CHAPTER 78

Looking at her mum she saw the agony and recognition in Rosa’s stare. ‘Sorry I didn’t tell you, Mom, I wanted to do it on my own and I knew you’d try to dissuade me. ’

Rosa squeezed her hand. “Oh dear, honey. I realize that. I only wish you had felt you could share it with me. ”

Amelia thought for a few seconds and only said: “Yes,” and the tears appeared in her eyes again. Yes ‘I’ know, ‘I’ should have and that’s why it is important to listen to what a person has to say, whether it is true or not.

She looked at Elijah and still catching her breath, she saw that his reaction hadn't changed whatsoever and what she would find most shocking: disappointment or anger. What she saw instead caused her to experience palpitations in her chest. There was pure fury in the man's eyes as he clenched his jaws and fought hard not to lose his temper.

“You have no idea,” he told me, his voice a deep rasp, “how many individuals want you dead just because of who you are," he repeated, "You have no idea how many people I had to fight and go through for your sake, You have no idea how many sleepless nights I had to have because of you, and here you are saying you might leave," Elijah said

Everyone in the room stopped talking and the air could be cut with a knife. At this, Amelia let a shiver run down her spine, after listening to the words of Elijah.

‘What do you mean?’ she said quietly, almost in a whisper.

Elijah raked a hand through his hair and there was visible tension running through his entire body. But, Amelia you are not any hybrid; you are special; you are a werewolf mage hybrid, the first of them, and that makes a lot of people, some very dangerous, interested in you.

Amelia's mind reeled. She had been aware of the fact that she was special and different from the rest of the world all her life. But this?

‘But,’ she insisted, trying to find explanations, ‘why?’ ‘Why does she make me so important?’

It was Sarah who answered although there was something different in the way she spoke or rather the way she sounded. Hi, Amelia Let’s remember that you are a human. You carry your genes with you, which guarantee a set of possibilities you did not dare to dream of. They can be used to breed a race of enhanced Hybrids that could be controlled whatsoever.

It was as if the result that Amelia read had physically struck her. One more time she remembered the storming of the bookshop, the rush through the woods. But how many others were out there, stalking her?

‘I… I didn’t know,’ she uttered the last words in a very feeble manner. ‘I wanted to be as if I never existed and live a bland life and I was sure nobody would remember me. ’

Elijah’s laugh was unpleasant, it did not contain joy at all. ‘I don’t exist!?’ Amelia, let me continue from here I have been struggling in bitterness and in blood to shield you, to hide your existence from everyone . . . and you just stroll from the room and the life that we had built. ’

He sounded so disappointed, that Amelia winced, and she could not help but feel a twinge of guilt. ‘Elijah I said sorry I never intended to endanger anyone I just wanted–’

‘You wanted to feel normal’ He paused her right in her tracks. ‘Yes’ ‘But did you ever bother to ponder your decision and the impact that your decision would leave, for those who have your back?’

Rosa came to hers, blocking Amelia from Elijah. ‘No more,’ she snapped. “Elijah, I know you are annoyed with her but Amelia had no idea of what was going on: we did not tell her everything to spare her. ”

Elijah sighed and looked at Rosa with a look that was a little less hostile. “You are right,” he said and sighed profusely, “I am sorry for my yelling” He faced Amelia again and although he looked a bit worried, the gleam of anger was still visible in his eyes. ‘But you have to remember, that’s serious business, you have endangered many people, despite your motives being quite comprehensible. ’

She merely nodded, being aware of the fact that she now holds a lot of responsibilities towards him. “Believe me, I understand and for that, I am sorry I never wished for any of this to occur. ”

Silence impressed and then engulfed the room. Amelia surveyed the room, and could easily tell that everyone looked stressed and tired. These people – compatriots some of them friends and some strangers she had never met – had perished in her place. At the very least, she could do was confront it squarely.

“I want you to tell me everything,” she said raising her voice a little. In one hit, Duke says no more secret, no more half-truths; I need to know what I am and who wants me.

Elijah looked at Sarah and Bruce and he immediately knew what to do and nodded. Okay. It is okay with me but I would like to warn you it is one of the most ugly stories you will ever come across.

In the next hour, the look of rising indignation and horror on Amelia’s face was the only reward that Elijah got for his elaboration of the entire truth about her condition with little help and input from the others. She came to know of societies that aimed at using hybrid power, packs whom she was an intrusion that had to be eradicated, council of mages who wished to experiment with her as a guinea pig.

‘But why me?’ said Amelia when she caught her breath after Elijah stopped speaking. “Of course, there must be other hybrids,”

Bruce shook his head. “Not like you. ” Most times, hybrids are the offspring of a werewolf and a human. But you? Your father was a strong-boned Alpha and your mother. . .

Everyone looked at Rosa, and, rolling her eyes, she said, ‘For years, my ancestors were the mages,’ she said. "I was told about a great sacrifice and I couldn't bear it so I decided and left all that behind when I met your father, but the power … it’s still there in us. ”

Amelia’s mind went blank for a second having been given this rather shocking information. “Then what was I? Not just a werewolf who can do magic? I’m something …else. ”
‘You’re the link between three different worlds,’ Elijah whispered. It was the union of werewolf might and feral savagery with mage cunning and magic. And in the right pair of hands, that weapon-cum-creature could broker peace between were and mage. And, of course, in the wrong ones:

“I could start a war,” Amelia continued, although now she spoke almost in a whisper.

“I could start a war,” said Amelia, softly