Page 122 of Shifting Hearts

FOURTEEN

JASON

W e were four years away from Cassandra. Paul, two years a vampire, yet carrying the heart of a seven-hundred-year-old soul.

Compassion was his gift. In my three-thousand-year existence, I had never seen anything like it. One innocent death shattered his innocence, yet he was determined to make a difference. There was a future for him with my daughter. He was a good boy.

Morgan watched him as he tended the exotic fruit, her presence calm yet attentive. Sometimes I wondered if she ever thought of taking it further with him. Why didn’t she? Perhaps because, in a way, she had created him.

I stared at her. She smiled, but it didn’t last. Her eyes froze, her smile vanished, and a fear I had never seen on her face emerged, sharp and raw.

I strained to listen. No one was near, yet she could hear so much further than I could, far beyond any of us.

Then it came: an agonizing wail that tore through the air. She fell to her knees, screaming, body shaking.

Paul was instantly at her side, but I just watched, powerless.

“Speak to me, Natasha. What is it?” he pleaded.

She could only cry, words failing her. Pure torture radiated from her, and Paul’s panic mirrored my own as he tried to reach her.

“I fucked up,” she screamed, tears streaking her face. It was an ugly, bloody mess—but I knew.

She had her memories back. Not gradually. Not slowly. They had returned all at once.

And it was too late. She must know that.

She cried for days. Paul called the diner, claiming she had mono, the only disease that was highly contagious.

I had to listen to her sobbing, wailing, day in and day out, and I felt nothing. Nothing at all. My feelings for her were numb.

I should’ve remembered the girl who took twenty lashes, who stayed, who struggled relentlessly to find me. The one who gave up her family for me. But I didn’t. All I saw was the killings, the fire, so much fucking fire and torture.

Finally, one day, she stopped. She grabbed her phone and dialed a number.

“Jason,” she said as someone picked up. But it wasn’t him. She tried another, didn’t exist. A third belonged to someone else.

“Morgan, stop!” I begged. But she didn’t listen.

“Who is Jason?” Paul asked.

“You wouldn’t understand. Someone I need to find.”

He didn’t push. “You okay?”

“No. Far from okay, Paul. I need to find him,” she said.

He nodded. “How can I help?”

“You can’t. I’m sorry. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Okay… is he someone from your past?”

She nodded. “Not bad, I promise. Not bad.”

Paul nodded again and left her to it.

She tried everything, phoning Richard’s companies, following every lead. But everything was private, funneled through a lawyer. When she finally tracked the lawyer down, she discovered he had been dead for years.

“Stop, please,” I begged her again as blood tears glazed her eyes.

“It’s not going to work. It’s too late.” I screamed.

“You know what I can handle and what I can’t.

You were right, Blaze isn’t one of them, Morgan.

And I know it wasn’t just you, okay. But she didn’t ask you to be so sadistic, so relentless, so disrespectful.

You didn’t even fucking try. Your darkness broke me.

So please… just stop. I’m sorry. I wish there was something, but there is nothing. You need to let me go.”

A blood tear fell down her cheek. Her lower lip trembled slightly. Then, softly, she nodded.

Tears welled in my eyes. She heard me. Relief washed through me. She would let me go.

After that, she sank into depression. A part of me felt like a jerk—Jericho would have cherished her darkness. But he was gone, leaving only me. A mixture of the two of them—both broken.

Paul wanted to leave, but she pushed herself. She returned to work.

Morgan was still gone. Broken. Which was understandable, considering everything she had done.

Time passed, and she became a shadow of who she used to be, but it was never enough. It would never be enough.

One afternoon, while she was working, she turned and saw Mel.

“Oh fuck,” I thought, my chest tightening.

Mel stared straight at her, smiling the way Morgan’s gaze always lingered on her. Probably seeing Leigh first, and then her eyes shifted, and froze on me.

She stopped completely, unable to look away, just staring.

“We both decided it’s too late, please,” I whispered.

But she forgot. And for some reason, I felt suffocated.

“Morgan, don’t, please,” I begged.

I could see her about to introduce herself, but she stopped a few tables away. With my back to her, she turned to a nearby table and asked someone to watch her section.

“You okay?” he asked. But she didn’t answer. She disappeared into one of the stalls, slid down, and cried her heart out as quietly as she could.

It brought tears to my eyes to see her like that, but the feeling inside me remained the same.

