The Wiccans had told her that her parents couldn’t actually be her biological parents, but the word still shocked her.
Adopted.
“We took you in when you were a baby,” her dad said.“Your biological parents feared for your life, and they asked us to protect you and raise you.”
“Your birth family weren’t psychics, they were shifters.But a very unique kind.Most of the clan were what we’d call gryphon shifters—with the head of a bird and the body of a big cat, like a tiger or lion.Your parents were a trio—your mother was amadter,a catalyst between two powerful males—and your fathers were an eagle and a white lion.”Mira’s mother and Daphne were old friends, and when Mira was born—a fraternal twin with a brother—her parents knew that something dangerous had happened.
“The children of a trio like your birth parents follow a certain lineage.The males are gryphons and the females aremadters.But you were born with the eyes of a gryphon—one blue and one green, just like your brother—and they knew something strange had happened.”
Mira had always loved her unique eyes.She got compliments on them all the time.
She never imagined they might be related to her true nature.
“So why is my being a gryphon shifter dangerous?”
“Their alpha was a gryphon shifter who was very superstitious.He would have killed you himself if he knew.He would have seen you, being a female gryphon, as a threat to his leadership.Your parents gave you to us to protect and we contacted a Wiccan who cast the spell to suppress your shifter nature,” Daphne said.
Mira sat down heavily in a chair.“So you were just going to let me think that I’m a dud of a psychic forever?”
“We wanted to tell you,” Gideon said.“Hundreds of times.But it never seemed like the right time.”
“And unfortunately,” Daphne said, “your parents’ clan was destroyed and your entire family was killed when you were young.We tried to find the Wiccan who cast the spell, but she’d died, and since no one but her could reverse the spell, we just let things go.For too long.I’m sorry, Mira.”
“Is that even my name?”
“Your name is Calypso Sereket.Your parents were Rami, Auron, and Layla, and your brother was Theron,” Gideon said.
For a long moment, Mira couldn’t breathe past the truth that pressed down on her.
She wasn’t psychic.
She was a unique shifter trapped without the ability to shift because an alpha would have killed her on sight.But everyone in that nightmare scenario was dead, including the family she never even suspected existed.
“We love you, Mira,” Daphne said.
Mira rose to her feet.Her heart shattering, her mind spinning.“I need some time to think.”
She walked out of the RV, entirely numb, and strode away from the festival.
She was a shifter and not a psychic?
But she couldn’t shift.
So what did that even mean for her future?
ChapterFour
Saturday afternoon, Leo drove Adam’s SUV to the fairgrounds in Willow’s Crossing.Solan was in the passenger seat, and Adam and Cinder were in the second row.
“Did you guys have a nice full moon hunt?”Cinder asked.“I usually try to stay up until Adam gets home, but I passed out watching a cooking show.”
Cinder, a magical wolf called alygisa, was able to use spells to bless the pack and keep them safe but wasn’t able to shift since she was pregnant.It would be their first child, and the pack was deliriously happy that their alphas were starting a family.
Leo and Solan had been out with a few of the younger, newly shifted wolves, teaching them the skills to hunt in their shifts.
“We had a good run with a few of the kids,” Solan said.
“Alex is already a great hunter,” Leo said.The female was sixteen and could hunt with the best of them.
