answer him. I did. I opened my mouth and everything. But nothing happened. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t wreck this unexpected and beautiful thing between us. I might have to bear the fallout, but I refused to pick up the sledgehammer and smash through it on my own.
Midas palmed his phone and punched in a number I didn’t have to see to anticipate.
“Linus,” he snarled into his cell after he mashed the speaker button. “Explain this to me.”
“You’ll have to elaborate.”
“Amelie Pritchard.”
The two words hit with the force of a hurricane and swept away all my silly hopes and dreams. I really ought to know by now not to pin my happiness on anyone other than myself.
A long pause lapsed before Linus asked, “Can I speak to Hadley, please?”
“Hadley doesn’t exist.” Midas squeezed the phone until its case cracked. “What have you done?”
“Hadley will want to tell you herself.” His voice went soft. “Harm her, Midas, and I won’t be forgiving.”
Shock zinged through me that Linus thought Midas would hurt me, but it fused my lips together instead of loosening them in Midas’s defense. I had betrayed him. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, but I had known it was going to happen eventually. Only I was too selfish to carve him out of my life before I got cut too.
Ending the call, Midas stared at me until the weight of his scrutiny forced me to sit on the sidewalk.
Unable to stomach looking at him, to see the hurt I had etched onto his features, I stared at the cars whooshing past.
Midas didn’t say another word, just turned and walked away from me.
Not enough, not enough, not enough.
I hated when my mother was right.
Nineteen
No matter how fast he ran, Midas couldn’t escape the truth.
Amelie Pritchard was his mate.
Not Hadley Whitaker.
The implications terrified him for myriad reasons, starting with the first time he set eyes on her.
“Your friend smells wrong.” Nostrils flared, he drew in Amelie’s scent. “The beast is tempted by her.”
“The beast?” Grier looked back at him. “Your beast? You? When you shift?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It’s in our nature to put down injured or sick prey.”
Prior to Hadley, he hadn’t let himself be alone with females of any species. He hadn’t known how far to trust his instincts. He’d let his guard down with her, she’d earned it, and he’d begun to believe she was safe with him.
But that was Hadley.
And Hadley didn’t exist.
The scent of Amelie filled his head, and he searched every scarred corner of his soul for signs the beast had marked her as prey. He found nothing, but he didn’t believe himself now that he knew the truth.
Shadow child.
Finally, he understood what others meant when they referenced her shadow. She was a dybbuk, a creature her own kind hunted and executed for good reason. They were killers. Every single one of them, and she was no exception.
Midas hadn’t been in Savannah when Amelie Pritchard went to trial for the murders of several vampires. He hadn’t been there when she was stripped of her family name, inheritance, and personal assets. He hadn’t been there when she was left Amelie Madison, her middle name promoted to surname, and she lost everything. But he had heard about it. The scandal rocked the Society, and it was all anyone talked about for months.
Talk was too polite for what they had done, picking her apart thread by thread until Amelie unraveled.
They fashioned her into a monster, but there had to be more to the story. Grier would have stood for her childhood friend no matter the personal cost, but Linus? He was more brains than heart with anyone but Grier. He wouldn’t have vouched for Amelie, taken her under his wing, if he hadn’t believed in her ability to change for the better and learn control of the thing she had willingly become through one of her kind’s darkest rites.
The beast in him had wanted to hunt Amelie then, and given his violent history, he didn’t trust its silence on the matter. Until he was certain he wouldn’t harm her, in either form, in any form, he couldn’t be near her.
That same inner predator rebelled at the notion he could hurt her, but Midas knew himself better.
He needed to think, and to think, he had to get away from her.
Already he could tell he was making the biggest mistake of his life in walking away, but it was worth it to protect her. She might never forgive him,