Mom.
Mother.
I couldn’t even fathom it. And that girl with her … would she be my sister? It was too much.
“We have to go back,” I croaked, as Pearl flapped her wings hard through the air and we headed back to Paladin lands.
“Oh, we’re going back with backup, and that entire place will burn,” Demi confirmed.
She was an alpha, so I didn’t take her declaration lightly. She had power, and I clung to her promise tightly as we flew back to the Paladin village.
Chapter Four
“I came as soonas I could, what’s going on?” Luka looked so sexy in his black button-down shirt and dark wash jeans. His hair was gelled back in a swoop. I was momentarily speechless, just gazing at him. Then I remembered why I’d called him out here to the Paladin lands. Demi and Sawyer were waiting for us in the meeting hall, which also looked a lot like a church to me. It was nearly nighttime and I needed to bring Luka inside to talk about what we’d just seen and the strategy for saving the women, but I wanted to tell him about everything first.
I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. Telling him I wasn’t human felt almost too big.
“Sterling found something and called me the day that I ran out,” I started.
Luka nodded. “I remember you didn’t want me to go with you.” There was a slight anger in his tone.
“When I got to the park, there was a box with Sterling’s head in it.” Luka gasped and my throat tightened. Before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled me into his arms. He was so fast, I didn’t even see him move, I was just suddenly enveloped in the pressure of his touch, his smell, him. A sob tried to escape me but I swallowed it down, which caused a strangled whimper to leave my throat, and Luka just held me tighter. He knew Sterling was my ex; he knew what he had meant to me.
“Shit, Aspen, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?” He released me and stared at my face as if looking for evidence that I was okay or on the verge of a mental breakdown.
I swallowed hard. “Cassara.” The one word was all it took for him to freeze up. Shame burned his cheeks and he nodded.
“You were trying to show me papers and she interrupted you.” He rubbed his forehead as if in pain at the memory. “Aspen, what was on the papers? Was it about Sterling?”
That was a good lead-in for my next bomb drop. I handed him the papers.
“Luka … I’m not human. None of the hunters are. Sterling found this out and died to get me this information.”
His eyes widened as they read over the papers. He actually swayed as if a strong wind might knock him over. “I thought I tasted … but it was too faint,” he said to himself. “Aspen … you’re Ithaki?”
I nodded, unsure what that word really meant other than fey mutt.
Luka plopped down, right there on the brick steps to the meeting hall, and stared at the papers.
“You’re not fully human,” he mused.
Wow. I wasn’t really prepared forhisshock. I thought his first instinct would be to try to get me back for all the times I’d called him a monster.
I sat down next to him. “I’m not. And the ‘breeder’ who is my mother is being held in a heavily guarded colony in the dark fey lands. We went and saw her today.”
His head snapped up. “That’s where you went?DarkFey Territory!”
I shrugged. “It was totally safe.”
Luka wouldn’t stop staring at the papers so I yanked them from his hand. “Yes I’m part fey. Let’s move on to where we rescue the women being held against their will. We will need an army, a vampire army,” I urged him.
He looked over at me, going very still. “Aspen, I want to, I do, but—”
I stood suddenly, crossing my arms. “Don’t you dare say no.”
He stood too, reaching out to grasp my upper arms, and then trailed his fingers down them, sending chills along my spine. “Aspen, if anyone you care about is trapped somewhere, I will stop at nothing to free them, but I’m not king yet and I’m still a wanted felon. I don’t have an army to offer now like I will have in a few weeks.”
My heart fell. In a few weeks they could be dead or moved. Now that we’d seen them, the Munai might just take them all to another safe house.
