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“Show me.” Dev is finally the one to speak. His gaze turns back to me as he commands, “Ice over your fork.”
“You think I have control of this shit?” I immediately burst out. “It’s happened twice. When I’ve panicked!” The sense of foreboding in my stomach mingles with agitation, fizzing and bubbling. “I’m not trained in how to use magic?—”
“Magic is a protective instinct. Not a skill. Not usually, anyway,” Dev interrupts me, because of course he would.
Arrogant jerk.
I toss him a glare for pulling the rug out from under me. Immaturely, I want to toss him the bird too, but that’s only because his words process, and I realize he thinks I can just do magic “like that.” As if it’s a snap of the fingers, a flip of a switch. Panic swells up at the thought of repeating that ice shit so easily.
“You’re missing the point. I don’t have magic! I shouldn’t fucking have magic. So how the hell did it get here?” I toss my arms out in frustration, and some of my pasta sauce flies out, a red dollop landing on the floor.
But if there was one rule that was hammered into me as a child, it was don’t waste food. So I set down my can and fork on the counter on my left side. That way, I can continue my freak-out in peace, without guilt piling on top of it.
The Devourer starts to open his mouth to answer, but Tesq holds up a glowing arm. “Me.”
For once, the arrogant werebeast listens to someone else. Perhaps he senses the gravity of this moment, the fragility of my mental state. Or maybe it’s the fact that Tesq literally steps so close to him that I can scent burnt hair.
In any case, he takes a few steps away from me as the gargoyle shifts front and center, tilting his neck. Where Tesq’s veins should be, there are only glowing lines of lava that make the room swim in soft, pulsing orange light.
We share a long, drawn-out silence, my breath caught in my lungs, unable to escape.
“Aliana.” Tesq’s soft rumble of my name is so reverent that butterflies flutter in my stomach, but they can’t make it up past my swollen lungs, my closed throat, the fear that’s gripping me.
“Why do I have magic, Tesq?” I whimper in a tone I’d normally scorn, one that’s soft and weak. One that outwardly showcases my worry.
His lips rub together as he considers what to say. Finally, he settles on, “Do you feel the mate bonds?”
His question throws me for a loop, crashes into me out of nowhere, smacks me with violent force as I realize the implications of the question.
My head starts to shake from side to side, my body trying to deny it even as my mind is stitching together a quilt of memories—moments I’ve been drawn to these monsters even against my will, felt the need for them despite their cruelty, despite my disgust for their actions, despite my own moral code.
It can’t be.
Memories of my parents surface, their laughing faces. My father’s soft expression when he tucked me in at night. My mother humming when she washed our clothes in the stream. The bright, forest-green light of my memories, those precious treasures locked inside my chest, dims and dulls. A sepia tone invades them, turns them monochromatic, strips the love away.
All those memories occurred under false pretenses: I thought I was human. I thought I was theirs. His. I thought I belonged. And now, the agony of loneliness invades each of my veins, poisons the stream of my blood, leaches into my heart. I’m not who I thought I was. Did they know?
No.
Is my entire life a lie?
My eyelashes flutter, and I find them wet.
Everything’s wet. Tesq and Dev’s faces smear as a flood erupts inside of me. A surge of water appearing from nowhere, a powerful gush with enough force to knock out my knees.
“Humans and monsters have mated before,” Tesq says softly, as if the ugly truth has to be spoken aloud.
“She’s half?” Dev states the obvious.
I take a step backward and bump into the counter. A cup falls over on the surface behind me and rolls across the countertop. I don’t shoot out my arm to stop it.
I watch it reach the edge and fall off the surface, plunging to the floor, then shattering into a million glittering specks.
Broken.
Ruined.
Just like me.
