Page 26 of Heartless

She shuddered, but lowered her spoon into the soup. “Not now.”

I watched her eat. At first it was just to enjoy the way she licked her lips, the bob of her throat and the happy little sounds she made. But as a bit of color came back into her cheeks, I had to fight a burst of pride. I’d opened a tin, and put a log in the firebox. It wasn’t like I’d dragged someone out of a blizzard with my peach pie. But when she was finished, she gave me a small smile and asked, “So what do we do now?”

Oh, the things that were going through my head. Especially since she was right, and I’d devoured most of the book in my lap while she was asleep. Maybe it was just some kind of dark research material for her dad, but my throbbing groin said it wasn’t bad for shifter porn, either. Instead of pointing her to Chapter One, I held up the jigsaw box she’d found in the cellar. “Want to go to the Big Apple with me?”

***

The blizzard didn’t let up for days. We had the puzzle done by the end of the first evening, and I went back to the cellar for another, but by the time I clambered back out with the pyramids under my arm, Vail had disappeared into her room. She didn’t come out to eat, or to chat, or even to check how much new snow had piled up against the windows. I kept heating up soup, switching it up with some rehydrated mac ‘n’ cheese when I got sick of the smell of chicken noodle. I took the tray into her room, and the bowls came back out empty. So I knew she wasn’t starving. She was just… grieving. And the fact I couldn’t do anything but ply her with shitty food made me feel as helpless as a newborn pup.

On the third day, I didn’t take her any food, and she finally came out around noon. She was sleep-mussed, her hair a tangled mess, but there were still deep shadows under her eyes. She winced a bit at the light, but picked up an apple from our dwindling supply of fresh food, and rubbed it on the front of her sweatshirt. I didn’t miss the fact it was the one I’d wrapped my brothers’ picture frame in, or that it still smelled like Darkness. But before she’d taken a bite, her eyes narrowed on the pile of books and paper spread out on the table in front of me. “What are you doing?”

“Your dad has over eighty notebooks down there, and they’re all full of research on shifters,” I told her, holding up one of the books with the matching black covers. I’d known Warren was an obsessive asshole when I met him, but his secret room took it to a whole new level. “Banes, to be specific. And most of that is deep research on voids.”

She avoided my eyes, but couldn’t keep from glancing back at the paper in front of me, or the pencil in my hand. “You read them?”

“Skimmed them. A lot of it’s technical, and way past me. But I’ve picked out a few theories.” I tapped the pencil against the list I was compiling. “Your dad’s a smart male. And I’m pretty sure this research should be in a library somewhere.”

Her eyes flashed for a moment. “There’s a whole room of books at the academy that no one’s allowed to read.”

“You mean Theo’s black hole of banned books? Cal said it’s mostly conspiracy theories and bullshit.”

“Because he’s such a trustworthy source?” I could feel the slow burn of her anger, before she shook her head at me. “Whatever. If my dad had wanted to make his stuff public, he could have done it while he worked at your lab.”

“Not my lab. Or not how it used to run.” I squirmed a bit, before poking my pencil at the other book I’d brought up from the secret room. “Remember this one?”

She glanced at the spine, then went still. “Dad has one of Marrow’s bane books?”

“Yep. But this isn’t a copy, like the one you borrowed from Wentworth. This is an original. It’s worth a small fortune to a collector. But that’s not the real discovery here.”

She walked over to the table, every step an effort. I was picking at a wound here, something that had been festering for a while. And I knew she needed to guard it. This secret, that maybe she didn’t even fully understand. But she knew enough to be afraid and her panic almost had a scent of its own, burning the back of my throat. When she was close enough to read my writing, I thought for a moment she was going to run out of the room, but she gripped the edge of the table, nodding for me to go on. “I think there’s a connection between his research and the collar in the drawer.”

“I get it.” She sank into the chair across from me. “You think my mom was a void.”

I nodded slowly, watching her face close down. I could also tell her heart rate was skyrocketing, the pulse beating frantically in her throat as she held my gaze. Twin pools of green pain stared back at me, her lips trembling as she said, “Maybe she was. Maybe that was part of the reason she hid herself up here.”

I was gripping the pencil so tight, I felt the wood bend. She wasn’t just in pain, she was terrified. But I had to keep going. I had to keep picking at this wound between us, until it was raw and bloody. “The thing is, your dad’s research isn’t just smart. It’s revolutionary. He’s talking about a whole world of shifters that’s been forgotten. New species. New bloodlines.”

“It’s not new,” she said abruptly, a flash of hurt on her face. “Or it’s only new to you and your kind.”

My kind? I sat back, watching her tug at the wrist with Cal’s claiming mark. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

She was so wrong. I wanted to drag this monster out of the cellar and kill it right in front of her. Bury my fangs and my claws in it until it was nothing more than bloody confetti. But I couldn’t let her see how deeply I felt, not when she was on the edge of pushing me through that trapdoor and running for her life. “If this isn’t conspiracy theories and bullshit, then this isn’t just your parents’ secret. If there’s more, if banes aren’t what we think they are, I should know.”

“Because you’re Clan Alpha?”

I nodded. “And because it’s going to kill you if you don’t find some peace with it.”

Her gaze snapped to mine. Every muscle tensed, her scent spiking until I couldn’t breathe. I watched her struggle with a fear so strong it made her pupils narrow to points, but then she suddenly sagged against the table, and whispered, “This is my secret, too.”

“I know.” I reached across the table to take her hand, and after a long moment, she lay it in mine. It was ice cold, her fingers curled like claws. I took my time smoothing each one out. “I told you I met with your dad, but I never really shared what we talked about. You know he was trying to keep you safe. That he believed the collar was the only way to protect you, and I went along with that in my wisdom.” I sneered at myself a little, but she just stared at our joined hands. “He also said he had you tested as a kid. When you were eleven. He left you with the Chances right after the results came back. He took on a new name, got the job at the pack lab and then started his research.” I gestured to the pile of notebooks. “Or maybe kept all of this going.”

I didn’t add what he’d told me about our bond. That Vail and I had already formed a rare pairing that would tie our souls together for eternity. I also didn’t tell her about her cousins. As elusive as soul bonds, and from everything Liam had been secretly digging up, as fucking dangerous as a feral wolf on a blood moon.

“Okay,” she said quietly, pulling her hand from mine. “He discovered I was a void and hid me with the Chances. Tried to find a way to fix me. Or, to change my blood, so I didn’t have this dirty gene anymore.”

“Wait. I don’t think that’s what he was doing. I think he was researching ways to protect you. There are notebooks full of a subject he was studying. Blood analysis, physical tests, observations from birth. He called her Sweet Pea.”

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