Page 108 of Shifting Hearts

THREE

NATASHA

N othing made sense. Or maybe nothing wanted to make sense.

I hugged Gabby. She kept her arms around me.

“You don’t have to be here, okay. We can go.”

“Aunt Gabby?” Em said.

Gabby broke the hug. I stared at her.

“C’mom. I’ve seen this so many times. Don’t freeze on me now. You know who I am.”

“Uhm,” Em started. “How do you know her?”

“Em, not now.” Gabby answered not taking her eyes off me.

There was a crowd, I didn’t like crowds, but for the love of me, I couldn’t stop staring at Gabby.

“I know it’s you. Please?”

“Gabby,” Annie’s voice said and my gaze flickered to Annie.

They know who I am and nobody said anything. I looked at Gabby again.

“C’mon! I’ve seen you.”

“Gabby, Stop!” Annie yelled. “She’s Em’s friend. She is not her.”

Her?

“No, no, no, no!” I started to panic.

Gabby grabbed my hands, grounded me. “You are okay. We are not running. We are never going to run.”

“Gabby!” Annie sounded more adamant.

“Annie, stop,” Irene’s voice.

“I jumped back, I changed all of this,” I whispered.

“Yes,” Gabby yelled and laughed at the same time, hugging me tight. “I knew it.”

I broke down in tears. Sobbed my heart out as everything came crushing back.

Gabby wrapped her arms around me tighter.

My family knew who I was. They were mine and yet, they weren’t. I was Blaze, I’m not an asset. I’ve never been.

Siskia and Hunter. Where the hell were they?

“Siskia?” I breathed and Gabby laughed as more gasped filled the air.

“Where is Hunter, Gabs? Where are my children?”

“What?” Emily asked.

Gabby grabbed my face, dry my tears, my blood soaking tears. “Don’t cry, you know it’s not a beautiful look when a vampire cries. They are fine.”

“Your children are fine?” Em asked, sounding as excited as I am.

“Em,” Mel’s voice said. “I think you and Ryan needs to come in.”

“No, they stay!” Gabby said.

“Gabby, you are not part of this pack,” Mel spoke coldly.

“I say they stay.”

“Gabby?” I asked.

She looked at me. “I want you to meet Siskia and Hunter, Morgan.”

She looked at Em. “Why are you looking at me?”

Gabby shook her head and sniffed. “Beautiful if you think about it. Turns out your best friend is not only your best friend, but she’s your mother, Em.”

“Excuse me,” she asked.

“No, no. I would’ve have known.”

“He change their names after you died,” Gabby answered.

“What?” I asked.

“What is going on here?” Ryan asked.

“Gabriella!” Jace roared as he appeared and he froze when he saw me.

“I told you, and you never wanted to listen,” Gabby spoke.

“No, I would not have remembered her,” Jace spoke as he kept staring at me.

“I’m going to be sick.” I turned around and rushed back to the cottage.

I barely made it to the toilet. A few seconds later, Gabby was there. She was always fucking here.

I hurled again. It was just bile of nothing.

“Easy, easy. You are okay.”

“I’m not okay, stop fucking saying that!” I screamed. I was going to lose it. “How, how the fuck do you remember me!”

She got up and closed the bathroom door, then came back and sat close to me. “Because I know you. There was no way you would leave them. Not him and not them. What happened?”

I shook my head as tears wanted to prick. “I can’t stay. I’m not an asset. I’m the opposite.”

“Hey, you want to go. We go.”

“No, you don’t understand. Are these walls…” I had to make sure.

“Sound proof, you know it’s sound proof.”

“No, I don’t. I hear through all of them.” I laid my head back, knees brought to my chest. How the fuck was this possible?

“They won’t hear you. You can talk freely.”

“I can never come back.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You know what I saw, Gabs. All those years. The nightmares. You know why I had them.”

She nodded. There was still that little smug lingering on her lips. I didn’t understand it.

“I was her.”

“Makes a lot of sense now. Why Collin let you go. Why he couldn’t kill you. Why didn’t you come back, look for us?”

“I didn’t remember.”

“What?”

“How is this possible?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. What do you mean you didn’t remember?” Gabby asked.

“Remember Jace told us about this witch. I actually think he is married to her still.”

“Adrienne?”

I nodded. “She isn’t dead. In fact she is a vampire and she swiped my slate clean when she saw me lighting up like a torch.”

“No, we destroyed that coven. She wasn’t there.”

My gaze found hers. “Then she is still alive. Steven changed her, I’m sure he would look out for her. Did he know that you were coming?”

She nodded.

“Why is none of this freaking you out? I was her. I was the boogie man, Gabs.”

“So fucking what, we all had bad pasts, Morgan.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“No, you are Morgan.”

“I’m not. Believe me, I’m not. I’m a monster and sure everyone thinks I’m dead, but there are those that knows what I look like.”

