Delyse sighed and looked at Eric. He was tense beside her, and his golden eyes were switching from Willamar to Voinom, and back.
Councilor Harington spread his arms, as if to show he had no hidden cards up his sleeves. He came in peace.
“Dear colleagues and friends, we have to start trusting each other! We’re in this together! Humans have something shifters absolutely need to keep their species alive, and shifters can do things no human can. An antidote will only help the two groups meet half way. Humans and shifters can be on the same level. We all know our boarding schools were an acceptable compromise given the circumstances after the war, but are they still now, one hundred years later? The human brides we offer you have human lifespans. Think about it: how many brides will a wolf-shifter have if he lives 400-500 years? What about a bear-shifter? They live around 400 years, too, don’t they? Add the eagle-shifters to the equation, with their 350 years, and the fox-shifters, with their 200 years.”
Everyone was waiting for the conclusion. They had to admit, this argument was new, and they were curious to see where it led. Arthur Harington turned to the dragon-shifters in the room.
“Mr. Grimmr, care to remind us what the average lifespan of a weredragon is?”
Calder Grimmr was happy to comply: “It’s hard to tell, but let’s just say I’m nearing 3467 and I’m not the oldest dragon I know.”
“Thank you.” He turned back to the others. “Our shifter-brides understand the importance of the peace treaty and the clause which affects them directly, but it’s not right to leave them without a choice. There are special cases, of course, when the parents, or even the girl herself decides to attend a boarding school, but what about the ones who don’t have a word to say in the matter? What about the orphans the boarding schools usually buy from orphanages, or the girls who are sold by their parents themselves? For now, this system is a necessary evil, but maybe we can change some things by making it more bearable. Fair… By reducing the damage, so to speak. If my daughter, for example, becomes a hybrid, then she will have the lifespan of a dragon-shifter without ever having to shift, and without losing her gift of having children. What does that mean? Well, by my calculations, it means that her husband, Eric Drekinn, will not be forced to go through the pain of losing her, and will not have to buy another shifter-bride later. The same applies to all shifters: if their brides are hybrids, then they will finally get to enjoy life with a single mate, thus decreasing the need for new shifter-brides in the long run.”
Councilor Harington had a good point, and he knew it. It was the best, actually. Judging by the looks the people in the conference room gave him, they also knew it. He was patient while the councilors consulted their advisers and came up with questions. Of course, the first one was related to the offspring of a pure-blood shifter and a hybrid. How could Harington be sure the children would be one hundred per cent shifters? That was when Amelia came in, and she stood up to tell her story. She talked for twenty minutes straight, but at the end, no one was convinced. Yes, Amelia was a hybrid, but she was born that way. The child of a pure-blood vixen and a human male, she couldn’t shift and she barely had any of the abilities of a fox-shifter. Instead, she had given birth to two nine-tailed foxes, thus proving the legends were real. Amelia was a rare case. An extremely rare case, which did prove that hybrids weren’t against nature, but also reminded everyone that it was once in a thousand years that a shifter female could have children.
When Arthur Harington asked Avelyn and Max Blackmane to tell their story, the Council wasn’t pleased. Willamar asked for a break three times, and Voinom was so angry that he eventually started pacing the room. Max was his adviser, and he couldn’t believe there was more to the battle at Alma Venus, which had been three years before, and the trial after the battle. The Blackmanes had all lied then. They had refused to tell the Council that Avelyn had actually been bitten by Max’s ex-bride and had been in danger of losing her unborn baby. Harington’s cure saved her and the child, but that revealed that Harington had been working on his project and research illegally, after the Council had shut him down. It was all a mess, but Avelyn managed to make her point: if it weren’t for the antidote, she would have turned and lost her first born. Sabine Miller, Max’s ex-bride, would have attacked anyway, and Avelyn herself would have been turned against her will, which was against the peace treaty. The cure had given her and her son a solution. The only solution.
They took a break after that, then Councilor Harington asked Delyse to tell the Council how important a cure for the dragon venom was. Because she was his daughter, and a Donation, everyone listened to her carefully. It was hard not to when they were face to face with a young, beautiful, intelligent woman who was born in a wealthy family but given to Alma Venus so she would become the bride of a shifter and make a contribution to the peace. A contribution her wealth and status could have prevented her from making. Arthur Harington knew Lily would have the strongest impact on the audience. He wasn’t wrong.
“I will have children one day,” she said. “I don’t want them to see their mother grow old and die because she’s just a human. No one should go through something so terrible, and dragon-shifters have gone through it for thousands of years. It’s the reason for which so many of them have chosen to bury themselves underground and hibernate. Oblivion. After losing a mate, and then another mate, there’s nothing that can make you want to live. Immortality, or near immortality, is a burden. I can’t even begin to imagine.”
