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Her mother’s voice grew more earnest, making it impossible to believe anything other than the words she spoke. “You made me love, laugh, and smile again… and I ceased thinking of him. I ceased thinking of how you were created and only that you wereyou.”

“Do you truly think I believe you’ve not thought of… him or that night again?” she asked, her voice hollow. “That you didn’t see me and also… s-see”—her voice broke—“him?”

“No,” her mother cried, gripping and releasing the sides of her dress. “That is, I did think of it, Marcia. They were… they are nightmares that, no matter how many years have passed and how many will, tangle in my thoughts and resurface. But I found my way. You gave me life. You sustained me, and I’d not have you think—”

“That I wasn’t wanted?” she asked quietly.

Her mother sucked in a breath. “Of courseyou were wanted.”

“By both of us,” Marcus said, his voice firm and resolute. “You are not Atbrooke’s daughter. You aremydaughter. My child. You are as much my life and my world as your mother’s.” His throat bobbed, and a fresh wave of tears stung Marcia’s eyes at the power of his profession, one she was wholly undeserving of. “I would give my life for you, Marcia, and someday, when you have a child of your own, you will understand that. You are my daughter, forever and always.”

Only, that was as much a lie as every other one that predicated this moment.

Surely her mother and father knew as much.

Just like that, the bubble of illusion she’d allowed herself to catch the string of popped, and Marcia found herself landing hard back on earth with the real truth. The inescapable one.

Unable to meet her parents’ eyes, wanting to escape this moment and the agony of the truths she now knew, Marcia slid her gaze over to the window, fixing her stare on a lone ray of sun that streamed through the curtains and slashed upon the hardwood floor.

Hands came down to rest upon Marcia’s shoulders, long but so very delicate fingers gripping her. “You are wanted. And you are loved, Marcia. I need you to never doubt that. Ever.” There was a faint entreaty in her mother’s words, and Marcia reluctantly slid her stare back over to look at her mother dead-on.

“I don’t doubt you love me,” Marcia said softly. “Either of you.” Her parents’ shoulders sagged as if in relief. “I know you do.” Somehow. For reasons and in ways that Marcia didn’t and couldn’t understand.

“Of course we do.” With a sob, her mother threw her arms around Marcia and held her close, and Marcia held her back.

All the while, Marcia stared blankly over the top of her mother’s shoulder at the doorway.

How much had been taken from her mother and father. How much her mother had suffered, and what was worse, she’d had Marcia as a living, breathing, constant reminder of that evil act.

She felt her father’s stare and looked to the man who’d been her father in every way but one. His eyes glittered with grief and sorrow… and love. There was that, too. Not the requisite hate she’d expect, the sentiment he and her mother were entirely deserving of.

And somewhere deep inside, surely they felt that emotion, too. Because how could they not? How, when, in this instant, with all she’d learned, she despised herself so?

At last, her mother lowered her arms, ending the embrace and stepping away.

“Do you have any… questions for me, Marcia? If you want to know anything, you need just ask. It was wrong of me to keep all of this from you.”

Did she have any questions? What questions could she possibly have? The man who’d sired Marcia was a monster. Knowing that as she did, what else was there to learn?

“I know this is a lot,” her mother said softly. “I know you will have other questions, and I promise you can ask me anything, and I will share everything. You were owed this long before now. I just couldn’t—”

“I know, Mother,” she said, quietly interrupting. And… she did. For how could she have wanted to speak of it? What woman would wish to?

Her mother looked as if she wished to say more, but couldn’t figure out the words. And then she leaned over and placed a kiss upon Marcia’s forehead, in the same way she’d done when she was a small girl, and her mother had been putting her to bed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said automatically.

Her father kissed her forehead in a way that matched his wife’s, in the same way he always had, too, as if he were her real father.

But he wasn’t.

Her father was a monster.

And it was his blood that she shared.

She fought to keep her features even and her breathing steady, not wishing for them to hear it was not. Wanting to be alone.

Needing to be alone.