"Miranda," I rasp.
She blinks, turning her head lazily toward me. She looks drunk on endorphins. “It’s hard to process but the outcome... optimal."
She opens her eyes fully.
I freeze.
The violet is there. The unnatural Duval purple. But it’s fractured.
Swimming in the iris, fracturing the purple like cracks in a gemstone, are flecks of gold.Amber.My color. The color of the Wolf.
My nostrils flare. I inhale deeply.
The vampire rot is gone. Completely gone as if truly erased from her system. All I smell is Wolf. Powerful, dormant, waking up.
The pieces slam together in my mind. The way her body didn't heal but her blood smelled right. The way the mating bond snapped into place despite her bloodline.
She ain't a Vampire. She ain't a Human.
"Jax?" She pushes herself up on her elbows, sensing the shift in the air. Her brows knit together. "What is it? Why are you staring at me like I’m a bomb?"
"Because you are," I whisper, horror and awe warring in my gut.
"What?"
I crawl back toward her, stopping inches away. I grab her chin, tilting her face to the light, staring into those impossible, shifting eyes.
"You ain't just a Duval," I say shakily. "You're a Chimera."
"A what?" She shakes her head, confused.
"Who were your parents, Miranda?" I demand, my grip tightening.
"I told you, I don't know!" She pulls back, scared now. "I’m an orphan. I was left at a fire station. Why does it matter?"
"Because," I breathe, looking at the gold bleeding into the violet, "someone broke the fundamental law of nature to make you."
17
MIRANDA
Seconds ago, the air was thick with the smell of sex—burnt sugar, sweat, and the heavy, iron-tang of arousal. Now, it feels brittle. Like the stillness before a tornado touches down.
I am lying on the bear furs, my chest heaving, my skin flushed and cooling rapidly in the drafty room. My body is still humming, the nerves misfiring in the aftershocks of an orgasm that felt less like pleasure and more like a system reboot. But Jax isn't holding me. He isn't murmuring in French against my skin or biting my neck.
He is backed up against the log wall, knees drawn up, staring at me with a look that is equal parts awe and horror.
"A Chimera," he repeats. The word sounds jagged coming out of his throat.
I sit up, pulling the heavy wool blanket over my chest. My hands are shaking.
"Jax," I say, sounding thin. "Stop. You're talking nonsense. Chimeras are mythology. Lions with goat heads. I’m a clock mechanic from Chicago with a bad ankle and a birthmark."
"Look at me," he commands. He crawls forward, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin. "Look at your eyes in the reflection of mine."
I look.
His pupils are wide, black pools, but in the amber ring of his iris, I see a tiny, distorted reflection of myself.
