of his mouth. The very mouth that had kissed and tormented me—in reality and in my dreams.
“That I do,” he said.
“I will always fight for what is good and right.”
“Do you swear this?”
“Do not question my honor, Kyrin. I said I will and I will.”
He uttered a resolved sigh. “Very well. I only pray you recall those words,” he said, handing me a newspaper clipping.
The headline read:
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD
I read the story and frowned. A human New Britain woman had been discovered dead in an abandoned house. She’d recently had a baby, though the infant had never been found. Suspected cause of death: poison.
I glanced at the picture of her in the top right corner. A picture of how she’d looked before her death. She’d been very pretty, with short dark hair and wide brown eyes. A young woman, probably no more than twenty-five, who looked like she had many years of happiness ahead of her.
“Notice the date,” Kyrin instructed.
I did, and my lips pursed. March 17. But this was dated twenty-nine years ago.
Kyrin handed me another clipping. Same story. Different woman. Different day. Same year.
He handed me yet another.
And another.
And another.
All of the women had disappeared within the same year, all possessed dark, glossy hair and brown eyes, and all were killed by some sort of poison and found nine to thirteen months later, their bodies still distended from recent pregnancy. Not a single baby had been found.
The similarities between these cases and the current cases were staggering. Yes, my victims were men—well, other than Rianne Harte—but each male had dealt with some aspect of fertility. “Did Atlanna kill these women, too?” As the three-hundred-year-old Kyrin proved, Arcadians aged at a much slower rate than humans.
He nodded.
“We might have never learned about her activities if she’d just hidden the bodies. Instead, she places them outside like gifts.”
“I don’t know why she wanted these women to be found. I only know she used William Steele to draw A.I.R.’s attention.”
My brow crinkled, and I fought through a haze of confusion. “Why would she want our attention?”
“I’ll get to that in a moment. Rianne was helping Atlanna, giving her names of the men who fit their needs. When I realized this, I went to Rianne and paid her to stop. That’s why she was doing it, for the money, so she was more than willing to take mine instead.”
I jerked a hand through my hair. “I’m sure Atlanna could have made more money by selling Arcadian children to humans. I don’t understand why she used humans.”
He paused. “The babies were half of each race, Mia.”
I blinked, shook my head. I hadn’t expected such an answer. “It’s not possible to merge alien and human DNA. Our scientists have tried. Many times. They never succeeded.”
“It is possible,” he said darkly. “Atlanna discovered a way. For these women, though,” he said, lifting the newspaper articles, “the process was not yet perfected, and they died as a result.”
“And the babies?” I asked, my throat filling with a hard knot.
Sadness and shame flickered across his features. He turned away from me. “They died, as well. When they emerged from the birth canal, their bodies craved both Onadyn and oxygen. The two worked against each other.”
I clasped his jaw in my hands and forced him to face me completely. My hands were trembling. “Tell me how you know this.”
His shame cresting, he reached up and curled his fingers around my hands, holding me there. He tugged my wrists to his mouth, kissed the soft inner flesh, lingering over my tattoo.
“I was there,” he said, a torrent of remorse in his voice. “I helped her.”
I gave no outward reaction. A part of me had been prepared for such a response from him. I’d known he was involved somehow, that he needed to atone for something, but I hadn’t truly expected to hear he’d helped Atlanna.
“Why?” Had he said anything else, I would have told him to get over himself. To stop acting like a martyr. He’d killed. So what? “Why would you do that?”
“I thought I was doing such a wonderful thing. Something miraculous for both our worlds, something that would bring complete harmony between our people. Halflings would be accepted by earthlings. I never meant to hurt those women. Never meant for the babies to suffer. When I realized the babies couldn’t survive, I fought Atlanna every step of the way.”
“Please don’t tell me you hoped to sell the kids too.”
“No. I would die before I sold a child. Any child. What I did, I did for my people.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I have to make this right. Atlanna has to be destroyed.”
I agreed 100 percent. “The experiments failed. So why would she now abduct dark-haired, dark-eyed male humans?”
“Such coloring is the opposite of the Arcadians and revered by our kind. That is what Atlanna deems perfect. That is what Arcadians would pay the most to possess since she’s trying again to make the halflings.”
“I want hard evidence of her culpability,” I said. “Evidence I can take to my superiors. That way we can devote all our manpower to finding and killing her.”
Grim, he shoved to his feet and stalked to the hearth. There, he lit a fire, and the flames soon crackled and grew, filling the room with the crisp essence of pine. I waited, silent, not pushing for a response. He was struggling inside himself, so for once I showed patience.
“I have what you need,” he said, as if he hadn’t kept me at the edge of the chaise in suspense. “I have proof of her actions.”
At his words, a sense of foreboding claimed me—sank razor-sharp talons into me. I swallowed hard, knowing what he was going to say, and it didn’t require psychic abilities.
Perhaps I had always known.
I prayed that my instincts were wrong. But they never were.
Slowly, he turned and faced me. “You, Mia. You are the proof. You are a halfling, not quite human, not fully alien either.”
CHAPTER 18
I calmly rose from my seat, my face devoid of emotion as I walked to Kyrin. One moment I didn’t know what I was going to do, the next I was raising my hand and slapping him with all the strength I possessed.
