“Mating is biology. Genetics. Your body trying to trick your mind into thinking that you’ve found some kind of perfect half.” Olivia waved her hands angrily. “That’s how the future is guaranteed. Sex. Reproduction. Your body finds a good, potential match. It’s not about souls or hearts or anything. It’s science.”
“Fine.” Ella had followed her heart before, and it had taken her to death. “I’ll take your science. My body recognizes him, it has from the beginning. He is meant for me. I know that. I—”
“I think he’s using you,” Olivia said. “I wish—”
Then her hands flew over her mouth.
Okay, the shrink was odd. Really odd.
Ella forced a rough laugh. “Unless you’re a djinn, it’s pretty safe to make wishes.”
Olivia’s eyes were the size of saucers.
Ella’s gut twisted into knots. “You had better not be a djinn.” Because one djinn had wrecked her world before.
Oliva’s hands dropped away from her mouth. “Too late,” she whispered. “I thought it.”
So maybe Ella wasn’t the one who should be getting a psychiatric chat. “You thought—what?”
“I wished you’d know the truth about Eric.” Olivia had paled. “I’m sorry.”
The scene just got weirder and weirder. But the woman seemed to be in such genuine distress that Ella reached out and curled her hand around the lady’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Wishes aren’t bad things. They don’t hurt anyone.” Unless you’re a djinn. So for both of our sakes…
Olivia’s lashes slowly lifted. “Mine do.”
“Tell me you aren’t a djinn.”
Olivia cleared her throat. “How do you know about them?”
This was going from bad to worse. “I met a djinn once, and I learned too late just how twisted his wishes actually were.”
Olivia wasn’t looking her in the eye any longer. “A-about Cedric…”
She really didn’t want to talk about him. But Ella pulled her hand back and waited for the next question to come.
“If werewolves came from your-your wings…”
Not my wings. The wings of my friends. Family. Grief rose within her, nearly choking Olivia. “I had really piss poor taste in men.”
Olivia’s lashes flickered. “What about vampires?”
“What about them?” You’re one. You think I don’t know? I do…but are you a djinn and a vamp?
“Where did they come from? Did your kind—were they from your wings, too?”
Ella sighed as she remembered this. “No. I had a…a friend. Very long ago. She lost her wings but she didn’t die. She married a human. Had children with him. And one of those children…he became the vampire. Our kind, you see, the fey, we drink blood. It gives us power. And her son inherited that trait from her. No wings,” Ella murmured. “He wasn’t full-blooded fey, so it makes sense that he didn’t have the wings. He was what we became once the wings were gone. And once he was born as a vampire, he passed that trait down to others…spread it both through his bloodline, then, eventually, through the bite itself.”
Olivia surged to her feet. “Your kind created vampires and werewolves?”
No, we didn’t make them. Cedric did. In his never-ending-quest to change what I was. “You know,” Ella told her as she tilted her head and studied the lady, “you seem really, really stressed. Do you want to talk about things?”
Olivia’s lips parted. “I—”
The door flew open. “Tell me you didn’t wish,” Eric snarled as he filled that doorway. “Tell me, Olivia.”
His eyes were so turbulent. And his jaw was clenched with his fury.
A fury directed at Olivia?
Ella found herself stepping in front of the other woman. “What is the deal with what she wished? Wishes are for children.” And for a Fey who doesn’t want to spend eternity alone. “They don’t hurt—”
“She was a djinn before Shane transformed her,” he gritted out, confirming Ella’s fears with those hard words. “I’m not so sure that transformation took fully. Her wishes are granted. Only they’re twisted all around.”
Ella glanced over her shoulder, studying the woman with renewed interest. “How amazing.” She smiled even as her heart constricted. “I met another djinn once. A few lifetimes ago.” They were supposed to all be dead, too. Guess none of us can stay in the ground.
For just an instant, Ella remembered that long ago day. A traveling group had come through the area. The djinn had been there, selling wishes and dreams.
