Kyrin sat down and wrapped his arms around me. He drew me close, and I willingly burrowed my face into the hollow of his neck. “Accept what you are, Mia. For your sake. For mine. And for the innocent.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” Kyrin said. His warm breath fanned the top of my head. “An Arcadian can do anything.”

When he said that, my origins seemed so…affirmed, and my desperation grew. Of their own accord, my fingers curled around his shirt collar. “Everything I know is crumbling,” I said. “Help me understand.”

He caressed his hands down my spine, massaged my lower back, then traced his fingers up to my shoulders. He continued the comforting motions as he spoke. “Your father was married to Kane and Dare’s mother when he and Atlanna had an affair. It lasted over a year. Then something happened between them, and your father disappeared, taking you with him. For a while, she abandoned her research in her quest to find you.”

I allowed his words to flow through me. “If I accept what you say,” I said, “I will have to accept that my entire life is a lie.”

“You can now live a life of truth,” he said, tightening his hold.

Could I, though? If A.I.R. heard any of this, I’d be out a job. Aliens were not accepted in that line of work. I might lose the only friends I had. And just what would I do if I lost my job and my friends? They were all I had.

“I need to call my dad, Kyrin. I need to talk to him.”

He released me immediately and strode to his desk. Expression resigned, he unearthed a phone and placed the small unit in my hand.

I spoke my dad’s name, hating the way my voice shook.

He answered on the fourth ring. “Yeah?”

“Dad, it’s me, Mia.”

“Yeah,” he said again. “What do you want?”

“Is Atlanna en Arr my mother?” The words emerged as nothing more than a ragged whisper. I squared my shoulders, forced my throat to obey, and repeated my question. “Is Atlanna en Arr my mother?”

His breath crackled over the line. I pictured him casually smoking a cigar. “Why are you asking me this?”

“Is she?”

“This is not a subject up for discussion, little girl.”

“Is she?” I screamed.

Another crackling breath. “Yes. She is,” he stated. “Happy now?”

I pressed my lips together as the truth hit me. Fully hit me. I was a halfling. Atlanna was my mother. “Is that why you stopped loving me?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, not even trying to deny it. “You began to look just like her.”

“I’m half yours, Dad. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Maybe once.” His tone remained indifferent. “Not anymore.”

“I’ve done everything you ever wanted. I’ve killed aliens. I’ve hated aliens. I could have destroyed them all, and that wouldn’t have made a difference to you, would it?”

He said nothing. He didn’t have to.

“Why did you take me from Atlanna? Why didn’t you just leave me with her?”

“She seduced Kane,” he growled, showing his first emotion. “I found them together, and she laughed. Laughed!” Now he laughed, a cruel sound. “I killed Kane and managed to injure her. And you know what? That wasn’t enough. She wanted you so badly, I took you from her.” He chuckled again. “I made you hate your own kind. I—”

I didn’t let him finish. I said, “End,” and let the earpiece drop into Kyrin’s waiting hand.

My shoulders squared, I pushed to my feet and consciously placed one foot in front of the other until I stood beside the bookshelf. I am a halfling, and Atlanna en Arr is my mother. The knowledge tore me apart inside, slicing deep, leaving raw, open wounds.

Obviously top brass hadn’t wanted us to know halflings could, indeed, be created. That explained why they’d removed all mention of fertility from the A.I.R. files.

My eyelids squeezed firmly shut, and a painful knot grew in my throat. The future I’d imagined for myself was now shrouded in uncertainty.

“Atlanna is more powerful than I have ever been,” Kyrin said, and I knew he hoped to distract me from my inner turmoil. “But you…you have the greatest of her strengths coursing through your veins. Once you tap into that power, you can kill her.”

“Kill my own mother?” I screamed. He actually wanted me to execute my own mother—the woman who sang so sweetly and had called me her greatest treasure?

Kyrin cursed under his breath. “I feared this would happen. I feared you would do this. Bad people are bad people, Mia, and it is your job to kill them.”

