What the hell was going on? It seemed like all I had were more questions. Not once yet had anyone given me an answer—at least, not one that helped me understand what was going on all around me, who these people were.

I watched Alan from the corner of my eye as he folded his hands on the surface of the table. The table which had just magically appeared out of nowhere. I would never get used to it, no matter how many times one of them pulled something out of thin air.

He was impressive, at least physically. His entire family was. Tall, broad-shouldered, thick with muscle from head to toe. What were they, a bunch of bodybuilders or fitness models?

Oh, yes. A bunch of fitness models who lived together in a secret commune in the mountains. That made a ton of sense.

Something told me the truth made no more sense than that did.

“Are you certain she should be seated on that side of the table?” Electra nodded to Keira. “She belongs here, with us.”

“She belongs with me,” Tamhas snarled.

He was a fiery one, that Tamhas. No wonder the two of them had hit it off so well. I leaned in to see past Alan and noticed Keira trying to quiet Tamhas down. He shut his mouth but didn’t look any happier.

“Where Keira seats herself at this time is the least of our concerns,” Alan announced. I had to give him credit, the witches didn’t seem to intimidate him at all. If anything, they quieted down when he spoke just the way they did for Selene, and he didn’t have powers like hers.

I winced at the thought. For all I knew, he did have those powers. Maybe that was why Keira wouldn’t tell me anything about them.

“What is it you feel our coven has done to you?” Selene asked.

She got right down to it, didn’t she?

I looked at Alan.

Everyone did.

He clenched his teeth so hard, I wondered how they didn’t shatter. “You surely must have heard of the incident our clan experienced months ago.”

Selene shook her head. “Remember, when our connection broke, we lost the ability to maintain knowledge of your doings.”

He let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. “How am I to believe that? You were the only connection we had to the rest of the world at that time, before humans and others began infiltrating our clan.”

Again with the word human. Damn it, were any of these people like me? I shrank away from him, but that ended up moving me closer to a girl with red hair who looked a lot like him. I wondered if they were brother and sister.

I was surrounded by them. Whoever they were. Whatever they were.

Selene looked both ways, up and down her side of the table.

The witches shrugged, shook their heads. If they were acting, they were very skilled at it. Even I believed they had nothing to do with whatever Alan was talking about.

“All right, then,” Alan growled. “If that is the game you wish to play, so be it. We were kidnapped by a group of so-called doctors and their mercenaries in order for tests to be performed upon us. How could you have missed the fact that helicopters landed not far from here? Did you not hear the gunfire?”

Selene’s eyes went wide. “I had no idea. We are rather far beneath the ground here, and well into the cave. As you know, seeing as how you entered through the same tunnel we use.”

“You mean to tell us you had no knowledge whatsoever?” he asked.

“That is precisely what I mean. What reason would we have to bring your presence to the attention of outsiders? We have no contact with that world. We need nothing from them.”

I could attest to that, and I had only been with them for less than a day. Anything they needed, they could create for themselves. What a life.

“We rarely ever venture from the cave,” Iris spat. She had a massive chip on her shoulder.

“And why is that?” the girl next to me asked.

“You’ve put us in grave danger, while you had the ability to walk away from us and live in safety.”

“What does that mean?” Alan asked. “We were unaware of your continued existence until Keira found us—even then, she appeared to be an outlier. She had no knowledge of the coven or her place therein. We only recognized her thanks to the mark on the back of her neck.”

Selene and Iris exchanged a look which I already recognized, since Iris was the type who always needed to be reminded to shut up.

Then Selene spoke. “What Iris refers to is the protection which your clan once provided us. The lack thereof left us with no choice but to retreat deeper into the shadows, so to speak. While we never flaunted our existence, we felt safe enough to move among humans without notice. Now…”

“You cannot hold Alan or the rest of the clan responsible for the decisions my husband made.” Toward the end of the table sat a woman I hadn’t noticed before. Older, but still beautiful, with shining, gray-streaked hair I would’ve killed for. It gave her character.

“Bonnie,” Selene smiled. “You know very well the warm relationship I shared with Gavin prior to his betrayal. But it was a betrayal, no matter how one looks at it.”

“Betrayal? None of us betrayed you,” Tamhas insisted.

Selene locked eyes with Alan. “You know. I can see it. I do not believe any of the others know. Not even Bonnie.”

“What does she mean?” Bonnie leaned forward to look down the table at Alan.

“Alan?” The redhead beside me asked.

I suddenly felt sorry for him. He reminded me of an animal in a corner. A very large animal, granted, and one I wouldn’t dare goad into a fight. But still.

His chiseled jaw worked, like he was fighting with himself over what to say next. The place went so silent, I could hear water dripping somewhere in the cave.

“Alan?” Selene prompted. “You do know. There is no sense in lying. Perhaps this has been a secret for far too long. In a situation such as this, what is needed is honesty and understanding.”

“I assume all of you know?” he asked, his head moving from side to side as he looked at the witches.

“Naturally,” Callie murmured.

“She was our High Priestess,” Iris snarled. “We did not lose her without understanding why, and how your so-called leader refused to extend the same painful, yet necessary, justice to her counterpart in your clan.”

