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“Why would you do that?”
He lifted a shoulder and grinned in Classic Teenage Connor style. “I wanted to see if I could.”
“You are such a punk.” But I couldn’t help being a little impressed. He might have been reckless, but he was undeniably brave.
His grin was wide, confident. “I should get points for bringing it back to you.”
“Why should you get points for returning something you stole in the first place?”
“Because I think you need a reminder about who you are.”
“And who is that?” I asked cautiously.
He watched me for a minute, as if carefully choosing his words. “You’re different, Elisa. You’re different than you were, and you’re different from the rest of them. You aren’t just a vampire, and you aren’t just their kid.”
“No, I’m the monster nobody knows about.”
“No,”he said, and the word was forceful. “That’s my point. You’re thinking about rules and biology and what vampires are supposed to be. They don’t apply here, because there’s nothing else like you out there.
“I don’t know what happens in your head,” he said, moving a step closer, his voice growing deeper with each word. “Because you won’t let any of us in. But I’ve seen you fight.”
I swallowed hard against the desire to argue, to reject what he was telling me. To shake him off, because that’s how I’d dealt with the monster. By not thinking about it. By pushing it down and away.
“Trust a shifter, Elisa. Claws don’t make you unclean. They make you strong.”
“Calling a girl’s murderous inner urges one of her strengths isn’t going to win you friends.”
“Are they murderous?”
“They’re violent.”
“I’m violent.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it? It’s all magic in some form or other.”
“We don’t have time for this right now,” I said, anger and impatience growing. “We have to get ready for the fight.”
“We absolutely have time for this, because wearegetting ready for the fight. This is a conversation you need to have. Why did you let it hurt the man who hurt Lulu? Because you wanted it to.”
My blood sped, my eyes silvering at the rush of fury. “Take it back.” Every word was bitter and bitten off.
“No,” he said. “Because it’s the truth. There may be foreign magic inside of you, Elisa. But there’s no foreign magic in control of you. If you gave it control, it’s because you wanted it. Stop justifying it and stop overthinking it.”
Connor moved a step closer, close enough that our toes nearly touched. And now his voice was a whisper.
He put a fingertip beneath my chin, lifted it so our eyes met. “You’ve been in control for a long time. And you’ve always had your rules. You’ve always known the way things are done. Maybe, with Lulu’s attacker, it was time to do what you wanted.”
The idea made something clench in my abdomen. “To hurt people?”
His eyes were equally kind and fierce. “No, Lis. Tosavepeople. To fight because violence had been done against people you cared about.”
I didn’t know what to say about that... or what to feel.
“The next time you feel the monster, as you call it, the urge to fight—instead of pushing it down or letting it go or pretending it’s not you, accept that it is. And fight the good fight.”
I thought about the church, about my attack on the fairy. “I’ve tried to manage it. I can’t. I just went berserker again. I hurt a fairy when we were rescuing Claudia.”
