Ryan's voice broke into his heavy thoughts.He turned to his Triad brother, grimacing as he admitted, "I have no idea.How much did you hear?"
"Enough."Ryan rubbed the back of his neck."Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Trip shrugged."Certainly seems like Marc was right.At least… I don’t know, man.This is beyond weird."
"She's a pain in our fucking ass, but Marisa is damn strong.You and I both know that.I have no idea how El could make a female as strong as Marisa submit if she was human."
"If?"Trip sighed.Shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose linen pants, he hunched his shoulders."This is insane, man.We have no proof yet.We have to wait for the DNA test results to come back."
Marc surprised the shit out of both of them by murmuring, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."He lifted the glass of champagne to his mouth and took a sip as he eyed them both.
Ryan grunted."You been listening all along?"
Marc's grin was wry."You get to my age, you pick up a lot of interesting habits."
"Eavesdropping was all you picked up in over a hundred years?"Trip snorted."You didn’t waste your time on this planet, did you?"
His Triad brother snorted."Jealous much?"
"That's enough.We have bigger shit to be dealing with than you two starting a pissing contest.If El really did manage to make Marisa submit, which I still can't get my head around considering how strong Marisa actually is, then there's no need to wait for the DNA test results.We have our answer.She’s a shifter.There's no doubt about it."
Marc let out a deep sigh, and his grip on the champagne flute grew perilous as he muttered, "The question is, just who the fuck is her mother?"
The rage floodingthrough El's body was more than she could stand.In fact, she felt certain it was the most she'd ever felt in her life.
Perhaps that might have seemed like an over exaggeration, but El had felt a lot in her thirty-one years.She'd been betrayed, she'd felt loss, she'd felt a terror unlike most people could even begin to comprehend.She had felt hurt and rage.She'd felt the gamut, like every human being had.But her experiences and her circumstances had always been extreme.So much so, the average person couldn't understand.
And that wasn't El believing herself to be superior than anybody else.
It was a fact.
How many people's grandfathers threw them to the wolves after they died?Locked them up in legal battles, tied them in loopholes that made them the enemy of every single person in their family?How many people had been kidnapped?How many people had had a friend betray them, and then be killed before their very eyes?
No, she wasn't being superior.Because if she believed those experiences made her fortunate, she’d belonged in an insane asylum.Not a psychological unit in a hospital.But full on Bedlam.
There was no way that her experiences made her a better person.Or that she was lucky to have been through everything she'd been through.
Hell, no!But still, when she said an extreme emotion freaked her the hell out, she really meant it.
The emotions ricocheting around her body were more than she knew how to contain.Her hair felt as though an electric charge was frazzling it.She wouldn't have been surprised if she'd looked in the mirror for her hair to be standing on edge.
She probably looked like something out of the Addams’ family!She certainly felt like it.
"El?"Shawn's voice was wary."Are you okay, honey?"
How did she answer that she wasn't okay?She felt anything but.This anger and the rage, they were pinging her insides like they were top ping-pong challengers for the United States.Olympic level.
She made to speak.Then, when she opened her mouth instead, she gulped down a breath.Words wouldn't form.Her mouth couldn't make the sounds like it did every other moment of every other day.
It was like she had no control over her responses.Which didn't exactly calm her down any.
She gasped down some more air, and just when she thought she could speak, the sound that escaped her mouth wasn't a word.It was a shriek of pain.Because, out of nowhere, agony sliced through her.
All of her nerve endings felt like they were under attack.She had no idea what to do with herself at that moment.
Every part of her was going into meltdown.Every.Single.Part.
There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.The pain had her slamming down onto her knees.The soft grass protected the joints, but it still shook her up.Her brain felt like it was in a mixer.In fact, every part of her did.Except, instead of a whisk, there was a blender attachment hooked up.Because that was how it felt.Like knives were slicing into her.
