The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,5

this truly wasn’t his fault. I thought about when April had attacked Heidi. It took nothing for me to see Emery cradling Heidi against her as the Luxen had slipped from her human skin to her true form, a beautiful human-shaped light so intense that it had hurt my eyes to look upon her. Even though Emery hadn’t been as skilled as other Luxen when it came to healing humans, she’d saved Heidi’s life by placing her hands on her and summoning the Source.

You do not get between a Luxen and who they love, no matter what.

That’s what Luc had said when Emery had taken Heidi, and within hours, there’d been nothing but a faint scar where April had put her hand through Heidi, destroying tissue, muscles, and organs.

So either my mom was skilled at healing, or she still loved that man.

The world seemed to shift under my feet. Feeling sick, like I might actually projectile vomit all over the floor, I took a step back. I needed distance from Eaton’s words—from further evidence of the fact I never really knew my mother and I would never know what about her, if anything, was ever real.

Because she, too, was now gone, taking with her all her lies and whatever, if any, truths.

Luc’s hand was a warm presence along the center of my back, stopping my retreat. His hand was just there, not holding me in place, but even if it weren’t there, I wouldn’t have bounced out of the room like a rubber ball.

Denial was a luxury I could no longer afford.

I needed to deal with this, and it didn’t matter how much it hurt to realize that everything about her had been a lie. Yes, my mother could’ve had a change of heart at some point after I’d been returned to her with no memory of being Nadia or any of the training I’d obviously received. That much could be true—could be real. She had died making sure I escaped before the Daedalus could capture me, but none of that changed what she’d done, and I had to face that.

I had to deal with that.

Swallowing hard, I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders. I could do this. I’d already dealt with so much—the kind of stuff that would send most to the nearest corner where they’d do nothing but stare at empty space. I’d accepted that there had been a real Evie Dasher who’d died in a car accident. I’d processed that my actual name was Nadia Holliday and then realized that I was neither Nadia nor Evie but a mixture of both and someone completely different. I’d handled the truth that Sylvia and Jason Dasher weren’t my parents. I’d survived an attack by an Origin who had one hell of a grudge/obsession with Luc. I’d stumbled across dead classmates, and it had been me—as a stealth assassin and sort of unaware of what I was doing, but whatever—that had taken out April. I was working on the knowledge that I was capable of doing some real harm and that there was someone out there that could seize control of me.

Sure, I had some messy baggage, a whole lot of missing memories, and I was possibly a psychotic alien hybrid that may or may not one day go completely banana pants on everyone, but I was still here. I was still standing on my own two feet.

Luc dipped his head and murmured into my ear, “That’s because you’re a badass.”

“Stop reading my mind,” I said, and he tilted his head up, winking. I sighed. “But thank you,” I tacked on, because I needed to be reminded of that fact.

A half grin appeared a second later when my stomach grumbled, empty. The energy bars Luc and I had grabbed before meeting obviously hadn’t been enough.

Cheeks flushing, I dragged my gaze from Luc’s. Only I’d be hungry after learning such traumatic news. “Did she … Do you think she still loved Dasher?”

“I can’t answer that.” Eaton dragged a thumb along his chin.

“A Luxen doesn’t always have to love the person they’re healing.” Luc’s hand curled into the back of my shirt. “Remember, some are just extraordinarily good at it. Sylvia could’ve been, or she could’ve been properly motivated, something the Daedalus became very skilled at doing. Loving someone means they have a higher chance of being successful, especially for those who aren’t adept or don’t have the experience.”

“And it also means it’s more likely that the mutation would take hold