AFTER DISCARDING MORGAN’S clothes and changing her into a loose nightgown, we leave her to rest on the couch while Niko and Alexander pick up whatever they can salvage of our belongings. Dorian insists on ushering me to my room to clean up, following me like a shadow.
“What?” I ask, peeling off my blood-soaked clothing. His hovering is really starting to irritate me.
“How do you feel?”
I shrug. “Fine, I guess. A little tired.”
“That’s normal. Do you need me?”
Need him? At first I think he means sex or cuddling or some other form of human comfort, but then I get the connotation.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m fine, really. Plus, I took so much of you earlier.”
Dorian chews his luscious bottom lip, his baby blue gaze falling to the ground. “Do you want…Nikolai?”
I pause from the task of removing my jeans mid-tug and frown. “What?”
“Would you rather breathe him?”
I roll my eyes in exasperation. “Dorian, what are you talking about?”
He takes a step toward me, yet he doesn’t look me in the eye. “You two have a connection. It’s obvious. He seems to bring out your abilities, and you feel at ease with him. Maybe it’s him you need.”
I narrow my eyes in confusion, unsure of what I’m hearing. Dorian Skotos is the most self-assured man I know—human or supernatural. He’s eons beyond any woman’s wildest fantasy and more than I could ever dream of deserving. How the hell could he be insecure of the strictly platonic relationship I have with his younger brother?
It was Dorian who ordered Niko to watch over me when he ran off to play house with Aurora. He was the one who trusted his brother to stay with me because he was an asshole that couldn’t control his goddamn hormones and made a sex tape with said super-bitch. Niko has been nothing but trustworthy and understanding. How could Dorian ever doubt him? How could he ever doubt me?
I huff out my aggravation as I kick off my jeans and walk over to him, still wearing my blood-stained undergarments. “There’s nothing going on with your brother and me, Dorian. You said you trusted me.”
His crystal blue eyes meet mine. “I do.”
“And you trust your brother, right? Since you obviously trusted him with my life.”
Dorian nods, and a lock of black hair falls over his forehead. Under normal circumstances, I would brush it back, just to feel the soft, silky strands between my fingers, but his suspicion has me feeling less than warm and fuzzy.
“Where is this coming from, Dorian? Your behavior towards my father—your best friend—and this doubt you’re having with Niko? I don’t get it.”
Dorian rests his hands on my shoulders, fingering the bloodied bra straps. He slides them down slowly before caressing the indentions left behind in my skin. I feel the clasp on my back come undone, one hook at a time, without his fingers even touching it at all. When I am completely topless, my breasts heavy and on display, he quirks a crooked grin.
“I can’t help but be possessive of what I have. Look at you—have you any idea what you do to me? How crazy and out of control you make me feel? How I count the minutes…seconds…until I can touch you again? Feel your skin against mine, burning me. Marking me with unrelenting desire?”
With a wicked gleam in his eye, he palms my breasts, running the pads of his thumbs over my quickly pebbling nipples. I know exactly what he’s doing—distracting me. Not only making me release my irritation, but forcing me to forget why I was even annoyed in the first place.
I’m arching into his touch, my body begging for his distraction to erase all the bad that’s happened in the last hour, when there’s a knock on my bedroom door. Before either of us can answer, Niko pops his head in, getting a good look at me almost completely naked, my swollen breasts in his brother’s hands.
“Oh shit, um, sorry I didn’t realize…” he stammers, trying to look away, but failing.
“What do you want?” Dorian grits out, jaw tightly clenched. He maneuvers his body to block mine, but I’m sure Niko has already gotten more than an eyeful. Wouldn’t be the first time. He’d already undressed me when I was too distraught to do it myself after discovering a very explicit home video starring Dorian and Aurora. If he was truly interested in my body, he probably could have had it already. He could have had me. Considering my mental state that night, I would have done anything to numb the pain. Sad, but true.
Niko shifts uncomfortably at the door, battling with the impulse to let his crystal blue eyes find my naked skin. “I thought you’d want to know…Morgan is stirring. She’ll want to see you when she wakes up.”