A few minutes later, Paul arrived. He picked her up and vanished through the bathroom window. That night, they packed and left for Montana. She was done. She didn’t want to do anything else, just told Paul she had seen someone from her past.

He handled everything, found them work, tried to lift her spirits.

A part of me wished he could just keep her. They belonged together.

On the night of their first job, Morgan seemed more at ease. She laughed with Paul, and it relaxed him. Whatever had forced them to leave Black Hills wasn’t nearly as dangerous as he had feared.

Many of the human men flirted with her, her demon eyes were certainly something to notice, but she wasn’t interested.

She was going to be fine. I knew she would be.

The following evening, I stopped dead in my tracks as we stepped into Smokey Joe’s.

Em was singing at the bar.

She was so much like her mother, or what her mother had been, that I couldn’t even look at her properly. For what? For nothing. That was the sting: Adrienne had turned my world, the reason I existed, into this suffocating, empty shell I couldn’t wait to escape.

I focused on Em as she sang her heart out, riling up the crowd. I laughed despite myself. Annie had been right—she was me too, in so many ways.

She took a break and came over to the bar. My chest tightened; I’d fucked up so many times with her. The regret ran deep, into every fiber of me.

Morgan came over.

“So, you’re the new girl everyone’s gushing about?”

“That would be me,” Morgan said. “You must be the nightingale I’ve heard so much about.”

Em laughed. “Name’s Emily, but you can call me Em.”

“Natasha, what can I get you?”

“Just a water and a shot of vodka.”

“You got it.” She smiled and went to get the drinks. Em couldn’t take her eyes off her, and I squinted. Paul broke her gaze.

“You helped.”

“Yes, thank you, Emily.”

“Paul,” he said, smiling.

“Ah, the new guy. You and Natasha a couple?”

“She wishes,” Paul joked, and Morgan laughed as she handed Em her water and shot.

“In his dreams.”

“Haha,” Paul mocked.

“Do I sense some sexual tension?” Em teased.

“No, blonde’s not my type. I like tall, dark, and handsome,” Morgan shot back.

“So boring!” Em yelled, and I sighed. She went to help the other side again.

She was never going to stop loving me.

Em returned to the stage, carrying on with her performance.

“I like her,” I heard Paul mutter.

“Be careful. That one is not human,” Morgan warned.

His smile faded. “What?”

Morgan had just shown him that Em had enhanced hearing, but he smiled softly at the knowledge. He didn’t care what she was.

“Tonight, I want to welcome two of our newest members behind the bar: Natasha and Paul! Welcome to Smokey Joe’s, where the drinks never stop,” Em announced.

The crowd cheered. “The fun never ends,” she continued, more cheers.

“And the love blooms every night,” she added in a teasing, seductive tone.

I roared with laughter. I missed so much. At least I’d see the woman my daughter had become—a small silver lining from this Lockpass.

At the end of her shift, Paul gave Em his number.

“Otherwise, he doesn’t get his time wasted on him,” Morgan said, taking a seat at the bar.

“If you’re not into guys, just tell me now so I can break it gently to him.”

“Oh, I’m into guys and girls,” Em laughed.

Morgan chuckled. “My girl-frolicking days are long over, but a few centuries back, I might have called you up on that.”

Em spit out part of her drink, laughing, and Morgan laughed along.

“I wasn’t sure, but I’m sure now,” Morgan said.

“You’re afraid,” Em teased.

“Darling,” Em said, “not a lot of things scare me. I’ve seen worse in my life.”

“Like?” Morgan asked.

“If you grew up in a pack like mine, you’d have seen everything.”

“I see… you had to fight your way for food?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh fuck, you’re an orphan?”

Em laughed again. “No. Raised by my aunt and uncle, they live in a cabin. My parents died when I was young.”

I stared at Em, shocked.

“They died? I’m sorry. How?” Morgan asked.

“Long story. Didn’t want to get into it anyway,” Em said, waving it off. How many times had she told people that?

I sighed, feeling like I might as well be dead, I’d treated her like crap. In a way, she’d lost her parents long ago, the night Morgan hadn’t made it.

“What I’m more interested in is your story,” Em said, pulling me back into the conversation.

“Oh, it’s a sad one. Not really worth it. I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

“Oh, was there a lot of blood tears?”

“Ugly affairs, but yes.”

“Oh, and was there—” Paul chirped, and she flicked him on the ass with her cloth. He pretended it burned, and Emily laughed. I groaned internally at myself.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“She laughs like you do.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Morgan said.

