Page 71 of The Heir

“Emma, do you feel that, hear it?” he whispered, touching my waist.

“What?” I asked. He couldn’t be talking about the little melody I had made up.

“Yes, Emma–the music—the song between us.”

I gasped.He can hear it, too? It isn’t something I made up in my head?“You can hear it?” I asked, amazed.

“Yes, I can.”

“What—how?—I thought I just made it up,” I sort of laughed. “That is incredible.”How is something like this even possible?

“There is more,” he continued, pressing his forehead to mine. Suddenly, words entered into my thoughts within my head, and then, directly into my soul.“There is so much more, darling.”

I gasped.Did he just communicate with me within my mind?

“I just spoke to your soul, Emma,” he answered, touching my cheek.

“How is this possible? Wait! So youarea vampire–or are you a Fae—a witch, perhaps?” I asked with a gasp, taking a few steps back and covering my mouth. He wassomething, right?Have I been right all this time?

“I am not any of those things. I am whatyouwould consider a human,” he chuckled. “Believe me, I have met a few of those other kinds of beings. We are nothing alike.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me vampiresarereal, but you are not one even though you can speak in my head to me? No way!” I said, shocked.

“There is so much to explain; there are different worlds and different magical beings and creatures and types of humans.”

“This is–”

“Unbelievable, I know,” he said with a sigh.

I looked at him even more closely, and I could see there within the furrowing of his brow, his stress and his worry. No matterwhathe was, Shad deserved my attention. I needed to focus onwhat he was trying to tell me. If he was not a vampire–but he said magical beings and creatures existed, what was he?

“So, you can read mysoul?”

“Your soul’s melody is what I can read—hear or sense–however you want to describe it. Yours is very loud.”

“Excuse me?” I gasped.Did he call it a soul’s melody? How could he know about my mother’s stories?

“There is so much to explain,” he sighed. “I am sorry, I am doing a poor job of this. I can only read the thoughts you share, but because you do not have any training in shielding, you share a lot. I do trynotto listen. I cannot go into your mind and look around if that is what you are wondering. This music that you hear between us, it’s your soul’s melody. It lets us speak to each other. You talk to me a lot through it, through the melody of your soul. It was hard to know when the right time was to tell you about it. I know you have been through a lot, especially with your parents, and things with Ryker have been confusing for you—”

“Shad, how do you know about melodies?” I asked him, raising a hand to pause him. My mind was spinning.

“What? You already know about them?” he asked, surprised, taking a step back.

“I mean, my mother wrote a book of fairy tales for me when I was younger, and she made up something called ‘soul’s melodies’ for her characters–so how wouldyouknow about them?”

He paused and just looked at me.

“She wasteachingyou,” Shad said with a gasp.

“What does that mean?”

“You are one of us, Emma.” He smiled, taking my hands in his.

“What is thisus?”

“I promise, I will tell you everything; there is much to share with you about who I am, and now, who you are and who yourparents were. I thought you had to be from Terra, but never knew for sure.”

“Terra? That is my mother’s fairy tale world. Shad–I am trying to wrap my head around all this, but it is rather hard to understand–”

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