The Mortal Heart(13)

What if it’s true, and I lose control? I can’t let anything happen to Jane. But how can I protect her from my father and Hunting? From myself?

Macon knew the answer.

He’d known it all along, but knowing it and doing it felt like they were a thousand miles apart.

I have to let her go.





Macon had always wondered if a Ravenwood Blood Incubus like him really had a heart—the kind capable of real love.

But now he knew he did, because it was breaking, one tiny crack at a time.

He held on to the pain. He savored it, the way Silas savored a kill. The pain was real. The pain was his. The pain would never end.

And soon it will be all I have left of her.

“Janie,” he said again. “Please.”

Lila Jane clung desperately to him, her face buried in his chest. The branches of a huge oak reached down around them, creating the impression they were alone instead of a few yards away from clusters of Duke’s ivy-covered buildings.

He cradled her tearstained face gently in his hands. “Do you think this is easy for me? I love you, Jane, and I know I’ll never feel this way about anyone again. But we don’t have a choice. You knew there would come a time when we would have to say good-bye.”

Lila Jane lifted her chin, resolute. “There are always choices, Macon.”

“Not in this situation. Not a choice that wouldn’t put you in danger.”

“But your mother said there might be a way. What about the prophecy?”

Macon slammed his palm against the tree, frustrated. “Dammit, Jane. That’s an old wives’ tale. There’s no way it doesn’t end with you dead.”

“So we can’t be together physically—I don’t care about that. We can still be together. That’s all that matters.”

Macon pulled away, his face twisted in pain. “Once I change, I’ll be dangerous, a Blood Incubus. They thirst for blood, and my father says I will be one of them like he is and his father before him. Like all the men in my family, as far back as my great-great-great-grandfather Abraham.”

“Abraham, the one who believed the greatest sin imaginable was for a Supernatural to fall in love with a Mortal—to taint the supernatural bloodlines? And you can’t trust your father. He feels the same way. He wants to keep us apart and make you creep around in the Tunnels like your brother. Like a monster.”

“It’s too late. I can already feel the Transformation. I stay up all night listening to the thoughts of Mortals, hungering. Soon I’ll be hungering for more than their thoughts. Already, it feels like my body can’t hold what’s inside me, as if the beast might literally burst free.”

Lila Jane turned away, her eyes welling up with tears again. But Macon wasn’t going to let her ignore him this time. He loved her. And because he loved her, he had to make her understand why they couldn’t be together. “Even standing here, the light is beginning to burn through my skin. I can feel the heat of the sun with such intensity, all the time now. I’m changing already, and it will only get worse.”

Lila Jane buried her face in her hands, sobbing. “You’re saying this to scare me, because you don’t want to find a way.”

Macon grabbed Lila Jane’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “You’re right. I am trying to scare you. Do you know what my brother did to his Mortal girlfriend after the Transformation?” Macon paused. “He ripped her apart.”

Without warning, Macon’s head jerked back, his golden-yellow eyes shining around strange black pupils, like the eclipse of twin suns. He turned his head away from Jane. It was the first sign of a Dark Caster.

The eyes of the monster that he was.

Then Macon Ravenwood did the only thing he could do.

He ran.





VII. The Arclight


Leaving Lila Jane was the hardest thing Macon had ever done. Still, it wasn’t enough. Silas was unpredictable and Hunting was sadistic. Macon’s breaking up with the girl he loved might not be enough for them.

If they go after Jane, she won’t be able to protect herself.

But Silas and Hunting weren’t the only threats. One day soon, he could be dangerous, too.

The only thing he cared about now was finding a way to keep Lila Jane safe—and there was only one person who could help him.

A powerful Diviner, a Caster capable of predicting the future. A woman with voodoo roots, who lived in the heart of Louisiana and knew the heart of an Incubus.