Page 118 of Shifting Hearts

TEN

JASON

S onia’s death did something to Morgan. Paranoia clawed at her, driving a wedge between her and Adrienne, not wide, but enough to mark the beginning of her undoing. The first crack in her cup, as some would say.

I felt my own first crack too, in Adrienne’s coven, the moment I killed her. Even in hate, betrayal cuts deep. She had taken something sacred from me, myself, my twin, and wielded it against us to get what she wanted. That first fracture in my cup was born there.

The frolicking between Morgan and her slowed. Lust faded, but the killing never stopped. She grew sharper with lies, just like Adrienne. She told the coven she cared for them, but her paranoia was the hand that guided the blade.

After Sonia’s betrayal, some wanted to finish what she had started.

Others didn’t. They stayed, uncertain or unwilling to betray her, but something in the air had shifted.

Morgan didn’t notice it. She craved power endlessly, yet it was never enough.

She was at the apex of the food chain, of the wolves, of everyone’s lists, whether they sought her death or begged her to join them.

Asim was one of them. He’d worked on projects with Adrienne’s coven, and he moved freely among us, coming and going, always watching Morgan. She never liked him.

Years passed. Hope bled out of me. My love, my hope for her, was gone. She was lost.

Then, one night, after a trigger-happy incident that left another coven member dead by her hand, I saw Julian. Natasha saw him too.

Did Julian know Natasha? Did he know what she looked like?

I never asked. Yet Morgan stared at him with a fixation that made my skin crawl.

People often said we resembled each other.

The way she looked at Julian made me wonder if a part of her recognized me hidden in another face.

Did she see me when she was alone in her chambers at night?

We left and ended up back in Cassandra’s chambers. Morgan wanted to know who Julian was. She suspected he was me, changed somehow from Jericho to Julian. The way Cassandra moved, her sharp gestures, told me she’d encountered him before.

I laughed, watching her fume. She should be terrified, she was the reason the Chalice had been lost. The jewel I had guarded for years, hidden, until Morgan’s bracelet led Julian straight to me.

That moment marked a shift. Julian returned from wherever he had been hiding, hunting the missing jewel with relentless precision.

It was before he traced it to me, which meant Morgan was either alive… or dead. I didn’t even know what year it was. Time had become meaningless; they didn’t celebrate anything, only craved power.

Cassandra exhaled sharply. Julian was fraying her nerves.

“Fine,” she muttered, voice tight. “Nobody harms Julian. He’s probably just looking for the Chalice.”

“And if he finds it?” Morgan’s voice was sharp.

“Natasha, not tonight.” Cassandra hopped down from her throne, far less dignified than usual, striding back toward her chambers.

“Ivan,” Morgan called after him. “What’s the deal with Julian and Cassandra?”

He didn’t answer. Morgan’s temper flared, fire sparking in her eyes.

Hands raised defensively, Ivan said, “I don’t know the whole story, but she’s deeply tied to the Djinns. Before the Chalice disappeared, witches and Djinns were at war, centuries of power struggles. I don’t know exactly where Julian fits in, but she’s been hurt.”

He looked like me. Morgan wanted him too, I could see it, but he was smarter than I ever was.

“Was he her first love? The one from the stories?”

“No,” Ivan said quietly. “He was someone she couldn’t have.”

I frowned but let it go; it didn’t matter.

“And when you warned her the Sentinels might intervene… who did you mean? Is there someone out there more dangerous than me?”

“Not more dangerous, you’re unmatched there. Just… more powerful. And no, you won’t get the chance to change her. Ever.”

My attention snapped to Ivan. Morgan leaned forward, curiosity flaring.

“Who is she?” we asked simultaneously.

Ivan’s brow furrowed. His eyes glimmered with something like reverence. “Mother Nature.”

For weeks, my thoughts circled one name: Mother Nature. A real person. The only one who could rival the Sentinels in power.

A myth, Ivan had seen her with his own eyes. She was real.

Something told me she had been the force behind that witch trial Julian mentioned. She had the strength to stop it, and that meant abilities beyond anything I’d imagined. And then it clicked.

The way Morgan bent the elements to her will. The way she vanished, reappeared, moved through space as if it belonged to her.

She lay on her bed, motionless, staring at the ceiling. What thoughts ran through her mind?

I had that power too.

I felt the weight of a promise I’d made long ago sliding off my shoulders. Everything snapped into focus. Where she belonged.

Morgan wasn’t meant to stay as she was. She was supposed to become her. Mother Nature. To take her place. They didn’t own immortality, it wasn’t theirs.

I locked onto her.

Did she still possess the other abilities? Were they merely suppressed? Was her memory the reason they didn’t surface?

A vampire with that kind of power could destroy the world. I was relieved she didn’t remember… yet at least I understood her purpose now. It made sense. The reason she was both devastatingly powerful and unbearably… human, trapped in this form.

She was the balance.

So why had no one guided her? Told her what she needed to do, what she had to become? And why had I locked onto her in the first place? Was I even meant to?

Doubt clawed at me for the first time since I knew her. Was she truly my mate, or had it always been about power? What if she had forced herself to bond with me, bending me to her strength? What if I was never meant to be tied to her life at all?

Tears burned my eyes. Betrayal sank deep, this time from the one I loved with everything I had, the one I thought I’d follow anywhere.

