“Gerry and Hale don’t seem to think so.” I hesitate before adding, “Gerry told me Delaney hired him to look into Helena’s disappearance.”
I can tell I surprised him, though he quickly tries to stifle his expression into one of neutrality once more.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” I arch an eyebrow. “That’s all you have to say to me about it?”
Travan shrugs. “I don’t really have anything else to say.”
We resume walking—I haven’t even realized we stopped—when I think of another question I want to ask him. One that has been nagging at me for a while now.
“What are you?” A knot forms in my throat. “The beast that attacked those men… It wasn’t a wolf. Hell, I don’t even think you’re a shifter. So what are you? Why does everyone want you?”
And consequently me, because I’m part whatever he is.
Travan doesn’t answer right away, his gaze drifting to the trees as if weighing his words. At first, I don’t think he’s going to answer.
But then he does.
“I’m assuming you heard the story of how shifters came to be, right?”
“Wouldn’t you already know that? You’re the one who’s been stalking me,” I quip, anger curling through my veins like flames.
“I couldn’t get cameras into the vice principal’s office,” Travan says seriously.
I gape at him.
He ignores me and continues his story. “When the animals merged with their magical hosts, power like no one ever felt before flooded the earth. It only lasted a few minutes, but with nowhere to go, all of that raw, unencumbered magic entered a poor, innocent human. A farm boy.”
“And you’re related to this farm boy?” I struggle to piece all of this together, my mind a whirlwind.
A plethora of emotions crash together inside me.
Travan stops walking and turns towards me. “No, I’m not related to the farm boy.” He spreads his arms wide, his smile growing. “Iamthe farm boy.”
A chill runs down my spine at his words. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel—anger, fear, confusion, disbelief. What he’s saying doesn’t make sense. At all.
I find myself shaking my head. “No, that’s impossible. That would mean?—”
“That I’m hundreds and hundreds of years old, practically immortal, and made of pure magic?”
He stands utterly still, yet the space around him thrums with tension, like the forest itself is holding its breath. Light pulses beneath his skin—an otherworldly glow that radiates from within, shifting like molten gold through the veins of his body. His eyes are the most impossible thing—twin furnaces of raw, burning fire. They don’t reflect light; they create it, casting flickering shadows across the ground. Power coils around him like a living thing, thick and suffocating, bending the world to its will.
The ground beneath his feet cracks and shifts. Every breath he takes causes the air to ripple, distorting reality, as if the space around him can’t remain the same in his presence. The light from his eyes—those searing, molten orbs—grows more and more intense, a flare of heat that threatens to burn the flesh off my body.
A column of flame erupts from the ground at his feet, climbing higher and higher. The trees bend away, as though afraid to be too close. The sky darkens above, the clouds swirling and churning with an approaching storm that didn’t exist seconds prior.
Holy shit.
Fear wraps around me like a suffocating cloak. It starts deep in my chest, a cold, insidious tremor that crawls up my spine, sending shivers through my whole body. My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out everything else—each beat a loud, frantic drum.
I try to steady myself, but the trembling in my hands is uncontrollable. My skin prickles, every inch of it alive with a raw, primal awareness.
And it’s not just because of Travan’s display of power.
It’s because I’ve felt it before.
A deep, gnawing sense of helplessness takes over. The fear invades me until I’m drowning in it.