“Shut up.” My voice cracked. I was quickly reaching my breaking point, and I suddenly wanted to be alone. I hooked the necklace around my neck. What I was going to do with it, I didn’t know. “Give me some time,” I said, shoving past him.

I know he saw my shattered spirit in my eyes, but he pushed to his feet with every intention of stopping me. “Two other men were found dead last night. Raymond Palmer and Anton Stokenberg. If we do not act, the others will soon follow.”

I halted mid-step, then spun, glaring up at him. Through clenched teeth, I said, “How do you know that?”

“I am a hunter, just as you are, though I seek a different kind of prey. You stalk aliens. I stalk Atlanna. I followed her, and watched her dispose of them.”

Fury conquered all of my other emotions. While I had been here sleeping and eating like a queen, two more men had been found dead. Perhaps I could have saved them, perhaps not. Either way, I hadn’t been on the streets, searching for them. No, I’d practically embraced this mini-vacation.

I had to get out of here. Scowling, I jerked at the armband on my forearm. I jerked until my skin was bruised black and blue from the strain. The thick alloy stubbornly remained in place. My bones were stiff, my muscles achy, when I finally allowed my hands to fall to my sides.

“Take this damn thing off me.”

“No,” he said, determined. “Not until you calm down. Not until you realize Atlanna might be your mother, but she is still a monster.”

“Damn you,” I seethed. “I’m leaving now, this moment, and your actions dictate whether I leave in peace or in pain.”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Very well, then.” I strode from the office and to the front door. Without a single interruption in my step, I emerged into the afternoon sun.

CHAPTER 19

Pain clawed from my arm to my head and slashed down all the way to my toes. I kept walking. Dizziness mingled with the ache in my head, both nearly felling me. My steps slowed, became agonizing, and I stumbled. But I didn’t stop.

Keep moving. I had to keep moving.

The snow froze my bare feet, the needle-sharp pricks of cold almost unbearable, and the farther away I moved from Kyrin’s home, the sharper my suffering became. Hurt. Hurt so desperately. Anguished screams were lodged in my throat by the time I reached the shade tree in his garden.

Footsteps echoed in my ears, and then suddenly I was propelled toward the ground by a force greater than myself. Strong arms wrapped around me. Kyrin, I realized. He hoped to stop me. I fought against him as he turned me midair, taking the brunt of the impact upon himself when we hit. We rolled several feet.

When we stopped, I sat astride him. I shoved against his chest, but he clasped my arm, and with a wave of his fingers, the armband dropped away.

“You are free,” he ground out. “Free.”

His words penetrated my mind, and I realized then that my pain was already gone, that he’d actually removed my shackle. Shock beat through me, as cold and real as the snow around me. I met Kyrin’s stare, his words echoing through my mind. You are free.

“I—” I stopped. I would not say thank you when he never should have imprisoned me to begin with.

“There is nothing you can do right now that A.I.R. isn’t already doing. You’re upset, and you need me. Just like I need you.”

Yes, I did need him. Just like I needed to forget, if only for a moment. The air sparked between us, tiny pinpoints of white-hot lightning and heat. Heat that was always present between us.

I studied him. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his teeth were parted on a groan, as if he was in deep pain. His arousal strained between my legs, hard and potent. He didn’t ask my permission, he simply tangled his hands in my hair and jerked my mouth to his. I didn’t protest. No, I thrust my tongue into his mouth and met him stroke for stroke. I savored the sweetness of his taste, like summer rain and carnal desires.

Right then nothing mattered except the feel, the touch, the pleasure of this man. Not my parents. Not the past. Not my job. My fingers tore at the middle of his shirt, ripping the black material down the middle, sending those stubborn buttons flying through the air with a pop.

He rolled me on my back, and the snow made me gasp. So cold. Yet my skin felt so hot. I arched up against him, my legs twining around his. I wanted more. Needed more. I pushed him over, straddled him again, and scraped my nails over the solid wall of his chest. Several ice crystals had melted against the heat of his skin. I licked away every drop.