Because I went to him, so sad. Telling him that I hated to be alone. That I wished I had someone who would love me fully. Completely.
Madly.
And Cedric…he’d most definitely loved her madly.
“Olivia…” Eric pushed.
“Ella is the key!” Olivia cried out. “To everything! She’s the reason the Pandora’s Box of the paranormal opened.”
Ella’s shoulders stiffened. “Watch it, djinn. Your people were around long before I was. How do you think the fey ever came to be?”
Olivia stared at her with blank eyes.
“Someone wanted to live forever,” Ella said. “Once upon a time…if the tales I heard were true…a wish was granted. But there were strings attached, because there always are. The blood was the price we paid. We always craved it, and in the end, the bloodlust ruled us.”
She turned back to Eric. She tried to smile for him. “She thinks you aren’t like me.” Ella headed toward him, completely closing the distance that had separated them. Her hand lifted and stroked his cheek. “As if I wouldn’t know you…”
His hand flew up and caught hers. “Ella…”
Footsteps rushed behind him. Ella saw Holly appear, and at the sight of the doctor, ice slid through her veins. “Eric, what’s going on?”
But Holly ran around him. She glared at Ella. “Your blood. That’s what’s wrong. It’s toxic.”
Ella started to back away from Eric, but he just held her tighter. “No.”
“I saw it in my tests.” Holly swiped a hand over her cheek. Wiping away tears? “And now you’ve given that blood to Eric. You’re going to kill him! You’re going to—”
“Enough!” Eric nearly yelled. “Stop it, I told you, her blood won’t kill me.”
Ella felt a wobbly smile curl her lips. “I know that. It can’t. You’re just like me.”
Sadness slid over his face. “No, baby. I’m sorry. The last thing I am is like you.”
“You just don’t know—”
“I made myself into something more, Ella.”
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. There were too many emotions swirling in his gaze. Anger. Fear. Pity?
No, not pity, please.
“I had to be strong enough to fight the monsters, so I became one.”
She yanked her hand away from him.
“I was dying in a battlefield when I went through the transformation. The first one. Shane came to me, and he gave me his blood. He saved me that day.”
Shane.
And she remembered the dream that had come to her. Sand and blood and death. Not her dream. His.
“Shane opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities. I could be stronger. Faster. I just had to change. And I did change. I devoted my life to the Para Unit. When the docs there needed a guinea pig for their experiments, I signed up.”
Ella hadn’t signed up for the experiments that had been performed on her. She’d been locked in a dungeon. Trapped in golden chains. “Then what are you?” Ella asked him as her heart broke.
“I am the monster that men made. Part vampire. Part werewolf. Science and magic blending all together. I can’t shift, but I’ve got a werewolf’s strength. I have fangs and I can drink blood…but only when necessary. Only in battle or—”
“Lust,” Ella finished. Because passion had always stirred her need for blood. A dull ringing filled her ears. “You didn’t…volunteer. You were made—”
“I volunteered,” he sai
d grimly. “I wanted every single change. I wanted to face the beast at the door head on. I did this.”
She could only shake her head. “But I-I know you. When we were together, I felt…” Her words trailed away. Saying them was just too hard. Whole. Complete.
“I don’t know what you felt.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “But you’re just responding to my screwed up DNA now. Maybe it’s some trick because of all the things they did to me in the labs. Maybe…” He looked away from her. “It wasn’t just about me being part werewolf and part vampire. There were other…things, too.”
“Things? What things?” But she suspected and nausea filled her. Her hand rose to her shoulder, almost as if she could feel the wings behind her back. Dread rose within her, nearly choking Ella. “No…”
“Some of the stuff they had…it had been in government containment for years. It’s possible…” Now his voice went gruff. “If the government was in possession of Fey wings, that could certainly explain some of the earlier experiments I saw. I saw and…participated in.”
