Page 248 of The Blairville Legacies

Julian's expression darkened.

“What?” I asked. “Do you know him? Is he one of you?”

Julian shook his head.

“He's a Ruisangor.”

“Awhat?”

Julian looked at me with a serious frown. “If you ever wondered if vampires existed, you met one yesterday.”

“What?”

That was the only thing I could say in response.

First, I was chased by a werewolf, then my mum's cult tried to convince me I was a witch, and nowfucking vampireswanted to kill me?

“Just give me a minute to process this.”

I lowered my head against the white window frame behind me, hearing the soft crackling of crumbling paint.

“Is there anything else I should know? Unicorns, goblins, maybe even dragons?” I joked, though by now I couldn't assume it was fun. Who knew what was out there?

Julian laughed and sat down in the floor-to-ceiling window frame. “Not that I would know.”

“Hybrids?” I asked jokingly, because the question of whether werewolves and witches could have children together was still on my mind after the conversation with Alarik.

Maybe he didn’t know the whole truth.

“There's no such thing.” Julian seemed to scrutinize me, so I looked down at the grass, which grew quite lush on our side, while the Bardots had mowed theirs. “Ask your mum, she's researching something like that.”

I looked up.

“How do you know that?” I asked, confused.

Mum worked at the DeLoughrey Science Center as a molecular biologist, but she hadn't told me what she was working on.

Why wouldJulianof all people know that?

“Dad and her know each other from the old days,” he reminded me and stroked his hair briefly, trying to fix it, but it remained messy. “I've heard them talking about work.”

Great, more secrets.

“I feel like even myneighborsknow my mum better than I do,” I sighed, disappointed in her again. I was still angry that she had reacted in such a sensitive way to the book yesterday.

“You shouldn't hold it against her.”

I raised my eyebrows.

That was easy for Julian to say. He didn't know what it felt like when a parent lied all the time and yet everyone else knew what was going on.

“I'm sure she had her reasons for leaving back then, and just the fact that she'd had the chance to get away from here, even if only for a while...” He paused and stared at our front yard. “If I had the chance, I wouldn't do it any other way.”

I looked at him.

He was staring at his hands, lost in thought, the veins running elegantly beneath his skin.

“Then, why don't you just leave? What's holding you here?”