He moaned. Kissed me. Then tore his mouth away. I growled at the loss. He rolled me over a second time and jumped to his feet, violet fire blazing in his eyes.

“This way,” he said. He scooped me up into his arms.

“Not this way. I want you here. Now. In the daylight. In the snow.” I didn’t want to wait until we reached the inside of his house. I didn’t want him in a soft bed, nice and cozy. I wanted him in a place that matched my desire. Some place untamed. Wild. Wicked.

Some place raw.

“Here,” I said.

“Here,” he agreed. He carried me into a hidden cove shadowed by towering naked branches. The walls were man-made and warmed to the touch. Hot, just like my blood.

Kyrin eased me to my feet. We stood there, and our eyes met and held. Only a whisper separated us. I reached between our bodies, unfastened his pants, and shoved them down his legs. He kicked out of them and was suddenly naked. Unabashedly aroused. God, he was beautiful. Like a sculpture. Pale and hard, tall and majestic, with dark tattoos scattered across his abdomen. My tongue descended and followed the designs, and his heady flavor, a mix of desire and man, fueled my need.

“What do they mean?” I asked, licking each symbol.

His arms circled my shoulders, and his fingers brushed my neck. “The light shall overpower the darkness.”

“That fits,” I muttered. And it did. My palms slid across his chest. My fingertips circled around his small, puckered nipples. He was so solid. So rippled with sinew. I had pure, unadulterated power at my fingertips, and I liked it. I liked him.

This man challenged me in a way I’d never been challenged. At times he irritated the hell out of me, and he never bowed to my dictates. Perhaps I was insane, but I admired those qualities in him.

“I have wanted you,” he said, his words intermixed with nipping kisses on my jaw and neck, his breath labored, “since the first moment I saw you.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He uttered a warm, husky chuckle, then crushed his lips to mine. Arousal pounded through me, frantic for release as his tongue dove into my mouth. His hands tunneled beneath the silky material of my crisscrossed top. And his fingertips traced the edge of my nipples. I shivered.

Desire pooled between my legs. I was wet. I was ready. Ready for him and only him. I needed the hard, thick length of him inside me. Pounding in and out. Maybe slow at first, but growing in speed.

“See,” I beseeched. “See what you do to me.” Eyes closed in surrender, I guided one of his hands under the froth of my skirt, up my inner thigh and onto the edge of my panties.

“Here?” he muttered huskily, then slipped past the fragile silk barrier.

“There. Right—Yes! There.” Unable to stop myself, I arched into his touch, creating more pressure, more friction. “Do you feel how much I need you?”

“You are liquid fire,” he praised. He dropped to his knees in front of me, keeping one hand on my panties. The other caressed a path under my skirt and up my feet, calves, and thighs. “I want more. So much more.” Reverence dripped from his words.

“Then take it,” I said, my hips writhing as he touched me.

“I will,” he said. “I will take everything you have to give, and then I will take even more.”

He slipped the pink panties from my legs and tossed them to the ground. With a flick of his wrist, he parted the folds of my skirt. He didn’t have to spread my legs; I did so eagerly, willingly, and in the next heartbeat, he was kissing the wetness between my thighs. At the first flick of his tongue, I exploded. Fire, joy, pleasure, all seared me, and my head reeled. My knees shook. I gripped his head, losing touch of where I was, who I was, only feeling an incredible shiver race through me again and again.

And just when I thought I might die from it, Kyrin kissed my heat again until I could only gasp his name. He tasted me, sucked me, made me want him all over again.

My head arched back as delight ripped across my nerve endings. I moaned and cried out, the sounds escaping on ragged catches of breath. My eyelids closed, and I chewed at my bottom lip.

“Don’t stop,” I told him, panting. “Don’t stop.”

He uttered another chuckle, and the vibrations tickled my thighs. “Always the commander,” he said.

Only when I screamed his name again did he stand. He propped his arms on the wall behind me, trapping me in his embrace. “You are beautiful when you come.”