“Thank you, Niko,” I respond, looking up at a stone-faced Dorian. “We’ll be out in a minute.”
I’m still too stunned to respond. And even if I could, my words would be like gasoline on an already kindling flame.
“Understand this,” Dorian says to me as soon as we hear the click of my bedroom door close. “I am a patient, rational man, Gabriella. But there are things that can, and will, cause me to act irrationally. You are one of them. Do I make myself clear?”
Then he’s gone in a haze of grey smoke, leaving me speechless and dumbfounded. I shake off his chilly demeanor and hop in the shower to quickly wash away the remnants of Morgan’s flaking, dried blood. I don’t have time to deal with Dorian’s mood swings. I can’t consider his fragility right now, not when I have to think about the ones that are really fragile. The ones that slice open their wrists from their palm to their forearm, just to bleed out all the fear and pain.
I emerge from the bedroom to find Niko and Alexander hovering silently over Morgan’s body. Dorian isn’t in the immediate area, and part of me thinks it’s for the best. I may have to lean on someone other than him for strength—both mentally and physically—and I don’t want it to spark even more friction between us.
Ugh. Happy fucking birthday to me.
“Where’s Dorian?” Alexander asks, a small frown lining his forehead.
“Don’t know,” I shrug, sitting in the space beside Morgan on the couch. “How is she?”
“Her vitals are steady,” he answers, touching his fingers to her wrist. He looks up at me and gives me what I’m sure he deems an encouraging, fatherly smile. “She’ll be fine. You were incredible, Gabriella. You saved her life. I’m so very proud of you. Your mother would have been too.”
I shrug, my cheeks warm. “Thanks. And thank you for being here…for helping with my friend.”
Alexander nods before laying a timid hand on mine. He flinches at first, still not accustomed to the feel of my skin, but he doesn’t pull away. He’s here for me. My father has fought to survive…for me.
“You are very brave. Like Natalia. I see so much of her in you that it hurts. But a good hurt. The kind of hurt that makes me grateful that I’m alive.”
A beat passes as he just gazes at me, his beautiful face filled with nostalgia, before Morgan begins to rouse from sleep. I look back at Alexander and Niko, apology in my tight smile.
“Do you mind giving us some privacy? I don’t want to scare her.”
As expected, they both shake their heads. But Niko speaks up first.
“Hell no. Hell-fucking-no, baby girl.”
“Why not? She won’t hurt me.”
“You have no idea what she’s capable of. I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
He crosses his arms in front of his chest, giving me his best “I mean business” face. Yet all I can focus on is the way his sleeves seem to hug his chiseled biceps. Something pulls and clenches inside me as the memory of Niko’s body wrapped around mine protectively pops into the forefront of my mind. A moment so sweet could easily turn oh-so-sexy with just the slip of a hand or graze of a thigh…
What the hell is wrong with me? I shouldn’t be harboring thoughts like that right now. I shouldn’t be harboring thoughts like that ever.
I shake my head, forcing the memory back to the forbidden corner of my mind, and peg them both with pleading eyes. “Please. She’s my friend, and I need her to feel safe. She’s been through hell. I don’t want to confuse her even more, ok?”
Alexander looks to Niko, who still wears a stubborn scowl. “Nikolai, give her what she desires. She’s a smart girl. If she thinks this is for the best, we should respect her wishes.”
A long moment passes between us before Niko huffs out a breath. “Fine. We’ll be in the kitchen. But if anything happens—if she even breathes wrong—I’m coming over.”
I nod. “Deal.”
The two walk over to the kitchen, disappearing from sight, as I watch Morgan’s eyelids begin to flutter. They open slowly before focusing on my face. When she doesn’t scream in horror, I finally allow myself to feel a sense of relief. She’s back. My friend has come back to me.
“Hey there, sleepyhead.”
“Gabs? What the…what happened?” She scrambles to sit up, clutching her wrist. When her hand comes up completely clean, devoid of blood, her eyes widen with shock and her mouth goes slack. “What happened to me, Gabs? How did this…how can this be?”
“How do you feel?” I ask in my calmest voice, as if she isn’t trembling in front of me, confused and afraid.
