Aiden hung up the phone and looked over to where Maggie was carefully pouring some bottled water into the fishbowl. The blue fish flitted happily to the top before settling against the white rocks at the bottom with a swish of his tail.

Maggie recapped the bottle and set it on the hotel dresser. He’d taken her to a hotel in Quincy near the ocean. They were far enough away from Maggie’s apartment and Carha’s place, no one would think to look for them here. But they weren’t so far he couldn’t return to help the others if it became necessary.

Taking a deep breath, Maggie turned to face him. She didn’t speak as she waited for him to tell her what else he’d learned during his call to Ronan.

“I didn’t reveal it was about you when I asked him, but Ronan confirmed there have been children of vampires and humans before,” he told her.

“I’m sure he’s already figured out why you asked him,” she murmured.

“Most likely.”

“What were those children like?”

“According to Ronan, the combination of a human and a vampire doesn’t happen often. Most of these children live normal, human lives while others differ in certain ways. They may be stronger and faster, or healthier than other people. I can testify you’re damn fast.”

Her mouth pursed, and Aiden sensed his words had struck a nerve, but when she didn’t speak, he continued. “Ronan also said some of those children choose to be turned later in life. I’m assuming the ones who decided to change were aware of their heritage. Once turned, those half children can be stronger than an average turned vamp, but not as strong as a purebred vampire.”

“I see,” she murmured, and her gaze went past him to the curtained window. He didn’t understand the pensive expression on her face, but he had a feeling she was sorting through something in her mind.

His gaze fell on the slender column of her throat before darting away. His fingers dug into his thighs as he fought the impulse to take her and claim her as his mate, but he remained where he was. She’d been through enough without him heaping the mate thing on her today. He would tell her eventually, but he would wait until she was ready.

He dug his fingers deeper into his flesh when his skin prickled with the compulsion to feel pain and his fangs throbbed for blood. Whereas before these impulses had nearly sent him over the edge, now they were mild cravings he could handle with Maggie near him.

You will control this! She is more important than you.

He’d seen his parents’ relationship, his siblings with their mates, and David with his. He’d always known what a mate did for and to a vampire, but now, experiencing it, he’d never truly realized how much his mate would mean to him. It was more than Maggie being able to calm him in ways pain, blood, death, and sex never had; it was also that he liked and admired her. She’d weathered much in her life, and in the past day, but she hadn’t allowed it to destroy her.

His parents, siblings, and David were all deeply in love with their mates. He’d hoped to find the same, but there was no guarantee love would come with the bond. He didn’t love Maggie, but he knew it would be easy to fall in love with her.

“When I was a baby, I was very sickly,” she said, and her eyes came back to his. “I was placed with a family as soon as I was born. They were going to adopt me. They were so excited to have a baby they were willing to overlook the possible insanity lurking in my genes.”

A sickly child seemed against what Ronan had told him, but no one knew everything for sure, not even Ronan the oldest vampire in existence. “What happened to them?” he inquired.

“I don’t know. Their names weren’t listed in my records, only the history of my time spent with them. They were willing to overlook the possibility I might one day stab and kill someone, but they hadn’t signed up for a sick child. They kept me for three months, but after numerous doctor appointments where no one could figure out what was wrong with me, they wiped their hands of me and gave me back to the state. I do know they named me Coraline while they had me, but when they gave me back, my name reverted to the name my mother gave me, Magdalene.”

“Your mother named you?”

“Yes. Apparently, she had a few minutes of lucidity after my birth. She told the social worker to call me Magdalene because I was a blessing who came from the worst of sins. She also hoped one day my soul could be redeemed instead of remaining pure evil. You know, because being a baby and all, I was more evil than a killer clown on acid playing the bagpipes.”

“That is pretty evil.”

“It’s worse than the devil. Anyway, my mother didn’t want to name me Mary Magdalene because Jesus’s mother was Mary and she was pure while I was evil incarnate, but Magdalene was good enough for her daughter. The social worker documented this conversation in detail. I don’t know why; maybe they were trying to understand her or something.”

“Your mother was wrong. No child has to be redeemed, and no baby is evil.”

“I know, but vampire or not, my father was a vicious rapist. That DNA is in me. If I could cut it out of me, I would, but it’s as much a tapestry of my life as all those foster homes, A.J., Roger, and my mother.”

Aiden didn’t know what to say. He’d never been good with words. Maybe Ian, with all his smooth ways, would know how to respond. Jack would sniff and say fuck that, Vicky would get her drunk, and his mother, Isabelle, and Abby would offer comfort, but he had nothing to give her other than the truth.

“From what I’ve seen of you, Magdalene, your father is a tiny piece of the tapestry. His actions helped to create you, but you’ve forged yourself into someone who doesn’t take joy in being cruel to others. You’ve used the circumstances of your life to make you stronger rather than weaker. Many wouldn't have done the same. Your father gave you the beginnings of life, but nothing else of himself.”

Tears pricked her eyes at his words. After a few deep breaths, she felt capable of speaking again.

