You are going to wind up in a situation that you can’t get out of. I could hear my father’s voice ringing in my ears.
“Aaron, I’m so sorry I can’t say it back to you,” I whispered into the phone.
“No worries, babe. I know what is going on in your heart. I’ve been there. Nothing hurts more than losing your first love.” At least he was sweet enough to understand.
“I need to get back to Adam before Helen eats him alive,” I said. I broke off when I heard a gasp on the other end of the line.
“Helen who?” he asked me. I detected more than a trace of fear in his voice.
“Helen Price. Do you know her?”
“You could say that. We went to school together,” he said lightly. “Does she know about us?”
“Yeah. Aaron, is there something I need to know?”
“No. Nothing important, anyway. Listen, I’m going to come and see you later today.”
That was completely out of the blue. I hadn’t been expecting him to drive out there to see me. I had felt that would be asking too much. He had done that for me before though after Wesley had appeared in my house. However, the way he acted when he learned that Helen was staying with us made my pulse go quicker.
“Okay. That sounds great. I can’t wait!” I lied.
“Until then, my love. Behave!” He laughed as he hung up the phone.
I put my phone back in my pocket and returned to the living room, where Adam and Helen were deep in a discussion about super-powers. I should have known that Nick’s comment about the Justice League would spark further discussion of such things.
“Can I ask you a question, Helen?” I interrupted. What Aaron had said was bothering me.
“Yeah, sure.” She smiled at me, utterly clueless about the question that I was about to unleash on her.
“How do you know Aaron?”
She hardly flinched. “I should have known this was going to come up sooner or later.”
“When your boyfriend asks you if another girl knows the two of you are together it raises a flag.” I crossed my arms and stared at her.
Adam avoided my eyes. He knew something as well. I could read it all over his face.
“I went out briefly with Aaron,” Helen said nonchalantly.
“Briefly?” I asked, glaring at Adam, who still refused to meet my gaze.
“Yes. He was the first person that I met when I got here. We went on a few dates, but when things started to feel awkward, I ended it.” She was acting like it was nothing. Not only had she managed to get her claws into Adam, but she had also accomplished the same with Aaron. This girl was getting on my nerves again.
“Please tell me you had no connection to Wesley,” I breathed.
“No, Wesley wasn’t even there yet. He was living high and mighty in Harrisville with his little redhead girlfriend.” She gave me a bitter smile. Apparently, I had hit a nerve now.
“Dawn, can I speak with you?” Nick said, standing in the doorway, and inviting me into the room next door.
I welcomed the interruption. Any more confessions from Helen and my head was going to explode.
“Listen,” Nick said as soon as we were alone, “I need to clarify something. I know that Wesley called you. Your mother told me. She said he told you that Miranda wants to burn Heaven and Hell?”
“Yeah, but it was a rushed conversation,” I said, remembering.
Nick pouted. “I feel it’s time that I explain a few things to you. If Miranda were to kill all four of the Wardens successfully, the purebloods would be next. I’m beginning to think she has ambitions to rule. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with Heaven or Hell; she wants to destroy them. If she managed actually to complete the task, it would wipe out all purebloods and humans on this planet and all other planes. To put it bluntly, the hybrid race would be able to take control of the world. They would be able to turn it into the paradise that she has in her head: death, dismay, hate… the world would be nothing more than a living hell.”
“So, she wants to dispose of those who are pure and replace them with the mixed offspring of said beings?” I asked. “Aren’t we considered hybrids? Resulting from the mixing of two separate types of blood?”
“Something like that, I guess. I wouldn’t quite put us in the category that Miranda’s mother wants to put the others in. There is a reason we are mixed, but quite a few others were created almost by accident. It was just a fluke, the result of a tryst or a meeting in a bar: then poof… baby.” He looked toward the other room and then back at me. “There is more to Miranda’s mother than the stories state. It was in the late 1400s when her mother was turned. She was a noblewoman by birth, raised to take over her father’s land once she married. The thing is, the woman she thought was her mother wasn’t. Her mother was an angel, one of the last to actually conceive a child before your mother.” He looked at me intently, as though checking that I understood.
“When her mother was turned the process went loopy. It shouldn’t have happened that way. In fact, her blood should have caused the vampire to combust. But it didn’t.” He stopped.
“So, she slipped through the cracks. Her human blood took precedence over the angel blood, allowing her to be turned?” I asked.
He looked surprised that I arrived at my answer so readily. “Yeah… I think that is how it happened. When her mother met Xic, she was enamored of him. There is something in demons that brings out infatuation among angels. I think it’s the concept that it is forbidden. Anyway,