“I don’t know. I-I don’t know what happened. And you…how did you... What did you do to yourself?” Morgan stammers. She reaches a shaky hand toward me, but drops it before her finger touches my face. “Your eyes...what happened to your eyes?”
Shit. I didn’t even think to do something about my appearance. There’s hardly an easy explanation to spontaneously spawning one blue and one golden eye.
“I’ll explain later,” I lie, knowing I’ll never be able to share my true identity with her. I know I’ll have to enlist one of the guys to help me out with covering my ass. “Right now, I want to talk about what happened last night.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, Morgan’s eyes go glassy and she shakes her head. I can see that whatever terror lies just beneath the surface is ready to manifest at any moment.
“Last night, I had been trying to call you, but you wouldn’t pick up. I was just about to go to bed around midnight, when I thought I saw you in the hallway. I called out, but there wasn’t an answer. So I went to ask you where the hell you’d been when…”
Morgan sucks in a sharp breath of air, her lips quivering with fear. I don’t want to push her, but I need to know what happened. “Go ahead, Morgan. It’s alright.”
She shakes her head again, eyes closed tight, trying to erase the memory. “It wasn’t you, Gabs. It wasn’t you.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know.” When Morgan opens her deep brown eyes, a solitary tear rolls down her cheek. “But it wasn’t alive. None of them were. I could…see…what killed them. How they died.”
They? Holy fuck.
I look across the room at Niko, then Alexander, searching for a logical explanation. They both share the same look of bewilderment, rivaling my own wide-eyed dread. “Morgan, are you saying you were haunted by…ghosts?”
“I know what I saw!” she cries, more tears wetting her cheeks. She shivers like she’s been dipped in an ice bath, yet her forehead begins to bead with sweat. “ I swear! I’m not crazy! I’m not crazy!”
“I know, honey,” I coo, trying to calm her. “I know you’re not crazy.”
“So you believe me?” she asks, hysteria in her stare. “You believe me, right, Gabs? I wouldn’t make this shit up! I wouldn’t…do that…to myself if I had any other choice!”
“I know you wouldn’t. But I have to ask...why did you do it? Why didn’t you have a choice?”
She struggles to swallow down her terror as if it’s choking her. “They kept talking to me…kept telling me to do it. I had to. They wouldn’t get out of my head, Gabs. They wouldn’t leave me alone!”
In a fit of immeasurable horror and insanity, Morgan begins to fist her hair, pulling at it as if to pull the memories right from her skull. I beg for her to stop, but I don’t want to lose control. I can’t let her see me yet. Not when she is in such a fragile state.
“Stop it, Morgan! Stop before you hurt yourself!”
With a broken sob, she pounds her fists against her temples over and over, shaking her head. “I can’t, Gabs,” she cries. “I can’t go through that again. Please don’t make me!”
She hits herself even harder, and as gently as I can, I pry her fists from her face. “I’m here, Morgan. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.”
Just as she begins to calm under my touch—her heartbeat slowing, her breathing steadier—Dorian walks through the front door, cracking the hell of Morgan’s mind wide open and unleashing her demons.
“Oh my God, Gabs. It’s here. Oh my God, no!” Morgan snatches her hands away from me and cowers in the farthest corner of the couch, covering her mouth with trembling hands.
“What’s here, Morgan?” I look from her to Dorian, who cautiously makes his way toward us. Niko and Alexander are right behind him.
“Don’t turn around, Gabs,” she whispers frantically, her wide, terrified eyes fixed on the men that stand just a foot away. “They said this would happen. They said it would come.”
“Morgan, calm down. It’s just Dorian. You know him. And his brother, Niko—remember him? And their…”
“No, Gabs! No!” She swiftly moves to my side, gripping my arms so hard that her fingernails break the skin. “I should have listened! They told me it would come for me! They told me!”
I grasp Morgan’s shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “What would come, Morgan? What is coming for you?”
It’s like she’s looking right through me. My best friend—my sister—is right here in front of me, breaking in my hands. The girl I knew and loved is crumbling, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Dry lips trembling, she whispers the word that’s filled my nightmares for the past year. “Darkness.”