“Since my mother has never revealed her name, she’s always been known as Jane Doe. I became Magdalene Doe when I returned to the state. Over the years, I saw numerous doctors, but none of them could pinpoint why I had such a difficult time gaining weight, growing, cried often, was extremely pale, and anemic. I think they believed I would die, but I’ve never seen any documentation of that.

“When I was three, I started getting a little better. The state tried adopting me out again when I was four, but I wasn’t healthy enough. There were still too many doctors involved, so they sent me back. I went through some foster homes, but most foster parents don’t want to deal with a sick kid either. When I was nine, I started feeling a lot better.”

“What caused the change?”

Maggie fiddled with the edge of her shirt as she recalled events she’d always preferred to forget. “I went to a foster home with a woman who was incredibly sweet, but she had this nasty, drunk bastard for a husband. I know some people have these atrocious stories of foster homes, but out of the many I lived in, this was my only really awful experience with one.”

Aiden’s teeth ground together. “What happened?”

“His favorite pastime was using her as a punching bag when he was drunk. He never touched the kids in their care, that could lead to a mess he was too cowardly to wade into, and he needed the money we brought, but he would beat her until she couldn’t scream for him to stop. I think her screams were what excited him.

“Often, I would hide under my bed with some of the other foster kids. I was the eldest out of them, the one they looked to for protection. I had no idea what I would do if he ever came at one of us. He was two hundred fifty pounds of pissed off, alcohol-fueled rage, but I vowed I’d do whatever it took to keep him from hitting one of them.”

“Did he come after you?” He didn’t kill humans. It would start the stench of rot on him as it did with the Savages, but he’d make an exception if this man were still alive.

“No, not really,” Maggie said. “He beat her so bad once she couldn’t get out of bed for a week. During that time, he informed me I would be making the meals. I’d never cooked a day in my life, but I’d watched others do it enough to know at least a little. I made simple meals, sandwiches, cereal, spaghetti, mac and cheese before he demanded steak. So, I cooked us all steak. Except, I didn’t cook it enough.

“Infuriated with my inability to cook it properly, and screaming about wasting his money, he forced me to eat one of the raw steaks with all the blood seeping out of it. The steaks weren’t ruined, I could have cooked them longer, but without his wife to abuse, he started to turn on me.”

Aiden sat up straighter on the bed as he recalled the steak she’d devoured last night. He’d never seen a human eat a steak so rare before.

“What happened?” he asked.

“At first, I cried. I couldn’t help it. It was so gross with all the blood and so red. I didn’t know how to cook steak, but I knew it shouldn’t look like that. I was afraid I’d get some parasite or disease or something; I was more terrified of him and what he would do to me if I didn’t eat it. With him standing over my shoulder, breathing down my neck and grinning at me while he smoked a cigarette and chugged his vodka, I started eating.

“I choked down the first five bites before realizing I liked it. My reaction wasn’t normal, but I didn’t care. Before I was halfway through the steak, I tossed aside my silverware and started using my hands. When I finished, I began to eat one of the other steaks with the same enthusiasm. I felt consumed by this insatiable, animalistic hunger for more.

“My foster siblings looked on in revulsion, as did the man. When I lifted the plate to my mouth to drink the blood off it, he tore it away from me, slapped me across the face, and sent me to my room with the perfect imprint of his hand already bruising my cheek.”

Red shaded Aiden’s vision.

“The next day, I woke to find the mark from his slap gone, I felt healthy for the first time in my life, and I was sent back to live in a group home once more. After that, I started eating raw meat as often as I could get my hands on it, and the only time I saw a doctor was for my yearly physical. None of them could believe my turnaround, and I haven’t had so much as a cold since.”

“The blood made you stronger.”

It hadn’t been a question, but she answered anyway. “Yes. After that day, I also vowed that never again would I allow someone to abuse me. Like I said, most foster homes weren’t bad, but I was tired of being a pawn in this never-ending game of new homes, new people, and new possibilities that always fell through, so I became difficult to handle. Then, when I was twelve, I met A.J. His mother had overdosed the year before, and his father was never in the picture. The two of us bonded fast, and whenever we were sent out to live somewhere else, we did whatever we could to get back to each other.”

Aiden ran a hand through his hair as he contemplated everything she’d revealed. “It seems there is no denying your heritage.”

“I have to see my mother.”

She’d never expected to say those words again in her lifetime. The first time she’d uttered them had been to A.J. who told her sometimes it was better not knowing. He’d been right, but he’d also known she had to satisfy her curiosity, and he’d gone with her to the institute.

Now, she had to let her mother know she understood everything and believed her. Maybe her mother wouldn’t care, but Maggie felt compelled to tell her.

“I don’t know what all of this means for me. The only thing it changes in my life is that I now better understand things I didn’t understand before and have answers for things I never expected answers for, but I have to prepare myself to see her again,” Maggie said.

“When you’re ready, I’ll take you to her.”

Maggie nodded and turned to stare at the curtain once more. She had to see the woman who had given birth to her again, but when would she ever be ready for that?