Page 28 of Slayer

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even know him, but he saved my life…I think. I’m still having a hard time believing this is all real.”

Harper frowned, setting down her nail polish, and came to sit next to me on the bed.

“So you grew up in the mortal world and had no idea this stuff even existed?”

I nodded, feeling a little sick thinking about it all. “Yeah, turned eighteen and bam. Vampires are real.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Hmm. Like the day you turned eighteen, you started to see them?”

I nodded. “My birthday was last night. Why?”

She ran over to her bookshelf and pulled down a large brown tome. The spine read Runes and Their Meanings.

“I was just studying for my final, and it reminds me of this one rune you can put on to conceal your abilities until a set time. Most hunters would use it for an extending stakeout in the mortal world if they didn’t want to attract the vampires, but what if…” She held the book out to me, and the rune sent a bolt of shock right through me.

Voidlock Hallowbind.

It was one of the same ones from the photos of me as a baby in the hospital. I remembered the six spirals surrounding an X shape with dots all around it.

“Harper?”

“What?”

“That rune was on my body when I was found at the hospital. Along with a bunch of others. I’ve seen photos.”

Harper’s eyes grew wide. “Holy ish.”

“What if a mother put it on a baby to conceal that she was a hunter until she turned eighteen?” I asked. “Asher said something about parents putting protective runes on babies to keep vampires from smelling them. So that must be common, right? If lost-borns exist, it means there are plenty of them walking around the mortal world and it’s a normal thing.”

Please be normal.

She winced. “Actually, lost-borns are super rare, and I’ve never heard of one making it to eighteen without being discovered or…dying. Most of the runes you are talking about need to be reinforced monthly.”

This was all too much. I just wanted to go home. I swallowed hard and then stood. “My friend Rae is probably freaking out. Can I text her from here?” I reached for my phone to see that it had no signal.

“We have a way to communicate with the mortal world, but it requires a special phone. We can get you one on Monday when the shops open. We’re in a whole other dimension,” Harper told me, eyeing me with compassion.

I began to panic then, my breath coming in and out in short rasps. Tears filled my eyes, and I wanted to run, to run away from all this.

“Oh, Stella, I’m sorry. We can talk about something else. I can’t imagine what this must feel like. To suddenly find out you’re a vampire hunter and you can’t go home.” Harper slung an arm around me and squeezed.

The deep pressure calmed me a little, and I nodded. “I just… I need to let Rae know I’m not kidnapped. She’s probably freaking out,” I told her.

Harper nodded. “Most lost-borns are found when they are a couple years old, and they are brought here for safekeeping. It’s easier to just have them reported missing in the mortal world, but maybe my mom can arrange for you to go back to say goodbye. Would that help?”

Just the thought of being able to go back and get my duffel and tell Rae I wasn’t dead made me feel a hundred times better. “I need that,” I told her.

She nodded, and then there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Harper called out.

Celia popped her head in, and Harper stood.

“Mom, she needs to be able to go back and say goodbye. It’s too much.”

Celia scanned my face, concern etching across her features, and nodded once. “I’ll see what I can do, but right now, we have bigger problems.”

“What’s wrong?” I stood. Were they going to kick me out? I felt like a ship without an anchor, just floating in the abyss with no world to claim me. If I went back to the mortal realm, I’d be killed, and here I was safe but with no parental DNA to prove I even belonged here.