I turn back to the three Warlocks standing behind me, each wearing varied faces of shock and rage. “What do I do?”
Alexander opens his mouth to answer, but quickly closes it, letting the painful solution die on his tongue. Niko shifts beside him, his jaw clenched with irritation. I can literally feel him radiating with anger.
“Fuck, she can see us,” he mutters furiously. Then, before I even know what he’s doing, he darts in front of us and brushes a hand across her forehead, sending her into unconsciousness.
“What the hell did you do?” I shriek, cradling her sagging frame.
“She’s fine. I just knocked her out so we have a chance to deflect. We don’t need her screaming and crying like a lunatic.” He shakes his head in frustration. “You have to know that she’s a threat to us all now. She’s seen us. She’ll have to be dealt with…permanently.”
“What?”
He tries to meet my eyes, but I refuse his gaze. “Your friend is a liability. I know that’s hard for you to understand, but if we don’t act now, she could—”
“No! You won’t hurt her!” I cry, shaking my head. “Can’t you just spell her to forget or something?”
“I told you before, Gabs—the magic flowing through her veins is unnatural. And now that her sight seems to be amplified, it can be dangerous for our kind. There’s no guarantee that a spell would last. We can’t risk that, especially not now.”
Angry tears fill my eyes, but I swipe them away, refusing to accept the harsh truth he speaks. I could save Morgan; I could force them to spare her life. But then what? How will I explain what’s happening to her when I don’t understand it myself? How will I explain me? And even if I manage to make sense of it all, would she believe me? And would she vow to keep my secret?
“I can make her understand,” I say without thinking twice. I look to Dorian, begging him to understand. If anyone is capable of mercy and empathy, it’s him. “Morgan is my friend; she loves me. She would never do anything to hurt me.”
“It’s forbidden,” Alexander interjects, shaking his head. “Humans cannot know of our existence. I’m sorry, child. Your friend could be harmful to all of us. You, especially.”
I narrow my gaze at him. “So you’re telling me no other humans have ever known about the Light and the Dark? Donna? Chris?” I look to Niko, who had always shown me acceptance and compassion. “You told me you loved a human once. Are you going to say she didn’t know what you are?”
Pain and longing washes over him, but he doesn’t say a word. He just looks at me, unblinking, reliving the agony of his lost love. I hate myself for doing that to him, but at this point, I’m desperate.
“She won’t say anything. And even if she did—who would she tell? How would she even explain it?”
“You don’t know that for sure, Gabriella. She’s seen us, and someone may actually find truth in her words. We can deflect, but the damage has already been done. And her mind may be beyond reasoning right now,” Dorian retorts, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder. I feel him—I feel his solace seeping into me—but it’s not enough to dissuade me.
“Please, Dorian,” I plead, looking down at Morgan, sleeping peacefully in my arms. “She needs us like I needed you when I first found what you were. Remember how you spared me? How you were willing to sacrifice yourself for me? For love?”
I gaze at each of them through teary eyes—Niko, Alexander then back to Dorian. “You’ve each chosen to save a life despite what that meant for you. You saved mine. So you know what it means to truly be selfless. And good. And kind. Please…show me that now. I need you—all of you—to be that for me now.”
With a resigning breath, Dorian nods before leaning over to gently kiss my hair, letting my scent fill his lungs. Then he takes hold of Morgan’s slumped body and drags his fingertips across her forehead. She wakes with a start, but Dorian instantly aligns his gaze with hers before panic fully sets in.
“Listen to me, Morgan. You’re ok. You’re safe now.”
Morgan tries to thrash against him, resisting his influence. But it only takes mere seconds before his stare penetrates her blood-shot eyes, pushing into the core of her psyche. She exhales and sags against the couch cushion, releasing her will to him.
“You’re safe here, Morgan. You know me. I need you to calm down and listen to us. We aren’t here to hurt you. But if you scream or fight, we’ll have no other choice. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she squeaks, her voice hoarse from screaming.
