“You delivered me?”
“Regina insisted. She knew about the paranormal world, but not her own heritage . . . until her grandparents revealed it. After she came back from China pregnant and scared. Your grandmother used her magic to place a powerful protection spell around you two. In case . . . well, she thought Dr. Brannigan was dead. And after your grandmother passed away, her magic did, too.”
Ruadan, the Father of all vampires, considered himself my godfather. He’d delivered me into the world, and five years later, he’d wiped my memory of my mother’s murder. And nearly thirty years after that, he made sure, somehow, that I would find and unlock the pyramid. “I’m a unicorn.”
“Yes.” Ruadan smiled at me. “You’re not crazy. When you hit puberty, your body was trying to shift. Trying to become unicorn. Your mind couldn’t grasp what your body was trying to do. It appears that neither you nor Regina has the shape-shifting ability.”
“My grandmother could, though.”
“Yes.”
I was silent, and Ruadan stood there watching and waiting, while I absorbed all this information about my family, about my so-called destiny, about my sanity.
I was in a rage. The world had gone dark inside my mind, and I was . . . I tore up my room. I destroyed it all, and my grandparents were there. They couldn’t reach me. Not even her, the one like me. Ax was there, too. He lived with us while he was attending college, and I liked him. He was big and strong and he let me cuss in front of him. And he gave me a beer once. I thought he was so cool.
“I tried to kill myself,” I said softly. “I slashed my wrists, and I ran toward the window. I was bleeding and wailing and I had every intention of throwing myself out of my bedroom window. I was on the third story. Ax stopped me. He grabbed me and held on. He just . . . held on.”
“I’m sorry, love,” said Ruadan. “You’ve had a terrible time of it, I know. At least you don’t have to worry about someone cutting off your horn. But your blood . . . well, that’s plenty magical.”
“You knew that,” I said. “And you used Drake’s parents to send me a message. You knew I wouldn’t die.”
“Not everything can be done straight on,” he said. “No one can know you’re a unicorn.”
“And why did you send Drake in with me? Did you know about the . . . um, last part, too?”
“I may have,” he said.
Incorrigible bastard. “Well, Shamhat and Amahté know. And Drake knows, too.”
“Ah. Well, don’t worry about that now,” said Ruadan. “Just don’t confide in anyone else. It’s the only way to protect you.”
“I’m not going to take out an announcement in the Post or anything.” I thought about Doriana, who’d seen that I was in trouble and intervened. And I thought about my grandfather knowing about parakind. “So, there are all kinds of people, or whatever, watching over me . . . but they don’t know I’m a fabled creature?”
“They’re honoring the debt of service owed to your grandparents. They have no idea they’re keeping an eye on the world’s very last unicorn.”
“How will I ever go back to that life?” I asked him. “I’ll never stop looking over my shoulder. Not ever.”
“You never know where you’ll find your destiny.” He gathered me into his arms and gave me a hug. I hadn’t expected this move at all. It was so fatherly of him. It made me miss my grandfather, and because of that, I hugged him back. Even though I kinda wanted to punch him, too. “Go, Moira. Get the ambrosia. Save your darlin’ Dove. Everything else will work out.” He winked at me, but the friendly gesture wasn’t enough to wipe the sadness from his gaze. “Did you ever look over your shoulder before?”
“No, not really. There’s something to be said for blissful ignorance.”
“Well, then. Maybe if you had, you would’ve seen a certain werewolf watching out for your lovely ass.”
“You really do like talking in circles, don’t you?”
“I’m Irish,” he said. “Getting to the point isn’t our style.”
“Try this time.”
“Drake,” he said. “He’s been watching out for you since the Sudan.”
“Did you forget the part where I was kidnapped by Karn?”
“Drake had been tossed into a sewer and left for dead. He’s been pissed at himself ever since for letting you down.”
I thought back to the night of the gala, which seemed like eight thousand years ago, when I’d been so disturbed by something in the parking lot. One of Karn’s goons had been tracking me, and Drake had gotten hurt trying to protect me. He seemed to do that a lot.