“We can take care of ourselves,” Peter argued.

“You can but what about Nate? He’d be defenseless if they came after him to get to me. Nikolas said I’ll be safe with the Mohiri, especially if there is a Master in the picture.” I looked at each of them, my eyes pleading with them to understand. “I don’t want to go, but I don’t think there’s any other way to keep Nate safe.”

“What about the trolls?” Roland asked hopefully. “They’re your friends, right? Won’t they help if you ask them?”

I shook my head. “Remy says the elders know about us selling the bile and they will forbid him from seeing me. If we’re lucky it won’t be a forever thing but I don’t think I can count on any help there.” I hadn’t even begun to process the pain of losing Remy’s friendship. I pushed it to the back of my mind because if I had to deal with one more loss right now I would break.

“Damn! Even trolls get grounded,” Peter said with a whistle.

We fell quiet for a few minutes until Roland finally said, “So, you’re going to tell Nate everything and then leave. I don’t think he is going to handle this well.”

I groaned. “He’s not going to take it well either way. And you know him – he won’t believe anything without proof.”

“I could come over and shift for him,” Peter offered and I let out a humorless laugh.

“Yes and give him a heart attack. I think seeing a werewolf up close and personal will be too much for him even if it is you.”

“Hmm, you’re probably right.”

“I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can show him an imp. Our place is full of them.”

“Probably not a good idea to tell him he has a demon infestation,” Roland pointed out dryly. “Especially with you leaving.”

This was going to be even harder than I’d thought. There was not going to be an easy way to break any of this to Nate but I needed to show him something or he’d never believe me. “I need a way to show him proof without scaring the hell out of him.”

“Okay, so no close encounters,” Roland thought out loud. “Maybe a picture of something… or a video.”

“You mean like a video of an imp?” Unless you got close enough to see their very sharp teeth, they looked pretty harmless. “How will he know it’s not a fake? It has to be something he can’t refute.”

Peter’s face lit up. “I have an idea. Give me your phone.”

Chapter 19

“Please say something.”

Nate stared blankly at his hands clasped in front of him on the kitchen table. He had been sitting like that for the last five minutes.

My chest tightened. All day I had tried to prepare myself to talk to him while dreading his reaction. My worst fears had come to pass. He wouldn’t even look at me.

His face lifted and his troubled eyes met mine. “What do you want me to say? When you said you had to tell me something, I was worried you’d been suspended or something. Instead, you tell me this crazy story. If I didn’t know you better, I’d ask if you were on something.”

“I know it’s a lot to take in.”

He let out a strangled laugh. “Just a bit.”

I wanted to reach across the table and take his hand but I was afraid of his reaction. Anxiety and fear twisted my gut in knots. Nate was the only family I had; I couldn’t bear it if he pulled away from me now.

There had been no easy way to come clean to him so I’d just dived in head first, fumbling my way through the story that grew more fantastic by the minute. How do you tell someone you love that nothing in their world is as it seems and that they are surrounded by a whole other world of magic and people and creatures that should not exist?

Nate had listened quietly while I told him I’d always believed there was more to my dad’s death than the authorities had said. His eyes had grown wide when I explained how I had learned I could heal animals when I was little. When I’d begun describing how I met Remy and discovered that every mythical creature I’d ever heard of was real, his face had become a mask of disbelief.

Then the real hard part came. Using as little detail as possible, I told him about Eli, Nikolas, and the werewolves and what had been happening for the past month. His tight-lipped expression made my heart ache as I revealed what I’d learned about Madeline and the truth about my dad’s murder. I stopped there because I couldn’t go any further without hearing him say something, anything.

Nate let out a deep breath. “I’d think this was all a big prank if not for… You’d never make up stories about your father.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I-I don’t know what to think. You have to understand that all this would be hard for anyone to believe.”

I nodded, grateful that he was still here talking to me. That was something at least.

He leaned back heavily and his wheelchair creaked. “You’re not telling me everything,” he said, studying my face.

I swallowed. “I didn’t want to lay too much on you at once.”

“You wanted to see how I’d react?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed his brow and fixed me with the look of a person waiting to hear something they know will not make them happy. “Tell me.”

I told him about meeting David and everything that happened at the rest stop. He made a sound when I recounted our close escape but I kept talking, afraid that if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to continue. I told him about Remy and the missing trolls, our trip to Portland, and the rescue. I glossed over the worst of it because I didn’t think he could handle hearing the gory details, especially what I’d done to get the trolls out of the cage. It was asking enough of him to accept what I’d told him already. I finished by telling him about Roland being hurt and how I’d healed him.