He was gutting her. Right there. Ella’s knees gave way and she would have fallen to the floor if he hadn’t lunged forward and grabbed her arms.
“That’s how you knew,” Ella managed to whisper. “About my wings…why the gold hurt me. Your government—they’d taken more of my kind? Experimented on them?” She was going to be sick. Violently sick.
But beneath that twisting, churning nausea…and the terrible ache of betrayal she felt as she stared at him, rage began to stretch and spread through her, snaking like vines through her body. Growing, growing…
“Cedric wanted to change me,” Ella said. “He did. By the time he was done, my wings came out only when my anger took over fully. He’d bottled up the beast, but no beast likes its cage.”
Eric tightened his hold on her. “I’m not trying to cage you. And I didn’t know about the gold until Reece and the others attacked you. I swear, I’m not trying to lock you up!”
“Yes,” it hurt to say the truth, “you are. Just as Cedric did. Just as Keegan did.” And she’d been a blind fool. A man gave her pleasure instead of pain, and she hadn’t been able to see past the moment. When would she learn the truth? There was no happiness to be found for her in this world.
It just wasn’t there.
The rage grew even more when Eric wrapped his fingers around her shoulders. “You have to listen to me, Ella.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” Fey had once been thought of as being nearly gods. Then they’d been decimated. After Cedric, others had realized that their wings contained power. They’d been hunted. Tracked down. And those wings had been sliced off. One at a time and the cries of the fey had filled the night.
Vengeance. Bloodlust. Death.
Evil. Yes, they’d attacked back in a force that had been savage.
It is our nature. “You can’t bottle the beast,” Ella said again and pain ripped through her. So sharp and hard that she jerked form Eric’s hold and fell to her knees.
“Ella?” He was right beside her. His hands were reaching out to her again.
“No!” Ella yelled. “Don’t touch me!” It hurt. It hurt so much. An agony that wouldn’t stop. Cedric had made it hurt. He’d warped her. Turned something that had been natural into this agony. Her wings were coming out now, fueled by her fury. She could feel the stretch along her shoulder blades. Could feel the skin starting to rip open as the wings pushed for freedom.
They were on the first floor of the building. The shrink’s office had a window.
They will not contain me.
“Ella, Ella, sweetheart, I need you to calm down.”
Her gaze shot to his.
She saw his eyes widen.
“Black,” he whispered, “not blue. I didn’t notice before…”
Her eye color change was the least of her concerns right then.
Holly had run out of the door and she was yelling for Connor and Shane. Ella’s hands pushed against the floor, her palms digging in to the carpet as her back arched with the transformation.
“I never meant to hurt you,” Eric said. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
Her teeth snapped together. “You should…go…”
“No, no, I’m staying right with you.”
He wants your wings…A dark whisper from inside. He knows what they can do. He’s been playing you. He wants your fury to erupt and then he’ll be taking those wings, slicing them right off your back.
That wasn’t possible. She shook her head. The thought had seemed so foreign. Just—not her at all.
But then she saw Connor rush into the room. And in his hands…
A golden net. The same net that Reece and his werewolf goons had used on her.
Her heart splintered. “Eric, no.”
“What?” His head whipped around and he looked back at Connor. “Get that damn thing out of here, now!”
But it was too late. She wouldn’t believe his lies any longer.
The wings ripped from her back as she shifted into the form she’d been so long ago. Her true form. A whip of wind filled the room, driven by her flapping wings as she rose from the floor and towered over the man who’d just cut out her heart.
He might not be her soul mate, but she’d been falling for him. And all along, he’d just wanted to cage her.
Trap her.
Keep her.
Use her.
“No one will…use me…again…”
Eric yanked the golden net from Connor’s hands. Seeing it there—seeing Eric hold it broke something deep within Ella. She whirled and flew right toward the window.
“No!” Eric bellowed. “Ella, don’t leave me!”