Well. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more confused, they threw a curveball like that one at me. I looked from side to side, and the same look of confusion was repeated again and again.

Except for Alan, of course. He knew exactly what Iris was accusing him of.

“Alan?” Tamhas elbowed him. “Tell us. What does she mean?”

Alan sighed. His shoulders fell. “He never told me who fathered the babe. I swear it. That was the one aspect of the story which he refused to share.”

“The babe?” the girl to my right whispered.

Alan nodded. “Yes. The babe Demeter carried.”

“We banished her for it,” Selene whispered. “My own daughter. My child. I had no choice; it was the law, part of the very fabric of our existence. Daughter of the High Priestess, heiress to the coven, and she left us in shame. While carrying a child.”

A soft gasp rose up over my side of the table.

This reaction seemed to please Iris. She must have decided to rub salt in the wound by continuing. “And yet, in spite of knowing this, and in spite of the guilt of one of his clan’s members, Gavin refused to bring forward the man who was responsible for the child.”

“Oh, no. This cannot be true.” Bonnie looked at Alan. “Is this the truth? Alan? Did my husband do this?”

He looked to Selene, his face a blank mask. She might have been able to read his thoughts, but the rest of us couldn’t. “Yes,” he admitted. “He shielded the clan member who fathered the child. He explained the incident and cited it as the reason why the clan and the coven split from each other, but he would not reveal the clan member’s name even to me. Even after so many years.”

“He was a hypocrite who admitted the fault of one of his clan members, yet protected them from receiving proper punishment. It was a blatant slap in the face to all of us, to the relationship both sides had benefitted from for centuries,” Selene whispered. She nearly vibrated with energy—heartbroken, furious, dangerous energy.

The torches along the walls blazed brighter than ever, and her eyes seemed to glow.

“I cannot believe this!” Tamhas muttered, shaking his head. “Gavin would never have lied to us like this, and he had the integrity to do what was right.”

“He did not,” Alan assured him. “I’m sorry. He kept this from all of you, and so did I. I was certain that after so many years, it no longer mattered to the clan.”

“No longer mattered?” Selene bellowed, standing. “I have missed my daughter every single day since then. The entire clan has missed her presence!”

“You did not have to banish her,” Alan replied, also standing.

I thought he might be making a mistake.

No. I was sure of it.

“It was the law,” Selene hissed.

“It was still your decision whether or not to cast out your only daughter. That was not Gavin’s doing. It was not even the fault of the clan member responsible. You made that decision. You alone.”

Selene’s powerful hands clenched into fists.

I wanted to slide off my chair and under the table, just in case firebolts started flying.

“Unlike your so-called leader, I would not have been able to hide the pregnancy. My daughter was the one who would have to bear the brunt of the looks and whispers and questions. Your pathetic excuse for a man, whoever he was, could pretend to have nothing to do with her. I’m certain he must have known of her predicament, and he did not even have the courage to stand beside her. Instead, he ran like a frightened child and hid behind Gavin. And Gavin could feign ignorance. I had no such luxury.”

The clan members on my side of the table muttered to each other, grumbling and shaking their heads. I felt sorry for Alan all over again. He only did what he thought was right, keeping the secret for the better of the entire clan.

It hadn’t been his decision to shield the baby’s father. Why couldn’t any of them see it?

I gasped when the truth hit me. None of them had announced it—they were too busy arguing and throwing accusations around, reliving old pain and hurt. I knew how that went, and I knew how easy it could be to forget what was right in front of me when I was in that state of mind.

“It’s you.” I caught Keira’s eye from behind Alan’s back. “You’re the baby.”

She went deadly pale, frozen solid. “No. It can’t be.”

“It has to be. She called you the heiress, remember? You’re her granddaughter.”

Tamhas overheard, turning to me before taking Keira’s shoulders. “Selene referred to you as their heiress? Your father was one of us?”

“No,” Keira whispered, shaking her head. “I can’t be.”

“You are,” he insisted, as the rest of the clan and the coven broke out into even louder arguing. Only the three of us hadn’t joined in. “Keira, you’re half-dragon.”

I never understood before then what people meant when they said something made their jaw hit the floor. I’d heard it so many times, and it had always seemed like a stupid thing to say. A jaw couldn’t hit the floor. Everybody knew it.

And yet, mine did just then. Hey, I had never believed in real witches before then, either.

Keira let out a choked sound, looking at me over Tamhas’s shoulder. “I didn’t tell her. She doesn’t know about that.”

“You’re… you’re all…” I couldn’t breathe. The force of the blood rushing in my ears muffled everything else around me as I looked from one of them to the other. Dragons? No! Impossible! There was no such thing!

But Keira hadn’t denied it.

And if witches existed, dragons might, too.

I had to get out of there. Away from them, away from all of it. I pushed my chair back hard enough to knock it backward and staggered to the tunnel. I was running blind, heading for the darkness, but it didn’t matter.

I would almost rather impale myself on a jagged piece of rock than exist in a world where nothing made sense anymore.

A voice roared out behind me, breaking through the rushing and pounding in my ears.

“Do not touch her!”

I didn’t know who it was. I only knew they kept the witches from stopping me as I fled down the tunnel, stumbling my way to the light and away from a nightmare I refused to be part of.