When she sat down, silence enveloped the room. No counterargument could ever be stronger than hers. Even trying to come up with one would have been an offense to this amazing woman who had come before them to take the side of a shifter faction. That was another thing which impressed them: Delyse hadn’t talked about the humans and their rights; she had talked about the dragons and their sufferings.
“In the end,” concluded Councilor Harington, “this isn’t about me, my research, my facilities, and about getting your votes so I could continue my work. This is about all of us. This is about our future. We can make it better, one step at a time. Now that I’ve proved to you that humans can be turned into hybrids with no side effects, I hope you will consider the advantages over the possible disadvantages or unpleasant consequences. It’s a risk, of course, but I believe it’s a risk worth taking.”
***
The Council decided to give the advisers a half an hour break so they could debate in peace and make a decision. Normally, the councilors would make all their decisions after consulting their advisers, but this time the situation was different. Dimitri Voinom wasn’t sure he wanted to see Karl and Max Blackmane ever again in his life. It was the second time the two werewolves were causing him huge trouble, and even more embarrassment. Amelia’s opinion was biased because she was a hybrid, and Delyse and Avelyn were her friends. The best idea was to ask all of them to kindly leave the conference room and give the councilors some time and space to think.
Delyse, Amelia, and Avelyn couldn’t be more pleased with the arrangement. Even though they were nervous about the votes, they immediately brightened up when they found themselves alone in the café downstairs, on the ground floor. Max had kissed Avelyn’s nose and told her to take the girls and have a coffee, and Eric had assured Delyse they would call them when it would be time to hear the votes. Amelia’s husband wasn’t there to watch her every step, and she was rather content to be on her own in London, her two children home, in Alaska, with Seth. She was also the only one who wasn’t just a shifter-bride anymore. She was the Alpha of Clan Sylfur now, a position she had earned through her devotion to Blake, who had been the initial Alpha, and through giving birth to the legendary nine-tailed foxes. Avelyn and Delyse did envy her a bit, but they both had their own achievements to be proud of. One thing was for sure: the Alma Venus brides rocked. It didn’t matter whom they were sold to, they always came up on top.
“I can’t believe you two already have children!” said Delyse. She studied Avelyn’s full curves, then Amelia’s more slender body. Her friends looked amazing.
“You must visit Schloss Blackmane,” said Avelyn as she sipped her coffee. “The boys are dying to meet my infamous friends.”
“Three boys… I don’t know how you’re still sane.” Amelia shook her head. “I have a girl and a boy, and they both drive me crazy.”
“Hey! You two better not scare me with your stories, because I want to have more than three children, okay?”
Amelia thought for a second. “Well, you might be the luckiest of us. Shifter pups have different personalities. My little foxes are so hyperactive and they ask so many questions about everything and anything, that I’m wiped most of the time. How about yours, Avelyn?”
“Wolf cubs are just as hyperactive, but they’re not very interested in asking questions. They just break stuff, experiment on everything… We had to change the TV in their room twice because they tried to see how it works.”
Delyse laughed. “And what makes you think baby dragons would be easier to deal with?”
“I don’t know…” Amelia shrugged. “Dragon-shifters are supposed to be noble and all. Maybe your children will be calmer, more patient, and less destructive.”
“Oh!” intervened Avelyn. “And once they learn how to fly, I doubt they’ll be interested in anything on the ground anymore. Your children will not break your TV, trust me.”
“They’ll probably break some windows, though,” Delyse pouted.
They all laughed out loud. Three years ago, they couldn’t have imagined meeting like this and talking about children. The conversation shifted easily to their husbands and their new friends. Delyse didn’t have much to tell them, and she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to start talking about Viggo and how she couldn’t get him out of her head even when Eric behaved nicely. Claudia was the only one who knew. If the Council decided to give her father’s project a go, then maybe she would become one of them… a hybrid… and she’d be independent enough to visit her friends whenever she wanted, and build a social life outside of Clan Drekinn. Maybe she was mistaken… she didn’t know. But she had this clear impression that Avelyn and Amelia were equal to their Alpha husbands because they were half shifters. Having the strength and keen senses of a shifter helped. They didn’t need their husbands to protect them at all times, and Max and Seth had no reason to obsess over spending every breathing moment with them because they were only humans and their time would be up at some point. To Delyse, finding a cure
to the dragon-shifter venom was like finding the Holy Grail.
They had five minutes left, but Avelyn decided there was enough time for apple pie, and Amelia didn’t contradict her. Delyse did throw a glance at her ridiculously expensive wrist watch, concerned Eric might get mad if they were late. Then she scolded herself for putting him first before her friends, and ordered pie. The conversation had died down, not because they didn’t have any more things to talk about, but because they had too many and there just wasn’t time to start on one.
“I miss Claudia,” Delyse said.