She flew straight through the heavy blind and the glass. The glass shattered around her, cutting into her skin and her wings, but she didn’t care.
She just kept going.
She didn’t look back.
***
“Ella!” Eric ran to the window. Glass crunched beneath his feet. “Don’t!”
But she was gone. Flying fast and hard and right toward the sun.
Only she wasn’t burning and she sure didn’t seem weak. Because she wasn’t a vampire. Never had been.
He still had the net in his hands. That stupid net. He looked down at it. “Why did you bring this?”
“Because Holly told me about your new girlfriend’s toxic blood, I thought—”
Eric lost it. Just. Lost. It.
He whirled, the net dropping from his fingers and he lunged at Connor. In less than two seconds time, he had his friend pinned against the wall. Eric had one hand around Connor’s throat and the other hand was a fist that was hurtling right toward Connor’s face.
“Stop.” Shane’s voice. Shane wrapped his hand around Eric’s wrist, stilling the movement. “You need to calm down. We all do. You’re attacking a friend.”
Slowly, Eric’s head turned until he could face Shane. “He was going to attack her.”
“Containment,” Connor snapped. Eric’s other hand was still tight around his throat so the word emerged as a gasp. “Just…containing…”
“No one will contain her again. She’s been through that shit enough.” But he made himself step back. He let Connor go.
Connor sucked in a deep gulp of air. “Since when…are you strong…enough to strangle…alpha…”
“Since long before you came into the picture.” His laugh was bitter. But now they would all know the truth. He was the biggest monster they’d faced. The one with the most power. The one who’d spent too long pretending to be a man.
Even after his humanity was gone.
But Ella made me feel differently. She made me happy. She made me remember what it was like to be someone else.
“I know what you did,” Olivia said, her voice a strained whisper.
Eric immediately whirled toward her. She made the wish. She wanted Olivia to see the truth. “You and your damned cursed wishes!”
Shane im
mediately stepped in his path. “There are some things that no one does…and no one talks to my Olivia that way.”
Was he supposed to be afraid of the big, bad vampire? Shane had changed him once, but that had been long ago. And Eric had been through dozens of experiments since then. “And no one puts my Ella at risk! She’s alone out there now. And that asshole—you all remember the one who killed Keegan right on our fucking doorstep?—he’s out there. He’ll be hunting her. We left her open to his attack!”
“It might not be an attack,” Holly said.
His fangs were out, and he didn’t give a shit. I need to find Ella. He stalked back to the window. He could smell her blood there and see it gleaming on the glass. She’d hurt herself when she’d fled from him.
“He may have no intention of hurting her,” Holly said. Eric could hear her footsteps shuffling closer. “I mean…if he’s really like her, then maybe he was the one she was searching for, anyway.”
What? Eric glared at his sister.
“Another of her kind,” Holly told him softly. “A male. If the mating drive for Ella…if it’s anything like a werewolf’s, then maybe the fey male thinks that she’s his mate. The same way—”
“Ella thought I was hers.”
Her expression was sad. “It happens. These instincts are primitive. Maybe he picked up her scent and realized there was a female of his kind out there.”
His fangs were lengthening. And his muscles were straining. Stretching with his fury.
“Uh, Holly…” Connor began.
“That could even explain why the guy killed Keegan,” she added. “Perhaps the male knew that Keegan had hurt Ella and wanted to protect her, it’s the drive of nature and—”
Connor grabbed her arm. “Seriously, stop it. You’re telling the guy that there’s another male out there—one who actually could be Ella’s real mate. He’s about to flip the fuck out. Don’t you see that?”
Her eyes widened, as if she were truly seeing him for the first time. “Eric?”
Holly. Sweet Holly. She’d never realized just how far gone he was. “I…needed her.”
Holly backed up. “Why do you seem bigger?”
Because he was. His muscles had grown, his body had hardened—the beast wanted Ella back. “She brought me…peace.”