BURNED TWICE

Chapter 4

THE TRUTH UNRAVELS

The coffee shop was in a neighborhood neither of us frequented. Neutral ground. I arrived five minutes early. I always arrived early. Control was important to me.

Marcus was already there.

I didn't recognize him at first, and that was shocking. This man was skeletal compared to the Marcus I'd known. Thin in a way that suggested he'd been sick or starving or both. His hair was longer. His face was lined. He looked like someone had taken the Marcus I'd married and erased him, replacing him with a sketch of what he used to be.

He stood when he saw me. He didn't approach. He just stood and waited for me to decide how close I wanted to be.

I sat across from him. A waitress brought coffee. I didn't order it. It appeared anyway, like the universe was helping facilitate this reunion I didn't want.

"You look well," Marcus said.

"You look like death," I replied.

"Accurate," he said. He didn't smile. We'd moved past the niceties. "Thank you for meeting me."

"I don't know why I did," I said. "Your letter was obviously designed to manipulate me. A nice tragic backstory about how I was right but also wrong, about how the real villain was Sophia, about how you're reformed now. Classic redemption narrative."

"It's all true," Marcus said.

"I don't care if it's true. I don't care about your redemption or your suffering or your excuses. I care that I wasted ten years of my life with someone who was incapable of being honest with me."

Marcus flinched. Good. I wanted him to feel that.

"You're right," he said. "About all of it. There's nothing I can say that will change the past or make it okay. So I'm not going to try. Instead, I'm going to tell you something else. Something that might explain why I was such a catastrophic failure as a husband."

He leaned forward. I instinctively leaned back.

"I'm not entirely human," he said.

I stared at him. "Are you having a psychological break?"

"I'm an alpha wolf," he continued, like I hadn't spoken. "From a pack that used to be significant but is now almost extinct. When I was young, my father found you, and he decided that you would be a perfect mate match for me. You were intelligent, beautiful, ambitious. You came from money. You had no paranormal ties that would complicate things. He orchestrated our entire meeting."

I stood up. "This is insane. I'm leaving."

"Wait," Marcus said. "Please. Just listen."

Something in his voice stopped me. It was desperate. It was honest. And it sounded insane, which somehow made it feel real.

I sat back down.

"My father performed a binding ceremony on our wedding night," Marcus said. "You were unconscious. There was a car accident on the way to the hotel. Do you remember?"

I did. A drunk driver had hit us. We'd both been tested at the hospital. We were both fine. I'd thought the whole thing was traumatic but ultimately meaningless.

"During that hospital visit, while you were sedated, my father put a wolf binding mark on you," Marcus said. "It's supposed to be something a mate agrees to, something sacred. But he did it anyway. He violated every rule of our world to bind you to me, and I let him do it."

"This is the most elaborate excuse I've ever heard," I said. But I wasn't standing up again.

"The binding meant you were supposed to be immune to my betrayal," Marcus continued. "That's not how it works with human mates, but with magical bindings, the mark creates a connection that should have prevented me from cheating. The magic should have made it physically painful for me to be unfaithful."

"And yet you were unfaithful," I said.

"Because the binding was incomplete," Marcus said. "My father did his part. But he couldn't do your part. A true binding requires consent from both parties. Since you never consented, since you never even knew it was happening, I was left in this halfway state. Bound to you magically, but not bound to you spiritually. So I could betray you, and I did."

I picked up my coffee to have something to do with my hands. It was cold now. Everything was cold.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because it's the truth," Marcus said. "Because you deserve to understand that my betrayal wasn't just about Sophia or my insecurity or my character flaws. It was about the fact that I was forced into a situation where the rules didn't apply the way they were supposed to. Where I had no magical consequence for my actions."

"So you're blaming magic?" I said. "For the choices you made?"

"I'm taking responsibility for the choices I made," Marcus corrected. "And I'm explaining the context for why I was willing to make them in the first place. I'm also telling you that Sophia isn't human either. She's a siren. She was sent by an organization that hunts paranormal creatures who break their rules. They came after me because my father's binding on you violated the Accords. And she was supposed to collect evidence and destroy me."

"This is insane," I said again. But I didn't leave.

"I know," Marcus agreed. "Believe me, I know how it sounds. But it's the truth. And there's one more thing you need to know."

"Which is?"

"You're not human either," Marcus said. "Not entirely. Your mother was a vampire. A very old, very powerful vampire. She fell in love with your father, who was fully human, and had you and Sophia. Your vampire genetics are dormant, but they're still in you. Which is why Dominic is so interested in you. Which is why the paranormal world has been watching you."

Everything inside me stopped.

"My mother died when I was twenty-eight," I said. "I was there. I watched her die. She was entirely human."

"She had a rare disease that accelerated her aging," Marcus said. "Vampires are immortal, but they can develop degenerative conditions. Her condition accelerated her death. But before she died, she made sure to mark you and your sister with protections. Spells that would hide your nature until you were old enough to understand it."

I was shaking now. Or I had been shaking. Now I was just numb. Entirely, completely numb.

"If any of this is true," I said slowly, "if any of this is actually, factually true, then I need proof. Not stories. Not emotional pleas for understanding. Proof."

Marcus held out his arm. As I watched, his skin began to shift. It wasn't a smooth transformation. It was painful-looking, with his arm rippling and changing, hair spreading across his skin, the shape of it altering until it was no longer entirely human.

I didn't scream. I didn't move. I just stared.

"Show me your eyes," I said.

He looked up. His eyes were no longer entirely human either. They were amber, with the kind of depth and intelligence that made me understand, on a very basic level, that I was looking at something ancient. Something that had survived longer than human civilization.

"What do I do?" I whispered.

"You accept what you are," Marcus said, his voice different now, rougher. "You accept that your life is more complicated than you ever imagined. And you figure out what you want to do with that knowledge."

He shifted back, the transformation reversing, his arm becoming human again, his eyes returning to the grey I'd known my entire adult life.

"Dominic knows what you are," Marcus said. "He's been waiting for you to figure it out. He's been helping you because you're what's called a Turnedna human who becomes paranormal. They're rare. Valuable. Dangerous. And he wants you."

"Wants me how?" I asked.

"That depends on which man you ask," a third voice said.

I turned. Dominic was standing by the entrance to the coffee shop. I had no idea how long he'd been there. He moved like smoke. Like he existed slightly outside of normal reality.

"But I think we need a more private location for this conversation," he continued, "because you're about to learn that everything you thought you knew about your life, about your family, about yourself, is actually part of a much larger story."

He looked at Marcus, and there was something like respect in his expression. "Thank you for telling her. I wasn't sure you had the courage."

"I didn't," Marcus said. "I'm terrified. But she deserves the truth. Even if the truth is that I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster," I heard myself say. Then I looked at Dominic. "Are you?"

Dominic's smile was the first real smile I'd ever seen from him. It was beautiful and terrible and full of shadows.

"I've been called many things," he said. "Monster is in the list. But not by you. Not yet, anyway."

He extended his hand.

"Come with me, Isabella," he said. "Let me show you what you really are."