“Sorry, my laugh is horrible,” Em added.

“No, it’s not. It’s contagious,” Paul said, winking at her.

I raised an eyebrow at him as he moved to clean the other side of the bar—and noticed Morgan doing the same.

“Not fair, I can’t even talk about him from over here,” Em muttered.

He laughed, making them both laugh. And yes, their laughs did match.

“You can always pretend he doesn’t hear,” Morgan said.

“Nah, men should never know how you truly feel about them,” Em replied.

“I agree. Smart words,” Morgan smiled.

They left together and went to a barista. Em was the only one eating, and when no one was looking, Paul kept swapping her empty coffee cup with his first, then Morgan’s.

She wanted to know everything about their lives, and it pissed me off more when Em talked about hers, calling Annie “Alice” and Bo, all the men in our pack.

“It wasn’t that bad, seriously,” I chirped at Em, chuckling at her reply.

For the first time in Morgan’s existence, it felt light.

Their paths finally split, and regret for my absence all those years weighed on me.

“Okay… what is she?” Paul asked.

“She’s a hybrid,” Morgan said.

“A hybrid?”

“Yes. Half and half, Paul.”

“She’s a coffee and creamer,” we both laughed, and I glanced at Morgan. She’d asked the same thing when she discovered what I was. Our laughs faded simultaneously.

“See? You do laugh just like her.”

“Stop it. She sure is one hell of a beauty,” Morgan said, and I looked at her strangely. If anything like that ever happened, I couldn’t even think about it.

“Oh, oh, you into women?” Paul asked.

“No, but if I were, that would be it,” Morgan said, pointing in her direction.

“So half of what and what?”

“Half vampire, half werewolf.”

Paul froze mid-step as she continued walking. She laughed softly.

“You’re fucking with me?” he asked, rushing back to her side.

“Nope, they exist.”

“But you said…”

“I said a lot of things. Somewhere out there, a long time ago, a wolf fell in love with a vampire.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did they mate?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your sperm, Paul. It’s females like me that can’t bear, but wolf females can carry vampire spawn. Wolves despise them—they truly believe a vampire forced himself on a wolf.”

“How?”

“Exactly my point. They refused to believe that mortal enemies could fall in love.”

“How do you know so much about them?”

“I loved one a long time ago… actually two. They’re very different from vampire lovers, that’s for sure.”

“Male or female?”

“Males, Paul. Both were males,” she chuckled.

“What happened?”

“They both died,” she said, lying. I knew she truly would let me go when all of this was over. She couldn’t know about my fire, Paul.

“I promised I’d never tell anyone about your fire,” he said.

“No matter what story she tells you, okay? You ask me, not her. I would never lie to you.”

He nodded, and they wandered through the park together, eventually settling on the swings. Before heading back to the B&B, Em sent Paul a quick text.

Over the next few weeks, Em welcomed them into her apartment. I was surprised she didn’t live with Bo and Alice, but had her own place, and I fumed, convinced Richard and Irene must have had a hand in it. I had told them not to interfere.

I huffed. What kind of father was I? I wanted her back home with me, yet the rest of her family did what I should have done.

The apartment was beautiful, and Paul and Morgan couldn’t resist teasing Em about it.

She was captivated by both of them, and it was easy to understand why.

Paul was an open book to her perceptive gaze, but Morgan baffled Em completely.

I remembered that same feeling, and I could see how difficult it was for Morgan to explain herself.

I watched as a friendship slowly blossomed between Morgan and Em, and how Em quietly fell for Paul.

He was perfect for her. Night after night, they spent hours at the bar, Morgan and Emily flirting boldly with other men.

I found myself amused by their playful antics, though Em always made it clear: Paul was the only one for her.

One night, they weren’t on the clock, but they still found themselves at Smokey Joes.

Morgan and Paul tossed back drinks with reckless abandon, and Em couldn’t help but laugh, knowing it was only a matter of time before they’d have to throw up.

They did it to blend in with the crowd of humans, of course.

Morgan would grab Em and pull her onto the dance floor, spinning and twirling, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Mother and daughter, or at least, they looked like they could have been sisters.

I laughed at how carefree and silly Morgan had become with Em. Their friendship was deepening into something real, with Paul along for the ride, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes not.

Morgan was teaching her to live, to enjoy life, to let go, and in doing so, she revealed to me exactly who my daughter had become. For that, I would always be grateful.