“How old was the oldest orphan you ever brought in?”

“The oldest reclaimed was ten and she was the exception. The others were no more than seven.”

“Ten,” I squeaked. If what he was saying was right, I should be insane or dead by now.  Maybe he was wrong about me. Maybe I wasn’t one of his orphans after all.

“I know what you are thinking; I see it in your face. You are Mohiri. I know that with one hundred percent certainty.” He took another step toward me, his eyes searching mine. “What I don’t know is how you learned to subdue your demon without training. I’ve never seen control like yours. Your Mori is practically dormant.”

Warmth spread through my belly at his nearness and something fired in my brain. I backed up a step to keep several feet between us. I knew it was that demon inside me reacting to another of its kind but that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

“Is that why I’m not fast or strong like you?” I asked to cover my discomfort.

“That and we reach maturity around eighteen or nineteen, which is also when our Mori reaches full strength. You should already have noticed some of your abilities starting to show by now but you’ll have to learn how to use your demon side to enhance your physical abilities.”

My demon side. A shudder went through me. I didn’t want this.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” I told him honestly. “It’s just so much to take in.”

He nodded in understanding. “It will take time.”

My throat was dry when I tried to swallow. “So what else can you do besides move really fast and catch people falling off buildings? What other powers do you have?”

“Powers?”

“You know: can you compel people like vampires do or read minds or heal things. Stuff like that.”

He chuckled. “No special powers or compulsion or anything else. We have the speed and strength to fight vampires. That is all we need.”

“Oh.” Not the answer I expected. If my healing ability did not come from the Mori, where did it come from?

“You sound disappointed.”

“No, I’m just trying to understand it all.” The sun was low in the sky now and it suddenly bathed his perfect face in golden hues. “How old are you? And I don’t mean how old you look.”

I thought he wasn’t going to answer until he said, “I was born in eighteen twenty.”

My jaw fell open but I did not care. It wasn’t hard to do the math; he was almost two hundred years old. And he looked twenty, twenty-one at the most. Then the impact of his answer hit me. “Am I…?”

“Yes. Once you reach maturity, aging will stop for you too.”

“Oh,” I said faintly. People are always searching for the fountain of youth. Even I had wondered what it would be like to live many lifetimes and see how the world changed. But suddenly being faced with the prospect of never aging while Nate and everyone else I loved grew old and died filled me with a sense of loss so great it almost sent me to my knees.

“That upsets you?” His voice held a note of surprise and I guessed most orphans were happy to learn they would live forever.

I nodded mutely. A cool breeze came up and I rubbed my arms, thinking that fall was just around the corner. I almost laughed hysterically at my thoughts. Here I had just discovered I was immortal and I was thinking about the weather.

“You’re cold.” He started to remove his jacket but I waved it away, not sure I could deal with kindness from him.

“I’m fine thanks.” I stared down at the worn boards of the wharf then back at him. “What if I don’t want to join the Mohiri?”

His brow furrowed. “You don’t join. You are Mohiri.”

“What if I don’t want to live with them and I just want to stay here? You said yourself that I can control this demon thing better than anyone you’ve ever seen so I don’t need your training.” I’d gotten by okay so far and I didn’t want to leave Nate, Remy or Roland and Peter. I was grateful to Nikolas for saving me and I couldn’t deny I felt some strange attraction for him, but it wasn’t enough for me to turn away from the only life I knew.

“You don’t belong here anymore. What will you tell people when you stop aging? What will you do when everyone you know here grows old and dies? You need to be with your own people.”

Nikolas’s words hurt even though I’d had the same thoughts a few minutes ago. “These are my people.”

“That is because they are all you’ve ever known. Once you get to know the Mohiri –”

“No! I knew a Mohiri, remember, and all she did for me was to abandon me and my father.” He opened his mouth to speak but I blazed on. “My loving Mohiri mother deserted us and my dad was murdered by vampires. Where were my people then?”

His face registered his shock. “Vampires killed your father?”

I laughed bitterly. “Pathetic isn’t it? You’d think someone like me would be a lot less likely to be taken in by a vampire, considering my past and my genes. Some warrior.”

I pushed past him and he didn’t try to stop me. Instead he kept pace beside me. “That vampire, Eli, knows what you are now. He’ll be looking for you. Vampires love nothing more than draining Mohiri orphans. We deprived him of that pleasure and he will not forget it.”

My step faltered but I kept going. “I thought you said he wouldn’t get away.”