The days after I discovered what Morgan truly was blurred into one endless stretch of nothing. I was fading into nothing, too.

One night, she found Bibi and Babilon in Adrienne’s room. She was a masterpiece of malice, a predator in flesh. She would sleep with anyone, use anyone and anything to assert dominance.

Morgan lost it. She chased them out and tore into Adrienne with a rage so raw it made me shiver. Disgust painted every movement of hers. And I… I didn’t care anymore.

I loathed her. Deeply. Every part of me recoiled at what she had become.

The twins fled Case’s room, and Morgan followed. Weeks passed again. Cassandra wanted another pair of werewolves. I hated it—the cruelty, the ritualized torture of the parents. But Morgan confirmed there were two pairs of twins.

I numbed myself further. Nothing shocked me anymore. I turned my back on the torment, the toying, the endless cruelty.

Matt—one of the vampires—paid the price for her games. Her manipulation had cost him his life.

“I’m sorry,” I heard, soft, almost fragile. I looked up.

Matt’s face was frozen, dumbfounded. She had never apologized before, not once. Not tonight. Not ever.

What did it mean? Perhaps her cup was finally cracking. Perhaps the pieces were about to fall.

Thinking that the end was near was stupid.

When she finally got home, it was as if their love rekindled and it was watching them night after night fucking each other again. I had no more respect for her and probably would kill her with the knowledge that I had gain this time from the lock pass.

Sex was lying heavy in Cassandra’s chambers. I hated that smell.

I missed the cinnamon and apple. To think she did all of it once to me. Put me under a deeper spell she ever did Morgan.

I wished I could turn around and walk away from it all, but I couldn’t. So all I could do was sit against the wall and listen, trying to block it out.

“Blaze,” Cass urged her. “What do you want to ask me?”

“Tell me about him.” My gaze flicked to them lying on the bed facing one another.

“Who?”

“The guy who almost destroyed you.”

I huffed. Adrienne would never tell her a thing about me. She sat up straight with her back to Morgan.

Did she really love me that much, why the spell then. Why not discover if I did love her back, why the tricking.

Morgan had enough, I could see it in her face. She was about to say something when Adrienne opened her mouth.

“I thought we’d be together forever.”

I squinted at her. Was she really going to finally tell her the truth? I sighed.

“He was my everything.” She hugged her knees to her chest and fiddled with the edge of the sheet draped across her body.

“We were so happy. He wasn’t like me. I was still a witch, and he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on.”

My curse.

She smiled wistfully. “He and his sister joined my coven. We were a ragtag group of supernaturals. But I knew if we stuck together, the Great War could be avoided. We could live in harmony. I saw it.”

“It was a lie. It’s your damn ability,” I yelled.

Morgan grabbed her hand as she kept talking about me. About that time.

“The first few years were magic. I felt as if I could fly. But I could never be what he was. I didn’t have the gift.”

“The gift?” She asked.

“Of sight. A woman needs to have the gift of sight. Otherwise they can’t make the change.”

“What change?”

“They get it from the wolves, you see.”

“His name was Jericho. He was my first real love. I didn’t think I would love another until you came along.” She smiled faintly, for the briefest of moments.

“Cass, tell me. Please.”

“He was a Varcolac. He was half-and-half, half-vampire and half-werewolf. He showed me everyone could live in harmony.”

I scoffed the same time as Morgan had.

“Varcolacs are just a dumb myth,” she said, voice low. “Made up by people too weak to endure this life.”

She shook her head, sorrow in her eyes. “They’re as real as you and I.”

Morgan gaped.

“Oh, come on, Blaze. You saw it with Sonia. That wolf confessed in his dying moments. He had no choice, lock pass, remember? Sonia was his. With Jericho, I think his father was a vampire, mother a wolf. Vampire women can’t bear children, so I don’t know how they met.

He never told me. But Varcolacs exist. Not that different from us.

Not that different from werewolves either. ”

“Are you sure?”

“Jericho was one.”

Morgan blinked, trying to digest it. “Okay then tell me this: if your love was so magnificent, why did he try to kill you?”

“He discovered something in my past.”

I grunted, frustration rising. “Tell her the truth. I can’t stand the lies anymore.”

Her voice trembled. “I didn’t want him to find out but he did.” Sadness and desperation filled her eyes. Pathetic, just like Morgan. “Please, don’t ask me what it was. My past is ugly, Blaze. One I’m not proud of.”

Morgan nodded slowly. “And he tried to kill you?”

“I deserved it.”

“It was in your past,” she pressed. But it was a lie, she was still using it.

“A past I should’ve shared. I didn’t. I hid it. He fell in love with an idea of me, not the real me. When I told him I was scared he wouldn’t love me as I truly was…” She shook her head.

“He broke my heart. Then he nearly killed me. Varcolacs they’re half-vampire, half-werewolf. He was temperamental, cruel. He couldn’t forgive my transgression.”

Silence stretched. I shouldn’t feel anything, but there was a flicker of truth in that. Just a flicker.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Just one more question.”

She nodded.

“Aren’t you scared Steven will tell Jericho?”

“What, that I’m a vampire? Steven wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have turned me if he planned to tell Jericho. Jericho won’t come back, Blaze. I swear.”

I sank back into numbness, letting the words wash over me. Waiting for this lock pass to end. So I could move on with my life. This time… it would be easier.