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“I get that,” I say. “I really do. I’ve learned in the past few days that the world is a real dangerous place, and it was absolutely safer in our house, but…why lie to me about who I was? Are lycanthropes really so bad?”
“Only if you think body modification is bad,” Pa cuts in. “Or if you think—”
“Abe, stop,” Gran chastises him. “That’s not going to do any good.”
The damage has already been done, though. Sure, Pa has always been opinionated, but this one hurts. It feels personal.
Because I’m one of these creatures.
And either my mother or my father had to be one, too.
“So was it my mom or dad that you thought was an abomination?” I ask.
The words come out harsher than I expected. Gran visibly blanches, and Pa’s eyes go hard and distant.
“Your mother was my perfect angel,” Gran says. “And your father was…”
“Well, he was one of them, of course,” Pa says.
One of them?
“But I’m one of them, too,” I murmur.
Gran puts her hands on my face. “No, sweet pea. You’re a good girl.”
I jerk away from her.
“My status as a lycan doesn’t determine my goodness,” I bite out. “And myfatherwas good. He was not ‘one of them,’ whatever the fuck that means.”
I’ve never cursed in front of my grandparents. They both gape at me, Gran’s chin trembling.
This is going real badly.
I just want Elijah.
“Reyes,” I say, looking over at the calm pack leader—my uncle. “Will you tell me about my dad? Apparently he was an abomination.”
Reyes frowns, a deep furrow forming in his brow. He opens his mouth to start talking, but it’s Mateo who speaks instead.
He’s been so quiet I almost forgot he was there.
“I was really close with your dad,” Mateo says.
I look over at him to find that his eyes are watering, his jaw tight. He’s about to cry—and I get why, given the way my grandparents are talking about my father.
I hate this.
I wish things were different.
“Manny was the middle child,” Mateo continues. “He was two years older than me, eight years younger than Reyes. And the thing I remember most about him is that hereallyloved your mom.”
A knot forms in my throat, and I try my best to swallow it down even as my eyes start getting cloudy as well. Mateo takes my hand and squeezes it, his gentleness in stark contrast with Pa’s iron glare.
“They were high school sweethearts before the Convergence,” Mateo says. “And when the Angels showed up, the two of them got hitched…and Hannah and Abe here really didn’t like that.”
“It wasn’t safe,” Gran cuts in.
But I almost can’t hear her, because she’s a stranger to me all of a sudden. This isn’t Gran, who played the violin for me through my childhood, who told me spooky stories at night about the big bad wolf.
