Light Shadows (9 page)

“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.”

“SO LET ME get this straight: Alexander is your father. And Dorian’s ex-partner in the Shadow, which is basically an organization of assassins. Assassins that were hunting your mother and vice versa.”

I nod at Morgan. “Right.”

“And your mother was a Light Enchanter—like a good witch—and sworn enemy of the Dark.”

“More or less.”

“And somehow you’re both, right? Light and Dark. Which explains the freaky eye shit. By the way, we have to get you some contacts or something, because it’s kinda cool, but mostly creepy as hell.”

I laugh, shaking my head. Leave it up to Morgan to make light of a situation like this.

“Ok. So when your parents were caught, Alex was supposed to be executed?”

“Yes.”

“And Dorian was spared as well. On the terms that he would kill you before you ass—um—ascen—”

“Ascended. Yes. Before my ascension on my 21
st
birthday.”

“But he didn’t. He fell in love with you. And defied his father, who is like the hot-shit king of the Dark, making Dorian and Niko princes?”

“Correct.”

Morgan’s eyes grow wide with excitement. “Holy shit, Gabs! So if you marry Dorian, you become like a princess or something? Or—hell—a queen?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head before Morgan’s imagination runs away from her. “It’s not like that. Dorian and I…we won’t…that won’t happen.”

“So you’re good enough to seduce, but not good enough to marry,” Alexander snorts, malice in his voice. “Figures.”

“Be very careful,” Dorian warns, sitting on the couch beside me. I can feel the rising anger radiating from his frame.

“Wait a minute. So how does Niko fit into all this? Was he part of the Shadow too?” Morgan meets my eyes and gives me a wink, telling me she’s got the situation under control. Leave it up to her to know exactly how to handle men—even deadly, immortal ones.

Alex clears his throat and turns back to Morgan, his expression softening. “No, he wasn’t. But he was the one who brought me here.”

“But Cyrus was the one who rescued him before he could be put to death,” Niko adds.

Morgan turns to Niko, brows raised in confusion. “Cyrus?”

“Our cousin. And vampire.”

She shakes her head and throws up her hands, as if she’s just maxed out her weird-shit intake for the year. “Oh hell no. You did not just say vampire.”

Niko jumps into the history of the Dark and the Light, and how the existence of vampires came to be, so I take the opportunity to excuse myself to the kitchen in a quest to throw something edible together. The verdict? I’d be a shitty housewife. Other than alcohol and junk food, we have nothing remotely nutritious in the house. If it weren’t for Donna’s Sunday dinners, I’d live solely on a diet of beer and Cheetos. Now
that’s
an attractive thought.

Obviously, things weren’t like that when Dorian and I were together. He cared for me to the point of fawning over me. I have to admit, it made me feel cherished. Precious. He wanted me to be deliriously happy and healthy. And I was.

Until he left.

Losing him devastated me. Losing him to Aurora completely demolished me.

I couldn’t see Dorian’s motives beyond my pain. And even though he’d been hurting too, I’d hated him for doing that to me. For loving me just to leave me. I would have rather turned out to be a single cat lady than have felt the blow of his abandonment for one more day. Being loved by Dorian is like having the sweetest wine on your tongue while resting on a bed of clouds. But when that love is stolen away, there is no taste. No feeling. My heart and mind had become numb because I couldn’t stand to feel one more ounce of agony.

“Lost in thought?”

I look up from the mugs of steaming hot coffee and my eyes delve into an endless ocean of blue. I smile, gratitude filling my chest until I feel I may burst with pride. “Something like that.”

Dorian takes the coffee carafe from my hand and sets it down on the counter before pulling my body into his. “Happy thoughts, I hope.”

“Maybe,” I say, mimicking his vagueness from earlier.

My Dark prince gives me that wicked half-grin and a surge of pleasurable prickles runs over the surface of my skin. When I gasp in surprise, his smile expands. “Oh, Gabriella. When will you learn? You shouldn’t play games with someone who doesn’t play fair.”

“Asshole,” I grit through the fire ignited in my belly and the sparking heat between my thighs. Shit. This is not the time for this.

“Oh?” Another rush of sensation rips through me, pushing that ball of fire deeper…lower.

I open my mouth to retort, but Dorian grasps my chin and guides my mouth to his, smothering my protest. Then, just as abruptly as he kissed me, he pulls his lips away, yet keeps his forehead touching mine.

“I’m sorry, little girl,” he whispers.

“For what?”

“For being…jealous. Jealousy is not a Dark emotion. We have no need for it.” I feel his eyebrows crease against mine.