“Fine, then we deal with them.”

“Gabby, what is wrong with you.”

“I’m not leaving you again. I can’t. Okay, I can’t.

I can’t live if you are not there. I know you are not my lock pass, but you were my soul mate in every human way.

My sister. You know what those visions did to me.

Every time I saw you, and every time he refused to listen because Mel felt something. I knew she saw you.”

“No, his edges were complete.”

“What?”

“I saw him, I saw the edges were complete and I realized he locked on someone else.”

“Morgan, they only lock on one person. There is no redo for them. She colored in his tattoo, because she saw you.”

“No, Gabby.”

“Yes, she saw you. You were at that coven, guess who was supposed to go to that coven. Not Alex and Leigh.”

“Dom and Jace?”

She nodded. “Can you imagine what would’ve happened if it was Jace and not Alex.”

No, I couldn’t. “I probably would have killed him.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You loved that man way too much. The spell would’ve broken.”

“He changed their names, why?”

“Because he is Jace, he can’t live without you either. I told you he was a lot like me.”

I giggled. Silence lingered. “His mark is undone.”

“I know.”

“He can’t lock on me, Gabby. Not this life.”

“I know. You have to tell them.”

“I’m so angry at him. The way he treated them. They were mine. And he left them.”

Tears welled up in Gabby’s eyes. “I know. But they are still yours.”

“And she raised them.”

“They didn’t eat their way out of her belly. They devoured yours. So fuck her.”

I laughed. “They didn’t eat themselves out of mine too.”

“Technicalities. You remember the pain. I hate her.”

“She raised them.”

“No, we did. Annie, me, Irene. We raised them. They didn’t even like her in the beginning.”

“Why did he not show them who I was?”

“He destroyed all the pictures. I wished I kept some. How long do you know Em.”

“More than a year.”

“Fuck, Morgan.”

“I did bad things, Gabs.”

“I know. You tell them, and then we leave okay.”

“What happened? The two of you were so close.”

“He refused to listen. He used to in the beginning, but I was always too late. After a while, Mel got to him. She doesn’t love him.

Zack and I broke away. My kids are still here every full moon to be near him, but I refuse to stay.

So please, say your piece and let’s go. None of them believed that you were this powerful. ”

A knock sounded at the door.

She cussed in Polish. I didn’t understand.

Gabby got up and opened the door. “What do you want? You don’t believe it’s her, so what?”

“Seriously,” Jace said.

She laughed. “She is pissed off with you for changing their names.”

“Gabby, please.” He begged.

“Stop pushing yourself on her and listen first. We fucked up, okay. Big time. Her past is bad. Because you fucked up, you and Annie fucked up.”

“What?” Jace asked.

“How?” Annie asked.

“Go to the library. We’ll meet you there.” Gabby closed the door and locked it.

“Still a fucking idiot when it comes to you.”

“I don’t want to laugh. I’m still highly upset.”

“I know. I’m sorry that I couldn’t contain myself. But you have no idea how long I wanted to rub it in their faces.”

“Stop, this is not you.”

“I’m angry too, okay.”

I nodded.

“Wash your face, clean up and let’s go to the library. “

JASON

“It can’t be her!” Annie said.

“Annie,” Irene sighed.

“No, when Jace had that ability, none of us remembered.”

“Jace is not Morgan,” Dom answered.

“Dom, you cannot believe it’s her?”

“I do.”

“What does that mean? I’m not her. I had her abilities.” I asked.

“I’m not trying to pick a fight, but we should’ve known. There was no way she would leave you. No way she would not jump back to do all of it over again.” The sadness clung to Dom’s eyebrows and features on his face.

“We remember her. My slate wasn’t wiped clean, Dom.”

“No, your mark was just undone,” Irene said and looked at Isaac and Zack who arrived with Gabby.

“Don’t. Please, I don’t want to think about it,” Isaac said.

“And she colored in your mark,” Dom said. “Meaning Gabby was right.”

“Of course Gabby was right. You have no idea what those visions did to her,” Zack started. He was Gabby’s lock pass, her mate in every way, even in her visions. The only one who believed her.

“Enough!” Richard ordered. “Emily?”

I turned my gaze on Em. She just sat next to her brother. Both dazed, staring at nothing.

The scent of leather and old smoke clung to everything in this room, the kind where secrets seemed to cling to the walls. Em’s gaze flicked up to Richard, sharp and searching.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Am I okay?” She gave a sharp laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “You want to tell me that my roommate, my best friend, is actually my birth mother?”

Dom shifted uneasily in his chair. “Not really, but yeah.”

“Not really? I don’t understand.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

“Your mother was powerful,” Dom began gently.

“Uncle Dom, I know that.”

He exhaled. “It’s not the body we buried. That was another version of her.”

Em’s hands curled into fists. “And Siskia and Hunter?”

Something tugged hard at my chest. “Those were the names she gave you.”