Page 68 of Dark Gambit: The Play

Turner was a brilliant man, but his social skills were even worse than Kian's, and he surely hadn't realized how dismissive that had sounded.

She wasn't an official member of the council, but Kian didn't do anything without consulting her, and she knew everything that was going on, security-wise as well as business-wise. Kian trusted her opinion, mainly because she didn't express it unless she had something to contribute, and also because her second sight gave her a paranormal advantage.

She wasn't always aware of its influence, and sometimes it was difficult for her to tell the difference between things that her mind conjured up and things that her foresight was trying to hint at. The best example of that were the Kra-ell. She'd created a fantasy world for the Perfect Match studios with creatures called the Krall, thinking that it was a product of her creative imagination, but as it had turned out, it had foreshadowed the appearance of the real Kra-ell, a divergent species of new Earth occupants who most likely had come from the same corner of the universe as the gods.

"Bridget will be here in a few minutes." Turner returned the phone to his pocket.

"Wonderful." She motioned for him to take a seat at the dining table. "Can I offer you some coffee while we wait?"

"Yes, please. Thank you."

"Black, right?"

He gave her a smile. "I'm honored that you remembered."

Syssi laughed. "Coffee is my thing. I remember everyone's preferences."

"You remember every kind of preference." Kian walked into the dining room and pulled her into his arms. "You care, and you pay attention. That's why you remember. I bet you know what Turner likes to eat as well."

That was true and kind of odd. Generally, her memory wasn't great, and unless she made a conscious effort to remember a person's name and attached some visual mnemonic to it, she would forget it almost as soon as she'd learned it, but she remembered personal things about people without putting any effort into it.

"That's easy. Turner is competing with Roni for the title of the best barbecuer in the village. Ribs are his favorite."

"They are." Turner rubbed his stomach. "But lately, I’ve discovered that baking them in the oven is better than barbecuing them. I cover them with foil and bake them on low heat for a couple of hours. They turn out delicious."

As the doorbell rang, Okidu beelined for the front door and opened it for Bridget. "Good morning, Doctor."

"Good morning, everyone." She gave Okidu a small smile before walking over and joining them at the table. "I planned on catching up on some work while Victor was gone, but I couldn't refuse an invitation to breakfast cooked by Okidu." She turned to him. "Are you serving your famous Belgian waffles?"

Okidu straightened to his full height of five feet and eight inches. "But of course, mistress."

"Wonderful." Bridget unfurled the napkin and draped it over her knees. "I spoke to Marcel earlier." She turned to Kian. "Did you speak with him?"

"He sent me a message earlier, but it was marked as not urgent, and I didn't have a chance to call him back yet. Is there a problem?"

Bridget hesitated for a moment. "Usually, I don't like to discuss health concerns that clan members ask my advice about, but since Marcel's questions could be construed as general in nature, and they are relevant to what we are about to discuss, I feel that I should. Marcel asked me whether a human child born to a hybrid Kra-ell mother and a human father would be a Dormant who could be activated."

Kian frowned. "Didn't we conclude that the Kra-ell Dormants couldn't be activated?"

Bridget pursed her lips. "According to Emmett and Vrog, hybrid females don't produce children with humans. The Kra-ell philosophy is to choose the best possible male to father their offspring, so naturally, they choose pureblooded males to impregnate them. They might dally with humans out of curiosity, though. Since we assumed that their longevity is passed through the mothers, we concluded that children born to hybrid males and human females didn't possess the longevity gene. Based on Emmett and Margaret's sexual history, we also knew that a hybrid Kra-ell male could not activate an immortal Dormant female. Sofia is a rarity. She's the daughter of a hybrid female. The question we need to ask her is whether she had sex with any of the purebloods or the hybrids, and if she did, then we will know that they can't activate their Dormants. That still leaves the possibility that our males can do that."

Syssi frowned. "Hold on. We also know that the pureblooded females don't have sex with humans, so the hybrid females are the product of pureblooded males and human mothers. How would the longevity gene get passed? It should end with the hybrid daughters."

"Not necessarily." Bridget leaned back in her chair. "We made the mistake of thinking of the purebloods as equivalents of immortals, when in fact they are the equivalent of gods, and if that's so, both the males and the females pass on the longevity genes."

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Syssi shook her head. "If the purebloods are genetically equivalent to the gods, they are a much more primitive version. If the two societies interacted, I bet the Kra-ell were treated as second class."

"Again, not necessarily," Turner said. "We suspect that the gods were experts in genetic manipulation. They might have created the Kra-ell to serve them as workers and soldiers. The Kra-ell are physically stronger than the gods, they produce many more males than females, and they live by a code of honor that celebrates death in battle as the ultimate achievement. They are the perfect warriors."

"They might have taken an existing species and altered it." Syssi shivered. "They were far from the benevolent creatures they tried to portray themselves as."

Kian chuckled. "We already know that. But I still think that the Kra-ell are just a more primitive form of the gods, not their creation. The gods wouldn't have given them such incredible power of compulsion."

Syssi shook her head. "Most of the Kra-ell have a very limited ability to compel, and it's possible that the original species had it before the gods altered their genetics. Perhaps some are just born with a stronger ability. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that they were created by the gods to serve them."