“Good, Morgan.” Dorian turns to me and places her hands in mine. “She’s all yours. Just don’t push too hard. You want her to absorb what you’re saying, not bend to your will. Push too hard and you could cause permanent damage.”
I nod and try to swallow down the rising apprehension. “No pressure.”
Dorian gives me a small, encouraging smile, and I’m nearly distracted by the curve of his lips. “You’ll do great. I’m right here with you. Go ahead—talk to her. She’ll listen.”
I muster up whatever courage I have left and position myself directly in front of Morgan, ensuring that my skin doesn’t break contact with hers. I think back to that day in the mall less than a year ago—the day a body was found in a mall dressing room. That security guard…the way he instantly went from freaking-the-fuck-out to calm and compliant the moment I touched his skin—that was me. I did that. I didn’t understand it then, and even though I know it’s the only thing keeping Morgan from jumping off the nearest bridge, I don’t really understand it now.
“Morgan, you know who I am, right?” I ask nervously, unsure of how to start.
“Yes,” she nods slowly. Her voice is still hoarse, but it’s devoid of hysteria. “Of course, I do. We’ve been best friends for years.”
“We have,” I smile, relieved that she stills sees me as…well…me. I can still be Gabs to her. I just have to make her see that. “You know that I was adopted, right?”
“Yes. By Chris and Donna.”
“That’s right.” I turn around and nod to Alexander, signaling for him to step forward. He comes to stand on the other side of me, and I feel Dorian’s hand tense on my shoulder. I can’t think of that right now. And even if I could, that’s Dorian’s issue. Not mine.
“Morgan this…this is my biological father, Alexander.”
Alex tips his head, yet doesn’t make a move to come any closer. “Hello, Morgan.”
“No way,” Morgan gasps. I feel the blood in her veins rush faster and hear her heart rate spike, yet she doesn’t struggle out of my grasp. She’s still receptive.
“Yes, Morgan. Alexander is my father.”
Her eyes are wide and animated as she takes in the tall, tanned skin Adonis in front of her. “But he’s so young. And…gorgeous. Not to say that a gorgeous man can’t be your father, but…he’s …” She looks back at me and squints, trying to wrap her head around it. “How? How is that even possible?”
A sense of fear and exhilaration run through me as I prepare to tell another living soul what I’ve been concealing since all this was sprung on me a year ago. There were times where I felt so alone in this because I had virtually no one to talk to. And now…now I get my best friend.
“Morgan, the four of us—me, Dorian, Alexander and Niko—aren’t exactly human.”
“What?” Her heartbeat stutters, and I feel a slight tremble in her hands. Dorian gives my shoulder a squeeze, telling me that my hold is slipping. I lock eyes with Morgan and push my influence just a little deeper into her mind. Just enough to calm her so she can digest what I’m saying.
“We’re…different. Special. And we have certain abilities. Immortality is one of them.”
She looks up to the beautiful creatures standing before us, modern gods disguised in dark designer threads. Right now, she sees features so stunning that they could have been painted by da Vinci, and bodies that even Michelangelo couldn’t sculpt without blushing. That’s what they want her to see. That’s what they had hoped she—and everyone else—would only see.
“But...their faces…” She squeezes my hands so hard that her knuckles turn white. Terror creeps back onto her face, but I don’t push it away. I let her feel it. I let her own her emotions. They aren’t mine to manipulate or steal away. “Just minutes ago, they were monsters. I saw them with my own eyes. I don’t understand.”
I smile, hoping to ease her trepidation, but she doesn’t return the sentiment. Her gaze just keeps jumping from me to the men standing behind me, mirroring their frustration.
“Are you like them? Are you telling me you’re like them, Gabs?” she asks, accusation in her voice.
“I am,” I nod. “But different.”
“But you’re not a monster, are you? You don’t look like them.” She blinks rapidly and frowns, as if she is trying to see who I truly am. As if she hoping to get a glimpse of my own shade of evil.
Morgan tries to pull her hands away, but I squeeze them with more pressure, refusing to let her escape my hold. “They aren’t monsters, Morgan. They helped you. They helped me. You just have to trust me on this.”
