Quinton gives a nonchalant shrug. “Alexei will no doubt assume we have moved Michael to one of the laboratories for testing. He has never tolerated the incarceration of his own, and the Anlu’kyr will most definitely consider a half breed their own.”

My breath catches. Is he talking about me?

Flanagan’s rumble echoes through the room. “Speak plainly, Councilor.”

Quinton’s smile gives the impression he’s won his own secret competition. “Young Michael is not, and has never been, a servant of the prince. He is what he professes to be, a new Channeler, three months into his ability and innocent of your suspicions. The blood tests have simply exposed his heritage. The prince awoke Michael’s latent Anlu’kyr DNA.”

“What?” I push off the shelf to step toward Quinton, but Flanagan stops me with a hand on my chest. “That’s bullshit,” I fire at them both. “Your tests are bullshit. I’m not half bloodsucker. I’m human.” I shove Flanagan’s hand away and throw him a warning glare.

“I’m afraid not, Michael,” Quinton says. “In fact, when we sequence your DNA, I suspect we will find more variance. Maybe another species. I suspect you to be hardly human at all.”

“Hardly hu—” I can’t even finish the words.

“I’m sure you have always been stronger than your peers, even before your latent DNA was roused. Able to jump higher, run faster, heal far more quickly. You are twenty-six, and yet you appear to have barely entered your twenties. You are far more than human, and I think it is something you have always suspected but did not have the understanding to verbalize.”

I reach back to grasp the shelf again, needing its solidity to keep myself upright. I’m shaking my head, but the man is right. I’ve always been stronger and faster, different. Not massively but enough to be noticeable. It’s how I won all those martial arts competitions. Why I was once accused of steroid abuse. And yeah, I did wonder when the aging process would finally hit me, if I was destined to spend the rest of my life with the face of an eighteen-year-old. I told myself it was good genetics.

But part vampire? Hardly human? Yeah, I can safely say that explanation never occurred to me.

“So my parents were what? Vampires?”

“I suspect one of your parents was Anlu’kyr, possibly a turned Channeler. The other is quite the mystery.”

One of my parents was a bloodsucker? Well, fuck me. And I thought this day couldn’t get any worse. Would that be the reason they were murdered?

Flanagan watches Quinton with narrowed eyes. “What are you not saying?”