Embraced (The Eternal Balance #2)(38)

A small noise escaped her throat, her skin paling. Vision Sam’s eyes popped open. She jerked from Michael’s and my grasp like it was nothing, bringing her hands to wrap around each of our necks. Throwing back her head, she let out an unworldly howl, and as we watched, both Michael and I turned to ash.

Sam was quiet for a moment. The expression on her face lingered between surprise and terror. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, but there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, not really wanting to continue. She needed to know. Deserved to know. The problem was, I knew that after she found out the truth, she’d see her parent’s death as her fault. But I’d seen it for a reason. Her parentage must have had some significance. “A few of the things I saw—” Shit. How was I supposed to spit this out?

“Saw?”

“I don’t think the Merrick’s were your parents.” Smooth, *. Real smooth. “Not biologically.”

She shook her head and laughed. “No way. You must have misunderstood. Of course they’re my parents.”

The light faded and the vision Michael, Sam, and me disappeared, leaving us alone. “I saw them talking. They were afraid your real parents would try to take you back.”

She shook her head, grin fading. “I would know if that were true.”

“I’m afraid it is true,” Michael said. He was in front of us now, arms folded and mouth set in a grim line.

Sam opened her mouth, then closed it for a moment. Holding up her hand, she said, “I’m assuming we did what you wanted. Can you tell me how to remove this now?”

“Not just yet,” Michael said. “I need to know you understand the gravity of your situation.”

“The gravity?” Sam screamed. Her colors swirled, a mix of red and black. “I think the gravity of ‘if you don’t get this cuff off you’ll die’ is pretty damn clear.”

“You are not simply Pure,” Michael said, ignoring her outburst. “Among your kind, you are special. Rare.”

Were these *s incapable of giving straight answers? “Rare? What does that mean?”

The archangel shook his head, hesitating for a minute before continuing. “Sam is a special kind of Pure. In fact, I don’t know that there has ever been one like her before.”

“What makes me so special?”

“With the purified soul of two Pure parents, she is unique. That is multiplied by the fact that she died and lives again, and also because she is the last in her line.”

“Last in my line? But what if I have a child? You said this runs for generations. Why wouldn’t it be Pure?”

“Your birth parents destroyed both their lines, ending each with you.”

“How—” Sam was confused, and I didn’t blame her. She still didn’t know the whole story.

“They told the demons where to find you,” I supplied. Turning to Michael, I added, “That’s what did it, isn’t it?”

Michael nodded. “That crime dissolved the last of the purified soul in both of them, and nullified future generations.”

“They told—why would they do that?” Sam took a step away from us and ran both hands through her hair. The murky colors swirling around her head grew bolder and bleaker. “And my parents—the Merricks. It was me. They died because of me…”

Michael frowned. “Your birth parents are responsible for the deaths of the Merricks—not you. Since there is no way for a demon, or an angel for that matter, to tell which human souls are Pure until they die, they needed help. Without them, the demons would have never found you as a child, Sam.”

“But they were Pures themselves,” Sam said, confused. “And they were obviously still alive, so how did the demons find them?”

He shook his head slowly. “They knew what they were. In life, as a Pure grows, they have a predilection toward either good or evil. I’m sad to say, your parents leaned toward the darker side of their nature. They sought out the demons and offered to sell your location”

Sam looked sick. “But why would they do that?”

“Money, power—the exact nature of the exchange is unknown to me.”

“So the Merricks sacrificed their lives to keep me hidden,” she whispered. “And it was all for nothing.”

“You shouldn’t look at it like that.” The angel’s voice softened, and for a second, he looked as though he felt sorry for her. “Paul and Toni Merrick enabled you to survive into adulthood. That’s no small feat for your kind. They gave you a chance to grow and become someone who could take care of herself.”

“Yep.” Sam threw her hands into the air. “And then I went and essentially killed myself, undoing everything. Just awesome.”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Now you’re as bright as the sun to both angels and demons. But remember that there is always a choice. Heaven and hell want to use you, but because you have been activated, they cannot do so without your consent.”

Sam laughed. “Well then, problem solved. I’m not consenting to shit.”

“Ah, but it’s more complicated than that.” He began to pace. “The reason I showed you the things I did was so that you would understand. Choices are not something always made as freely as it would seem. There are outside influences, connections and attachments to take into consideration, small, unseen nudges—”