Page 68 of Red Moon Secrets
"I had a reason," the hexer bitch says quickly. "I didn't curse him—I saved him."
My struggling slows as her words float to me, barely sinking in past my blanket of fury. Finally, I stop fighting and sit back down, allowing her a small window to explain.
"Elaborate," I hiss.
"If Castine had known what he really was, what he would have become, then he would have never gotten away from her. She would have tethered him to her until she suffocated him. I saved his life by cursing his gifts, keeping him from exposing his true being."
If she thinks she's explaining, she's sadly mistaken. She's only confusing me more with each rambled line of nonsense.
Shay and Chaz look just as perplexed as I am. Thank God. Sometimes, I feel stupid for not understanding the shit in our world.
"What do you mean? What's his true being? Bitten fey can only be what they are. Mortals destined for immortality cannot become bitten fey," Chaz says, and I nod, because I have nothing better to add.
A breath expels from her with a hazy fog, and settling in is an image of Kane from long ago. I gasp at the beauty he was even then.
"This is your night stalker. Yes?" she asks.
Words evade me, so I nod in response—again.
"You're right. Mortals destined for immortality cannot be changed into bitten fey—most of the time."
My head snaps up, just as Shay's and Chaz's does. "What do you mean?" Shay asks, urging this procrastinating hexer to quit drawing out the suspense that seems to be materializing and strangling me.
"A creature like she is—they can be bitten. Changed. And when their time is ripe, their true being will emerge."
It takes me longer than the others to understand, because what she's saying makes no sense—until it makes perfect sense.
"Kane's like me?" I almost whisper, but the color has already drained from Shay and Chaz who are forced to stagger to a seat.
"He can't be like me. He would have had some powers before he was ever bitten."
"He's as powerful as you, but he is like you. You are Freya's descendent. You are the most powerful of us all—a goddess by descent, by right, and by birth.
"Castine has spent centuries trying to recreate the specimen Kane is. She assumed her amulet gave him the same powers it gave her. It had nothing to do with it. But had she not bitten him, he would have died when he turned.
"The mind is our strongest tool and our weakest handicap. Your night stalker was raised as a human. Therefore, he thought like a human. Humans rationalize the irrational. So every time he did something, such as use the witch powers most creatures like you have in the beginning, he wrote it off as something perfectly explainable. He wouldn't have been ready for the change, since he never practiced his gifts. The same bite that condemned him, saved him.
"He wasn't ready to control the shifting side of his powers, and they would have revealed his true identity to the oblivious vampiress. So I cursed him, kept him from showing her the hidden secrets he didn't know he kept. Only some of his abilities crept out, but his eyes kept his secret, his body never shifted, and his full powers never came—but they will. They will very soon.
"Once she's dead, my curse will be broken. He'll embody the creatures better than you because he has journeyed through our world for longer, and he has learned to deal with the demons that haunt his mind. You—you still need help, and you will for a while."
I swallow hard, still trying to soak it all in. It's not possible. Does he—
"So there's no way he knew this? Even now?" Chaz asks, voicing the question I was only brave enough to ask in my mind.
"No. He never knew. His real family was slaughtered centuries ago when our world hunted the creatures. He was born from a warlock and witch, but his father came from a creature goddess. Someone learned of his origins, and the hunt began because people believed he'd turn into one as well. Fools.
"Kane wasn't supposed to exist. His mother saved him by abandoning him as an infant. His mortal parents never told him about how he came to be their son. But he knows now. By now he's met the child."
"Stop speaking in riddles," Chaz scolds.
Her eyes change into glowing orbs of dark gray, and I shiver as it takes me off guard. It's not like the others. Her irises aren't the only things to change; everything in her eye socket is the same gray.
"I saw it. Years and years ago. Centuries in fact. I can't summon a vision, but I can see one already seen. She's the gate keeper and a visionary. They have her. That's what they've been waiting on all these years—one who is connected to all the planes. She sees us for who we are without any guiding auras or eyes. She sees us to our soul. She can open any plane, no matter how locked the gate is. She's with him. Now. I've seen it before. Two lost souls seeking rescue from the prison that holds them."
She sucks in a sharp breath as her eyes fade down to normal. My whole body is shivering right now.
"Who is trying to open the planes? What planes are they trying to open?" Chaz asks quickly, rushing the words out into almost a ranted ramble.
