I watch him and wait. My stomach hollows with the suspicion that Luca is on the verge of telling me something huge. Something I am not prepared to hear.
“When we didn’t come back, you tossed your mother’s necklace into Silver Lake,” Luca continues. “I don’t know why, but I assume it was because you were that angry. I stumbled upon it later, where it had washed up on the beach. I returned it to you on your birthday.”
Tossing a necklace into a lake in a fit of rage? I could actually see myself doing that. But the rest of his explanation doesn’t make any sense to me.
“But why would my mother have one of those necklaces?” I demand. “That doesn’t—”
The blood drains from my face as I gape at Luca. The answer to my own question hits me suddenly and unexpectedly. I can only hope I have it all wrong.
“Luca?” I swallow. “Why did she have a necklace like yours?”
His hesitation serves as an answer, and I know my instincts are correct, regardless of how ridiculous the words sound coming out of my mouth.
“My mom was a shifter.”
Chapter 15
“What about my dad?” I screech. “Is he . . .”
“No.” Luca shakes his head. “Your dad is mortal. He’s not a shifter.”
I relax a tiny bit, as if the confirmation that one of my parents is human makes the rest of this okay. But my mother . . .
Holy shit.
“What does that make me?”
“A half shifter-half human?” Luca shrugs.
“That’s a thing?” My voice is high-pitched enough to make dogs cringe, but I can’t bring it down. Not after this news.
Luca walks toward me, slowly, like he expects me to jump out of the broken window. “There are others like you. Rogue shifters have children with humans in the mortal realm all the time. That’s their choice, to live here amongst them.”
“Them? You mean . . . humans?” I laugh maniacally.
“Yes.” Luca inches closer. “You’re not completely human, Sav. You’re one of us. You can shift. You need to shift.”
I interrupt my impending nervous breakdown long enough to ask, “Why?”
“For your safety,” he says. “Because any shifter being hunted by shifters needs to be able to protect itself.”
I slide to the floor, pull my knees up, and rest my forehead on them. Breath in. Breath out.
“You should have already shifted.” Luca drops to his knees in front of me. “We all do on our eighteenth birthday. Even halves are supposed to have their first shift then, but you didn’t. You almost did, but we ran out of time.”
I look up to squint at Luca. “What?”
“That’s why I came back when I did, on your birthday. I tried to get you to shift that night, but . . .” He trails off with an uneasy grimace.
“At this point, there is nothing you can tell me that will freak me out more than I already am.”
I probably shouldn’t say that, but it’s too late. The words are already out, daring him to prove me wrong.
“You were attacked by another shifter,” he says. “You were under the influence of dark magic and hallucinating. Because of that, you never managed to shift.”
“Whatever you say.” I toss my head back with a groan.
“Sav . . .” He places a hand on my knee. “You should accept who you are.”
I snort.
“It’s something to be proud of,” he adds.
“You’ve known what you are since . . . what? Birth?” I wait for him to nod. “How many of your shifter friends went eighteen years before they learned what they were? My guess is none.”
“I was raised in the Kingdom,” Luca reasons. “You were not. You don’t know our history and traditions, but you can learn that stuff. There is a school—”
I laugh humorlessly. “You actually teach classes on how to be a shifter?”
“The Academy is a rite of passage for wolf shifters,” he continues softly, unfazed by my attitude. “That’s where I have been for the past three years. You can—”
“Don’t.” I shove him aside and push to an abrupt stand. “I’ve heard enough. I have to get ready for work.”
Luca jumps to his feet. “Work?”
“I start at ten.” I grab a shirt and a pair of booty shorts from the stack of clean clothes on top of the dresser that I never got around to putting away. As I start toward the bathroom, I mutter, “Must shower before Jill wakes up.”
“Sav?” Luca watches me warily. “Maybe you should call off. Just for the day. Take some time to absorb all of this.”
“Can’t.” I shake my head. “I need the money.”
Luca opens his mouth like he has something else to add. Whatever it is, he keeps it to himself.
I shut the door behind me, relieved to finally be alone. I go through the motions, the same as every other morning, but my mind is elsewhere. So much information in a short amount of time has fried my brain, and I have a difficult time sorting through all of it.
A past I cannot remember. Magical realms and kingdoms. Dangerous shifters and threats on my life. My mother.
Holy shit, my mom was one of them.
I am one of them.
How is any of this real?
I spend a long time in the shower, and an even longer time staring in the mirror afterward. I don’t look any different. I don’t feel any different.
I’m definitely more confused and overwhelmed than I felt yesterday, but I don’t feel like a shifter. Maybe Luca is wrong. Maybe my mom wasn’t a shifter. Maybe I am . . . just a human.
I burst from the bathroom, prepared to question Luca’s sources. I want to know why he is convinced that I’m a shifter. For all we know, I didn’t shift on my birthday because I’m not actually a shifter.
Has he considered that?
I can’t ask him, because he is gone.
The bed is made. Dad’s clothes are folded and placed neatly on my pillow. So is the towel.
My eyes flutter shut, and I send a quiet prayer through the ceiling. “Don’t be walking around my house naked.”
Deep, male voices drift through the floor, from the living room—at least two. Hoping one of them is Luca, and that he has managed to find some clothes, I go downstairs.
I stop a few steps from the bottom when I see him. He is dressed for summer in a white sleeveless T-shirt, khaki shorts, and the same leather sandals he wore the day he walked into the store and disrupted my boring life.
Ryse stands at the front door, hand on the knob and dark, expensive-looking shades covering his eyes. I feel the heat of his gaze when it shifts to me.
I wish I could say something to him, but a breezy “good morning” just isn’t going to come out of my mouth after everything I’ve learned over the past twelve hours. Plus, he’s intimidating as hell.
Instead, I point out Luca’s new outfit. “You didn’t get any of that from my dad’s wardrobe.”
I’m a fan of the cut-off sleeves and the muscle on display, but I don’t let my eyes linger there too long. I embarrassed myself enough last night. I don’t want Luca to realize just how pathetic I am, and I definitely don’t want Ryse to witness it.