“Trust you? How can I trust you, Gabs? You’re telling me you aren’t even human! What are you—some type of alien or a vampire or some bullshit like that? Do you sparkle in the damn sun? Do you turn into an oversized mutt or something? Shit, are you even alive?”
I feel Niko’s hand on my other shoulder. “Gabs,” he warns, urging me to strip away Morgan’s rising anxiety. I shrug it off, hoping…praying…I can get through to her. That somewhere underneath all her skepticism, that she loves me enough to know that she can trust me wholeheartedly. I don’t want to take away her free will or manipulate her emotions—I won’t do to her what had been done to me. Her acceptance of me needs to be organic.
“Listen, Morgan. It’s not what you think. They…we…aren’t aliens or vampires or anything like that.” I pause to take a breath, frantically searching for the words without sounding completely ridiculous. My gaze flicks up to Dorian, and I silently plead for help.
“We are what you and other humans would consider witches and warlocks,” he says, answering my desperate prayer. “But that’s putting it mildly. Centuries ago, the creator of all things—the Divine Power—created us to rule the night. We are called Dark Ones. In the same respect, he created Light Enchanters, rulers of the day. Together we are the purest form of magic. The original power. And Gabriella is both Light and Dark, making her the most powerful of us all.”
Morgan’s brown eyes grow so wide that they touch her eyebrows. She looks at me like she wants to believe Dorian’s words but can’t. Like she’s trying to see the magic in me but her logic won’t let her. “No. Fucking. Way. A witch, Gabs? Seriously? Are you guys fucking high?”
“No,” I reply shaking my head. “As much as I wish I weren’t, I’m stone-cold sober. It’s true, Morgan. I found out a year ago—the same day I first met Dorian—what I actually am and what I was destined to be when I turned twenty-one. Today.”
She shakes her head frantically, refusing to trust my words. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe what you’re telling me. I won’t believe it. Magic? That’s fucking ridiculous! It doesn’t exist. Witches, warlocks…whatever you are…it doesn’t fucking exist!”
In one swift movement, I flip over her hands to expose her wrists. The skin is a bit cold to the touch, paper-thin and almost iridescent, yet otherwise unmarred. “Look, Morgan. What do you see? When we found you, you were dying. Dying! How do you explain this? What could have possibly happened to make you heal so quickly?”
Morgan looks down at her arms, studying the smooth skin that once was open and bleeding with a laceration down to the bone. “I can’t believe it. It can’t be.”
“You know in your heart that what I’m telling you is true, don’t you? Remember what you told me about your grandmother? Remember you said that she came to you when we were at Breckenridge? I believed you, Morgan. Without question, I believed you. I need you to do that for me now. And I promise, I’ll explain more when I can. But for now, just hear what I’m saying to you. Everything that you thought was myth is real. The world that you know is so much more complex than you could ever imagine. Magic is real. And whatever happened to you last night—whatever pushed you to that point of desperation—has tied you to mine, whether you like it or not.
In an act of assurance, or maybe just flat-out stupidity, I remove my hands from hers, completely stepping out on faith and hoping that she—my friend and sister—truly hears me. “I’m not going anywhere, Morgan. So you can fight me—you can kick and scream—but until we find out what happened to you, you’re stuck with me. With all of us.”
Silent moments turn into several minutes as she ponders my vehement declaration. Rehashing all the stories about her grandmother and her heritage that she thought was all nonsense. Remembering that night on our ski trip that had her shaken and teary-eyed when her grandmother appeared to her, warning her of the darkness that lurked nearby. She knew then. She knew there were things beyond our world that science and logic could not explain. Things so much more complex than our vapid little realm of shopping and club-hopping.
Morgan knows. I can see it in her. I can feel it in her. She believes me. Now I just hope she will believe in me.
“You know this is incredibly fucked up, right?”
I give a one-shoulder shrug and nod. “I know.”
She shakes her head. “And you know only a mental patient would believe this story. That you have to be absolutely insane to take stock in any of this shit.”
“I know.”
She takes a resigning breath before looking up at me, her eyes devoid of any inkling of rage or fear. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m crazy as hell.”