Page 235 of Shifting Hearts 1
“Don’t.” My voice snapped sharper than intended.
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not doing anything. Just—stay for Christmas.”
“And then what? We can never be.”
“My mark isn’t finished.”
“And yet you let her color it in. Or so Gabby told me.”
His eyes hardened. “Because that was all I could give her at the time.”
“I thought you dented on someone else.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I saw you once, at a restaurant in Blackhill. Before you moved here. I wanted to say hi, but I saw your mark. It wasn’t the same. I thought you’d locked onto someone else.”
He stared at me like I’d struck him. “Morgan, there’s only ever been one lockpass for me. You.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Stop saying that!” His voice cracked against the shelves of books. “I craved you for seventy-five years, and now you can’t even stand being in the same room with me.”
“It’s not that.” I lowered my voice. “It’s that I remember how it was back them. How we circled around Blaze. Her coven. Jace, I did things?—”
“We all did things. My cup broke after a thousand years. Don’t you dare believe your sins outweigh mine. Not after what Annie and I have done.”
I laughed, dry and sharp. “Do you hear yourself? A thousand years, and mine shattered in under a century. It’s not the same.”
Jace sighed, the weight of centuries hanging in that single breath.
“It was bad,” I whispered.
“Then let me see.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “No. Please. No one can see that life. If I could change it, I would. Believe me.”
He nodded, gaze falling to the Persian carpet beneath us. But I could hear it, the shift in his heartbeat. Once, his pulse had been my anchor: steady, sure, the rhythm of home. Nowit stuttered, erratic, jagged. And that unsettled me more than anything he had said.
“Okay, so you want to leave. Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“I assume you’ll run with Emily and Gabby. Heaven knows that woman won’t let you out of her sight.”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, softer this time.
“Morgan!”
“Stop calling me that.” My voice broke. “I’m not Morgan anymore. She died a long time ago.”
“Don’t leave her. Please.”
I exhaled, weary. “Her life will always be in danger because of me.”
Jace’s chest rose with a long, heavy sigh. “And your life will be meaningless without people who love you in it.”
“I’m not an asset. I’m nothing. My fire turned on me, and the rest—” I shook my head. “The other abilities are gone.”
