ONE
“Zachariah Wiche!”
Zach froze, steps away from freedom. He knew better than to try and escape now. That was his mom’s “I know what you did and you aren’t getting away with it” voice. He searched frantically through the last few days, trying to figure out just what he’d done—and his memory snagged on one incident.
Small, really—Mom didn’t need to go off because he found something. Again. Something he shouldn’t have been able to find . . .
Okay—maybe she does have a right to be mad.
Turning toward the approaching footsteps, he let out his breath and braced himself. Mom didn’t disappoint.
Claire Wiche may have been only a little over five feet tall, but she could knock down his ten inch height advantage with a single look.
“Mom—”
“Not yet.” She paced in front of him—not easy in the small entry of their house. With a sigh, she stopped, touched his cheek. “How did you see the watch, Zach?”
Shrugging, he stared down at his feet. “I just did. When Mr. Reed mentioned it at the shop, I just—knew. I’m sorry, Mom, but it was so important to him. And not finding it leaves me—feeling weird.”
Doubled over in pain was more like it, but he didn’t want to give her something else to worry about. He was scared enough for both of them.
“What aren’t you telling me, Zach.”
Jeez, she was spooky sometimes. He swallowed, fought to keep his voice from cracking.
“Nothing.”
She shook her head. “You are more transparent than Annie.” Moving to him, she brushed hair off his forehead, and he knew she felt the sweat at his hairline. “Talk to me, sweetheart. I know you’re scared. I don’t want you to ever think you have to deal with this alone.”
“Mom . . .” Zach focused on the amethyst heart she wore. The heart he gave her for Christmas. It glowed, like it did the first time she put it on. He traced the simple line of it with his gaze, and gradually, the stinging behind his eyes faded. “Have I always been like this?”
She let out a gasp, tried to cover it. Hunching his shoulders, he forced himself to meet her eyes, knowing she’d have the look again. The concerned but not going to tell him what he desperately needed to know look.
He didn’t remember anything—not even a stray memory, not since he woke up on the cold, damp grass behind a huge house, Mom leaning over him. He didn’t even recognize her. But she said yes when he asked, and he felt—connected.
A connection that seemed to grow stronger every day.
He knew she was mad—it was the reason he’d been trying to sneak out in the first place. Now fear tickled the back of his throat. Her fear. For him. “Mom?”
“Zach.” She took his hand. He stared at it, to keep from seeing the fear in her eyes. Stared at the raw scar across her left wrist, cutting the gold triquetra tattoo in half. “What happened to you—it changed you, in ways I don’t know yet. We’re both learning as we go, and you have to trust me, to tell me what is going on with you—”
“Why doesn’t anyone here know me?” The question burst out before he could stop it. But he had to know, had to understand why people who’d known her for years looked at him like they’d never seen him before—
“Because you weren’t with me long. I chose you, Zach, to be part of my life.” She brushed hair off his forehead. “Please be patient with me; I’m new at this.” With a smile she let him go. “Now run away to wherever you were headed before I stopped you. Dinner’s at seven.”
“Okay.”
He slipped out the door, and leaned against the outside wall, shaking. Mom had lied to him. He couldn’t figure out what part of her story was lie and what wasn’t, but he knew, as sure as the dread fisting in his gut, she was hiding something from him.
Something monumental.
*
Claire watched her son leave, then sagged against the door, her hands trembling.
He knows.
Maybe not the truth, but he knew something was wrong—about him, about how long he had been part of her life. She hoped she would have more time to figure out what to tell him, how much to tell him about who he was, what he had been.
How could she explain he was a fallen angel? That she gave him her grace in order to allow him to become mortal?
“Oh, Annie—I could really use your straight up way of thinking right now.”
But Annie was gone, on a well-deserved holiday with Eric, hopefully relaxing, recovering from the last few months. They would be joining her in a few days, but she really needed to talk now.
Simon—
She pushed the thought out of her mind, her heart already aching at just his name. Nothing she could say would erase the simple fact that she was a fallen angel turned demon. No matter how far she had come from demon to human, or that she now was the proud owner of a soul, he would never forgive her origins.