to Ambrose. “Hey, Bon-Bon.”
“Hadley.”
No signs of grief marred her pale face, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Siemen wasn’t your son, was he?”
“I didn’t have to know you long to catch on to how broken your relationship is with your mother. She abused you. I can tell. Mothers are vicious in ways fathers can only dream about. I wasn’t certain the reverse would move you, a son threatening his mother with harm, but it did. You’ll stand for anyone with the right push, won’t you?”
“What do you mean, the right push?”
“Didn’t you wonder what the amplifier charm does? They’re marvelous things, subtle, and potent when used on the right mark.” Her smile soured my stomach. “I crafted the Bonnie persona for Midas. She fit his profile to a T. Though I made tweaks here and there to appeal to your protective instincts as well.” The air glimmered around her, sparking in her hair. “Midas saw a wounded bird and returned with her to his nest, and you? You couldn’t tuck me under your wing fast enough.”
Anger warmed my cheeks at having my past turned against me, the old shame rising like a tidal wave, like bile up the back of my throat.
The scars my childhood left on me hadn’t prompted me to perform outreach programs the way it had Midas. He wore his scars boldly, where anyone could see them. I hoarded mine, kept them hidden. He might be willing to bear the cross of his past, but I wanted to break the shackles chaining me to mine.
However we chose to cope, it was our choice, and she had no right to turn our struggles against us.
“Your resilience was laudable, but Midas? He’s so broken his mother won’t let him out of her sight for fear he might shatter. He’s the heir to a dynasty, and he will be its downfall.” Bonnie, whoever she was, strolled out to greet me with none of the cowering timidity that had roused my protective instincts. “Why do you think she wants him mated so badly? The pack won’t follow weakness, and she wants him paired with a strong leader who can step into her role.”
“Compassion isn’t weakness.”
“Yes,” she said without blinking. “It is.”
“Midas is a good man.”
“Good men aren’t fit to rule.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“He’s marked you, several times now.” A cruel smile flirted with her lips. “Have you asked yourself why? What about you, more than any other, appeals to him?” She dipped a hand in her shirt and came up with an amplifier charm identical to the one I found in the backpack in the woods. “He doesn’t care about you, Hadley. All he feels or thinks he feels is a result of this. You’ll see that soon enough. You can’t believe what you see reflected back at you in those pretty blue eyes. Magic took his kernel of fascination with you and expanded it tenfold. Without this amping him up, he’ll lose interest in you within the day.”
The sudden, wrenching hurt made me question if she had ripped out my heart and stomped on it.
How stupid was that? He already confessed he hadn’t meant to mark me. Now I knew why he had.
Closure was supposed to make you feel better and not worse, right?
“Who are you?” I gritted my teeth, tugging harder on Ambrose. “What are you?”
“I am Iliana.” Her lean features plumped before my eyes, her brittle hair growing softer and darker, until nothing remained of Bonnie Diaz except for her scars. “I’m a witchborn fae, as was Siemen.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means…” She snapped her fingers, and the doorman from the Faraday, the one who hated me, stood before me. “I can be anyone.” Another snap, and she was Jessica. “I can be anything.” Snap, and she was the white gwyllgi no pack in its right mind would pass on. “We collect identities like clothes to fill our covens’ closets.” Snap. The nightshift doorman at the Faraday. Snap. A gorgeous Indian woman with henna covering her bare feet and hands. Snap. Back to where she started. “We have a suit for every occasion.”
“Witchborn fae is starting to sound a whole lot like a skinwalker.”
“We are not so lowborn.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Parading around in another’s flesh is a cheap parlor trick any fool with an ounce of magic and a corpse can perform. We capture the essence, the magic. We preserve the soul.”
“You kill people to assume their lives.”
Talk