Page 257 of Shifting Hearts 1
I scoffed the same time as Morgan had.
“Varcolacs are just a dumb myth,” she said, voice low. “Made up by people too weak to endure this life.”
She shook her head, sorrow in her eyes. “They’re as real as you and I.”
Morgan gaped.
“Oh, come on, Blaze. You saw it with Sonia. That wolf confessed in his dying moments. He had no choice, lock pass, remember? Sonia was his. With Jericho, I think his father was a vampire, mother a wolf. Vampire women can’t bear children,so I don’t know how they met. He never told me. But Varcolacs exist. Not that different from us. Not that different from werewolves either.”
“Are you sure?”
“Jericho was one.”
Morgan blinked, trying to digest it. “Okay then tell me this: if your love was so magnificent, why did he try to kill you?”
“He discovered something in my past.”
I grunted, frustration rising. “Tell her the truth. I can’t stand the lies anymore.”
Her voice trembled. “I didn’t want him to find out but he did.” Sadness and desperation filled her eyes. Pathetic, just like Morgan. “Please, don’t ask me what it was. My past is ugly, Blaze. One I’m not proud of.”
Morgan nodded slowly. “And he tried to kill you?”
“I deserved it.”
“It was in your past,” she pressed. But it was a lie, she was still using it.
“A past I should’ve shared. I didn’t. I hid it. He fell in love with an idea of me, not the real me. When I told him I was scared he wouldn’t love me as I truly was…” She shook her head.
“He broke my heart. Then he nearly killed me. Varcolacs they’re half-vampire, half-werewolf. He was temperamental, cruel. He couldn’t forgive my transgression.”
Silence stretched. I shouldn’t feel anything, but there was a flicker of truth in that. Just a flicker.
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Just one more question.”
She nodded.
“Aren’t you scared Steven will tell Jericho?”
“What, that I’m a vampire? Steven wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have turned me if he planned to tell Jericho. Jericho won’t come back, Blaze. I swear.”
I sank back into numbness, letting the words wash over me. Waiting for this lock pass to end. So I could move on with my life. This time… it would be easier.
ELEVEN
JASON
Ididn’t recognize Steven the day he showed up. The friend I remembered was gone; in his place stood an enemy, the kind I should’ve finished the night I killed Adrienne.
I should’ve listened to Zack. I should’ve listened to Gabby. Every warning I’d ignored felt like a fresh cut. Meanwhile Cass and Morgan’s tangled love only grew, and wherever Morgan’s cup had cracked, I hadn’t seen it happen. I didn’t much care when it did. I was already empty.
Steven lingered for a few days, watching, warning them both that something was wrong with the new twins. They blinked at him as if blind. Then he left as quietly as he’d come. Life kept pretending.
One night I sat and watched them again, Cass and Morgan, shameless as tides. They fed from a junked-up mark, veins full of someone else’s poison. Morgan looked glazed, high on whatever the boy had been given. Cassandra, slick and perfect, was the only one sober. I tasted bile.
Adrienne’s game gnawed at me. What had she been playing at?
