Page 83 of Dark Gambit: The Play

In fact, she seemed upset.

"Do you live even longer than the purebloods?" she asked.

He nodded. "Emmett and the other hybrids assume that the average lifespan for the purebloods is about a thousand years. Is that what you were told as well?"

She nodded. "No one knows how long the hybrids will live. The oldest in our compound is about eighty." She let out a breath. "I still don't understand why you are telling it to me now. Is it because I'm not going back, and you are tired of telling me stories?"

Perhaps when he got to the point and told her the real reason, she would cheer up.

Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles. "What if I told you that I can make you live at least as long as the hybrids?"

Her eyes widened. "How?"

"That requires a bit of an explanation, so bear with me." He took in a breath. "When the gods took human partners, their children were born immortal. However, when those immortals grew up and took human partners, their children were born human."

"It's the same for the Kra-ell. My mother is a hybrid, but I'm a human."

He smiled. "I'm not done. They later discovered that the children born to immortal females still carried the godly genes, and that those genes could be activated with an immortal male's venom. We produce it in response to two triggers, and the composition of the venom depends on the type of trigger. One is arousal, which makes us produce less potent venom that does all those wonderful things like orgasms and euphoric trips, and the other trigger is aggression, which produces a potent venom that is potentially deadly because it can stop an immortal's heart. Both types can activate the dormant genes. We use the one produced by arousal to activate females, and the one produced by aggression to activate males."

Sofia shook her head. "The Kra-ell don't have venom. They use their fangs to suck blood. That's what they eat."

"Actually, they do have venom, and it has similar properties to ours in that it makes the bite pleasurable and has healing properties. But since it's produced in much smaller quantities, it can't activate Dormants, not immortal Dormants anyway. But we suspect that our venom can activate Kra-ell Dormants, which means that I might be able to activate your longevity genes."

Sofia's hand flew to her mouth. "Am I going to grow fangs?"

He laughed. "You might. But the important part is that you might live a thousand years or even longer, become stronger and faster, and all the other good things that the Kra-ell hybrids enjoy."

For a long moment, she gaped at him in stunned silence. "Do the Kra-ell know about you?"

Marcel shook his head. "We don't think they know we even exist, and we would like to keep it that way. But if we liberate Igor's compound, our secret will be out. Not only that, if I manage to activate your dormant genes, the Kra-ell will have a big incentive to either cooperate with us so we can activate their Dormants or try to use us to propagate their species. Since we are compatible, our females can provide them with immortal offspring, and our males can activate their second-generation hybrids who are born to hybrid mothers."

"Why just the mothers?"

"The longevity is passed through the mothers. Compulsion ability seems to be passed by the fathers for reasons we are not clear on."

Leaning back, Sofia closed her eyes. "How many times have you bitten me?"

"Twice. Usually, it takes several bites for the transition to start. I didn't know that you had Kra-ell blood in you. It only occurred to me that you might be a Dormant after you told me that your mother was a hybrid. We knew that the Kra-ell couldn't activate their second generation with humans, and we also knew that a hybrid Kra-ell male couldn't activate one of our dormant females. It took me a little while to go through the mental exercise and realize that maybe I could induce your transition. Once I did, I knew that I couldn't keep biting you and having unprotected sex with you without obtaining your consent to induce you. It's a monumental decision, and it needs to be yours."

"What does unprotected sex have to do with anything? I'm on birth control."

"Our doctor believes that insemination boosts the power of the venom. Most of what we know about how it works is by trial and error." He chuckled. "I think that the geneticists who engineered us made it in such a way that the catalysts would remain a mystery."

Sofia looked puzzled. "What are you talking about? Who engineered you?"

"Not me specifically. We speculate that the gods engineered themselves, humans, and other species."

"That's a lot of speculation and very little proof."

"I know. We hope that Jade will be able to tell us more."

"Is that why you are willing to help free her?"

Marcel rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. The conversation wasn't going the way he'd hoped, and he needed to get it back on track.

"As I said before, I'm not the one making those kinds of decisions. Let's get back to the issue at hand. You need to decide whether you want me to try to induce you or not."

"What's to decide?"