Chapter 31

Thirty-One

IZZY

I step away from Hale and Gerry when I hear the front door open and slam shut.

The last thing I want is to leave Jake alone during a time like this, but I know what it’s like to want to get away. To be alone with your thoughts.

A single tear cascades down Hale’s cheek as he stares after his foster son. Gerry moves to put an arm around his husband’s shoulders and pull him into his embrace.

“He’ll be okay,” Gerry whispers, and I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince—Hale or himself. “He’s a strong kid. He’ll be okay.”

I want to yell at them, demand how they could think such a thing after what Jake was just told, but I bite my tongue. Wasn’t I the one to demand answers in the first place? It wouldn’t be fair for me to snap at them just because I didn’t like the ones I received. Jake deserved to know the truth.

But…

How can he come back from this?

From the realization that—bile swarms in my stomach—he died years ago and is nothing but memories shoved into a clay vessel. How does that work, exactly? What would happen if the magic wore off? Is that a possibility?

Fear eclipses my horror over the situation, tainting my bloodstream like battery acid.

And what if I’m like Jake?

What if I’m a golem?

“Is that… Is that what I am?” I whisper.

Hale shifts in Gerry’s embrace to face me. His eyes are red-rimmed and almost luminescent with tears. “No. No, you’re not. You’re…human.”

“Why did you hesitate before you said that?” I demand as something icy and insidious slithers down my spine.

Gerry releases Hale and takes a single step backwards. Both men stare at me with unreadable expressions.

When the silence continues, permeating the air like a damn virus, I blurt out, “Just tell me. I can handle it.”

“You’re human, but you shouldn’t be,” Hale says at last.

My brows furrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“Let’s take this back to the living room, shall we?” Gerry suggests. “I don’t think?—”

“Just tell me,” I demand. And then, as an afterthought, I add, “Please.”

I grip the granite countertop so tightly that my knuckles turn white.

Hale and Gerry exchange another one of those eloquent glances that make words unnecessary.

It’s Hale who relents with a heavy sigh. He scratches absently at the beard lining his jawline as he struggles to find the right words.

“We knew your parents,” he says at last.

It feels as if a bomb has just been thrown at me in a macabre game of hot potato.

I stagger back a step until my ass finds one of the barstools. I shakily sit myself down, wishing I’d taken Gerry up on his offer to return to the living room.

“What?” I’m not sure if I speak the word or only think it. My lips feel incapable of moving. Or maybe my tongue is simply too big to fit in my mouth.

“We knew your parents,” Hale repeats. “Your birth parents, not the ones who adopted you.”

“My birth parents?” I stare at him in disbelief. “I don’t understand?—”

“Izzy.” Gerry moves until he’s crouched in front of me, the material of his pants creaking with the movement. His long beard brushes against his kneecaps as he takes my hand in both of his. “Your parents—the ones who unfortunately passed away when you were young—were not your birth parents. They adopted you.”

“No. That can’t be true. No.” I desperately wish to wrench my hand free of Gerry’s while simultaneously wanting to throw myself into his embrace and have him hold me.

I’m in desperate need of comfort.

“They probably planned to tell you when you were older,” Hale says, moving to stand behind Gerry.

He places his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“Amanda recognized you instantly,” Gerry adds. “You look so much like your birth mom.”

“It took her a while to finalize the paperwork so you could be housed with us. There are politics involved that go beyond what you can comprehend, especially in the supernatural community,” Hale says.

“But she knew you would be safe with us, even if you never displayed any supernatural characteristics like your parents?—”

“Wait. Slow down. Back the fuck up.” I finally wrench my hand free of Gerry’s and wave both of them in front of his face. I blink rapidly, trying to dispel the tears congregating in my eyes. “You said I look like my birth mom? Is she…?”

Sadness twists Gerry’s face, a prominent line materalizing between his brows. “She passed away when you were a baby…which is probably how you ended up adopted in the first place.”

“She was a witch, just like Amanda,” Hale explains. “Super powerful. The witches were furious when she chose to leave their community to join ours.”

“To join…the wolves?” I ask tentatively, volleying my gaze between the two men.

Gerry nods. “She discovered she was the Heart of a wolf pack. She gave up everything to be with them.”

Hale and Gerry exchange another one of those unreadable glances.

The fine hairs on my arms immediately prickle. There’s something they’re not telling me, something important. That knowledge blooms fear in my chest like a poisonous weed. Shivers scuttle all over my skin.

“She was the happiest she’s ever been when she discovered she was pregnant with you,” Hale whispers, his eyes glazing over at whatever faraway memory grabbed hold of him. “So all of us were shocked when she disappeared.”

“We thought it was a kidnapping at first,” Gerry says. “Her pack was out of their mind with worry. They searched everywhere for her. Eventually, they found the letter.”

“The letter?” I ask.

Hale takes over the story, blinking away tears. “She said that she needed to leave. That it wasn’t safe for her and for you. We didn’t understand. Still don’t, if I’m being completely honest. Some believe that she suffered a paranoid delusion. Mental illness ran in her family. Your family,” he corrects.

The lead weight in my gut turns into a bowling ball, sluicing around the contents of my stomach.

“The police were called about a body found in a motel a few hundred miles away from here.” Gerry reaches upwards to place his hand over Hale’s, which still rests on his shoulder. “They confirmed that it was your mother’s body.”

I suck in a sharp gasp as pain arrows through me. Pain and grief and anger, all aimed at a woman I never met, never knew existed.

“What happened to her?”

Hale hesitates, indecision sparking in his eyes.

But I ask again, my voice curt and concise, “What happened to her?”

“They believe it was suicide,” Gerry confesses. “Though her pack is convinced that she was murdered.”

“You weren’t found,” Hale says. “There was no sign of you ever existing. Her pack thought she suffered a miscarriage.”

“And then Amanda got a hold of us and claimed that she got assigned a child who looked exactly like Helena Craft.”

Helena Craft.

I turn the name over and over in my head.

My mother’s name.

Oh fuck.

I’m going to be sick.

“The witches wanted to take you in themselves. Believed that you could have some latent magic in you, though Amanda swore she didn’t sense anything. It took years of fighting, but eventually, you were able to come and live with us.” Hale lifts a hand, as if wanting to touch me, but thinks better of it and drops it to his side.

“You’re half shifter and half witch, yet you don’t show characteristics of either species,” Gerry says, scratching at his beard. “That isn’t to say that you never will?—”

“But usually, shifters and witches will come into their power by their eighteenth birthday, if they don’t develop their gifts sooner,” Hale finishes.

“The mate bonds,” I whisper as realization tumbles through me. “When I turned eighteen…”

Hale and Gerry both frown simultaneously. The former releases a heavy breath, while the latter drags his hand down his face and mutters, “I suspected as much.”

“It must be the latent shifter blood in you,” Hale explains. “Or it could be something else entirely. It’s rare, but not impossible, for shifters to mate with someone outside of their species. Just look at your mother’s pack.”

A new thought occurs to me, and I jerk upright in my seat. My heart, which has already been beating unreasonably fast, threatens to burst free of my rib cage. I can feel each thump of it against my breastbone.

“My mother’s pack… One of those men is my father, isn’t he?”

Hale’s frown deepens. “It’s a little different for shifters, especially ones who have a Heart. Usually, a tiny bit of all of their DNAs combine to create a child. But yes, they are your fathers.”

Fathers.

As in, multiple.

My hands turn clammy, and I rub them against my jeans.

“Who are they?” I whisper, flicking my gaze from one man to the next. When they don’t immediately answer, I repeat myself, my voice rising in volume. “Who are they? Who are my fathers?”