His head whipped to the side, and he rubbed at his lip with his fingers. “Did you do that because you know I’m right, or because you hope to make me withdraw the truth?”
My eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “You’re contradicting yourself, Kyrin. A few minutes ago, you said all the babies died.”
“No, I said none of the babies born to the human women survived.”
I hit him again, using my fist this time and cutting his skin. The wound quickly healed. Violence churned inside me every time he opened his mouth. My ears rang as blood rushed to my head.
“The man you know as your father truly is your father. But the woman you knew as your mother is no blood relation at all. You are one of Atlanna’s experiments, born to an Arcadian female. This experiment worked only once. We did not understand at the time how we achieved success with you; we only knew that your birth destroyed the woman’s womb, and she was unable to conceive again.” He gripped my shoulders, forcing me to hold his gaze, to face the truth. “Until now, that is. She has found a way to duplicate the procedure, and she is using human men to impregnate her Arcadian women.”
“Halflings do not exist, therefore I am not a halfling. I—”
“You have psychic abilities,” he said, cutting off my words. A steely determination reflected within the darkening purple luminance of his gaze.
“Many humans do,” I countered.
“You are able to track and kill aliens other hunters never find.”
“I work hard.” My awkward attempt to convince myself of the impossibility of this seemed like nothing more than wasted breath.
“I saw the way you moved that day, when Atlanna attacked us.” He growled low in his throat, a sound of deep frustration, and shook me once, twice. “What will it take to prove your origins?”
I had no answer for him. I didn’t know what would convince me when I didn’t really want to be convinced. I’d spent so many years of my life hating other-worlders. Hunting them. Killing them. To be one of them…to be all that my father hated…
But what else explained how I’d slowed down the world as I myself had sped up? What else explained how I’d drawn that beer bottle to me without touching it? What else explained how I had shattered those door hinges with merely a gaze?
I pressed my lips together as another thought swept through me. In my vision about Dallas, I’d seen one alien and one human. I’d thought Isabel was the alien and I the human. I’d thought—Bile rose in my throat. Oh my God.
Kyrin covered his face with his hands. “I tried to defeat Atlanna myself, all those years ago,” he said. “I tried. And I failed. Her power for mind control surpasses even Lilla’s. I’ve known since the first man disappeared that I cannot face her alone, so I’ve done little things to hinder her. I spoke to the men, befriended them. Warned them. That didn’t slow her down. I knew I needed you. You can defeat her. Power churns inside you, churns as deeply and aggressively as an ocean storm, and you have only to reach inside yourself to find it.”
My teeth ground together. “How do you know this?”
“I sense it. Just as you sense my power whenever I walk into a room. But more than that, you…you are Atlanna’s daughter.”
“You lying fucking bastard,” I spat. Maybe I could accept being a halfling. Maybe. What I could not accept was being related to a monster like Atlanna. How dare he even utter those words.
He grabbed hold of my wrists, preventing me from striking him. “You are Atlanna’s daughter,” he repeated. “Your powers are as numerous and great as hers.”
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up.”
“I do not know how you came to live with your father when Atlanna meant to raise you. I only know that Atlanna followed you here. And so, too, did I.”
Violently I shook my head in denial. “No—”
“Yes. Your father knows this to be true. You have only to ask him.”
Hate the aliens, Mia, my dad always said. Despise them. They are responsible for all our troubles.
“No!” I shouted.
“Deep inside, you know the truth.” His voice was so gentle yet held the dangerous power of a whirlwind.
He strode to a locked safe where he murmured a single command, the word unfamiliar to me. The safe door creaked open, and he withdrew a silver chain and locket. “Every Arcadian possesses one of these. A kalandra, we call them. Inside the center, they showcase a beloved moment in our lives. Sometimes the moment has happened, sometimes it has yet to happen. Here is yours.”
Mine? The color drained from my face as he approached me. Dangling the chain from his finger, he reached toward me. I pinched it between my fingers and held it from view. I wasn’t ready to look. I kept my gaze on him. “How did you get this?” I asked.
“You have seen how quickly I move.” He gave me a wry smile. “Need I say more?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No.”
I continued to hold the necklace away from me. I sat there, gathering my courage, battling a twisted mountain of turmoil. I blinked, gulped. Just do it.
With a deep breath in, I dragged my gaze from Kyrin, from the far bookshelf, to my fingers. I focused on the locket—and almost sighed in relief. The locket was round and appeared to be nothing more than a small, clear ball. My lips were edging in a mocking smile when I realized something was moving inside. I intensified my study.
I gasped. In holographic detail, I watched a woman with braided white hair gently rock a bundled infant in her arms. Humming softly—I could actually hear her—she faced the baby. Her profile was the image of mine. Slightly sloped nose, high cheekbones. Full lips.
“Mia,” she said to the infant, her voice lyrical and soothing. “You are my perfect angel.”
I’d seen her before. In my dreams…at the parking lot shootout.
“That woman is Atlanna,” Kyrin told me, “and she is holding you.”
My fingers tightened around the locket, blocking the image. That didn’t keep the woman’s voice from fading from my ears. You are my perfect angel. With my free hand, I covered my mouth.
Atlanna.
My mother.
Color drained from my face, and a rush of dizziness swept inside my head.