Page 40 of The Vampire in the Potting Shed

I should have felt cornered with his frame blocking the exit, but with him there, I stood my ground too.

“Tell me the truth, Mercer.” I linked hands with Sloane. “Is Carmichael Sartori my father?”

“He raised you.” Mercer darted wary glances at Rían. “Of course he’s your father.”

“Biologically.” I barely choked out the word. “Is he my father?”

“Come with me, and we’ll get this sorted at home. Your dad will answer all of your questions.”

“Except he never does, does he?” I held tight to Sloane. “He talks over and around but never to me.”

Sweat dampened her palms, but she remained beside me, even as tremors shook her inner wolf.

“Answer her,” Rían said quietly, coldly. “Do that, and I’ll forget what I’m seeing.”

“You took Sartori’s daughter,” Mercer snarled. “You’re lucky I only came for the girl.”

“This is my town now.” Rían rolled his shoulders. “And the token that saved your ass last time? That let you come at me as a wolf while I was trapped as a man? It won’t save you now.” He held out a wide hand, as Fayne had earlier, and golden fire bathed his palm. “Tell her what she wants to know.”

Adrenaline dumped into my veins for no good reason as I stared at him, at his flame, and I couldn’t get a single question out. I had so many, too many, but the roar in my ears was like falling into the ocean, like water was closing over my head, like that hand was the only one strong enough to haul me out and that fire the only thing warm enough to thaw me.

Staring into that glow, I found my voice. “Am I a wolf?”

“The pack has always seen you as one of its own despite?—”

“So, no.” I let myself be mesmerized by the reds and golds. “Am I a latent?”

“Wolf pups can shift at any time, but after puberty it’s rare?—”

“You’re saying I’m not a wolf.” Pain splintered my chest, hurting and yet freeing. “Then what am I?”

“Your father should be the one to?—”

A flicker of inspiration spiraled my brain down a different path, and I asked, “Who left me this house?”

Sloane angled her head toward me, keeping an eye on Mercer, but a frown gathered across her brow.

“Your aunt,” he rushed out, relieved for an easy answer. “Your mother’s sister.”

“Do you mean my birth mother or the one Dad invented for me with a few letters and bedtime stories?”

“Ana…”

“Or did this aunt I never met, the sister of a mother I don’t remember, ever exist?”

Had the mother who wrote those letters been real? Or had she been invented, a hired author with good penmanship and the ability to say the right things to a child starving for acceptance? Just how many lies had he fed me?

“You have to understand?—”

“How long did it take to dig that tunnel before you turned over the keys?” I wiped my damp cheeks, hating I was crying, but I was unraveling. Everything I thought I knew about myself was being turned on its head. I didn’t know what to believe—who to believe—or even what I wanted to be true. “Or are you going to try and convince me the house came with a giant hole in the floor?”

“Brentwood was open territory when you moved here, which made it safe, but it was bound to be claimed eventually. Potentially by an enemy of the Sartoris. The tunnel was a precaution in case we ever had to extract you.” He gestured to Rían. “Clearly, your father was right to build it.”

Click, click, clickwent the facts as they snicked into place in my brain.

“He knew someone would come for me one day. That’s why he’s always been so paranoid about where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m with. That’s why he let things spiral out of hand when I couldn’t shift.” Each word cast grim shadows over my childhood, so why did it feel like sunlight was finally piercing through the clouds? “He couldn’t afford to have taken me, to have risked so much, with no payoff.”

“Your father would do anything to keep you safe.”

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