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Gerald’s lips thinned. “To say the least.” He took another sip. “Christ. Will he … remember?”

I drained my drink again. I needed the burn of the alcohol to help dull my feelings and my newfound powers. The last thing I needed was to make Gerald explode right as he found his way back from the brink of death.

“I’m thinking he does.” I nodded, remembering the tortured look on Colton’s face as the curse broke.

“Shit.” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Shit is right,” I agreed.

We bathed in silence for a moment, both of us sharing in the mutual horror of thinking about how or if Colton was going to recover from this.

“Why haven’t you changed?” I asked, desperate for a different subject.

Gerald’s expression cleared at my question, as if he were also grateful for something else to think about.

“It’s the full moon.” I flicked my wrist toward the window. “Don’t you guys like have to change?”

He shook his head. “Most of the time. But if our bodies are weakened enough, we can stave off the change. Narcotics certainly help.” He jerked his chin to the IV in his arm. “We’ve got a doctor.”

I thought about how deeply their pack was ingrained in the town, wondering just how big this was.

“Are there a lot of you?” I decided to sate some of my curiosity. “Around the country. Packs?”

Gerald shook his head when I offered a third refill. I shrugged then filled my own.

“There are a few.” I wasn’t surprised by how vague his response was. There were probably all sorts of rules against him speaking to outsiders.

Which I was.

An outsider.

First, I thought I was okay with that, with being the black sheep who came back to the small town of manicured lawns and perfect families.

But it was quite another thing, being the half-angel amongst packs of supernatural creatures and decade-old lies.

“Only a few that are like ours.” Gerald watched me carefully. His gaze soft, fatherly. “Who don’t harm humans. We tend to keep to ourselves; we have treaties in place. Territories. Even with those who don’t live the way we do.”

I tapped my fingers against my cup, bursting with questions about that, desperate to know more. But I had other questions that were more pressing.

“Did you know?” My voice was frailer, weaker than I intended. “About me? What I was?”

Gerald inhaled deeply, sniffing the air when horror cloaked his features.

He pushed up in bed straighter. “I didn’t smell it earlier. The drugs, worry about Colton, but…” His eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates. “The underworld, you’re coated in it.”

“Yeah, that’s not the issue, and you know it. Did you know what I am?”

With his eyes scanning over me, I realized my skin was glowing faintly, and the plastic cup was beginning to warp in my hands.

I tried to take a deep breath so I didn’t melt Gerald’s IV. It kind of worked. I still glowed a bit, but the heat didn’t feel as if I were going to singe off my eyebrows.

Gerald, after a brief moment of horror, schooled his features.

“I knew you were different.” Slowly, his chin shifted up and down. “Not at first, not until the night your parents were murdered. I didn’t know what. Still don’t.”

“But you knew.” I put the misshapen cup down and clenched my fist. “First, that I was adopted, and second, that I wasn’t entirely human.” I deduced I was adopted more out of common sense than anything. To be half an angel, one of my parents had to be a whole one. And considering I’d watched them both die, I’d ruled them out.

“Your parents are your parents, if not by blood, then by everything else,” he spoke with conviction.