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“Yeah, that’s a nice sentiment, and me being adopted wouldn’t matter much to me. Yet it turns out my real dad or mom was a motherfucking angel who, apparently, cast me off to unsuspecting humans then left me to discover my true identity in the hands of a demon prince.” I was out of breath, and my chest was starting to feel like a broiler again.

It was all a lie. Me being adopted mattered, even without the whole “half angel” thing. It was more secrets. More things kept from me. And the half angel portion was a betrayal that corroded my insides. Did my parents know? Were they going to keep it from me my whole life? Where was this angel parent of mine? Watching above from heaven as my parents got torn apart? Did they even care?

My hands got hotter.

“Hadley.” Gerald spoke slowly, his eyes glued to my hands. He was afraid. Of me. Which was smart because I was now something to fear. Now I was a monster.

I pushed the chair back so hard it toppled over. Then I stomped out of the room.

I was mad at Gerald; I didn’t want to accidentally kill him.

As mad as I was with everyone in my life right then, I didn’t want to accidentally kill anyone.

So I took the safer option. I went back to my parents’ house and drank myself into unconsciousness.

For once, I slept. Through the night. No nightmares, no demons or monsters tapping at my window. Mercifully, no dreams. I just … slept.

I did not want to get up, face the day, deal with reality or my massive hangover. Apparently, my half angel status didn’t help with hangovers. Go figure.

As much as I didn’t want to deal with a hangover, I didn’t want to deal with reality even less. I’d dealt with the revelation of my heritage—of my true nature—with a kind of cognitive dissonance. I understood the facts, didn’t dispute them. I couldn’t. But I thought about it as if it were happening to someone else, someone who looked remarkably like me. I was waiting to wake up from a dream, an elaborate curse, a coma.

There would be a time—very soon—when I would have to face who I was, what I was, in a very real way.

And the prospect of that gave me a much worse headache than a bottle of whiskey ever could. It was enticing, very enticing, to drown myself in another bottle. I had one, right on my nightstand, like a child’s bottle of milk.

I was already a functioning alcoholic—by clinical standards, at least—so why didn’t I just pull the trigger and drown myself in a bottle? Hide in a whiskey-soaked haze and never come out?

As enchanting as the idea sounded, I knew I couldn’t. Namely because I had an infuriating male named Dante who had intensely proclaimed that it was his job to protect me. Something I would’ve shrugged off if not for the intense glint to his eyes and the knowledge that Dante was an excellent hunter.

Meaning that if I ran anywhere, Dante would find me.

That was the second reason I didn’t reach for the bottle. The first being curiosity bubbling within me.

I became a hunter because I was thrust into the world of the supernatural while covered in my parent’s blood, that was true.

But I’d stayed—despite the short life expectancy, shitty pay, constant injuries, and lack of benefits—because I loved the pursuit. I was hungry to discover every creature that roamed the earth, skulked in the shadows.

I wanted to learn about every single one. Not just to kill them, though that was the end goal. But because I was utterly fascinated by the lore.

I thought I’d learned most everything there was to know in my tenure as a hunter. Sure, I wasn’t so ignorant to think I knew about every beast there was, but I thought I knew more than most.

Now I felt like a baby hunter all over again. Demon princes. Angels. An unholy war?

What in the fresh fuck did that mean? Who was Dante, and who did he work for?

Most of all, who was I? What was I?

Forcing myself to meet my own gaze in the mirror was more difficult than it should’ve been. I looked the same, more or less. My hair was matted, resembling a rat’s nest. In a drunken haze, I’d finally washed out the smell of brimstone last night, but I’d failed to wrench a brush through it, going to sleep with it wet.

Bruises still shadowed my cheekbone where it had been shattered—I remembered the crunch, the searing pain—but the bone had healed, leaving behind just a slight throb and darkening of my skin. Various other scratches and bruises peppered my face, but all were much milder than they should’ve been.

My very flesh had been melted off by hellhound drool, yet you wouldn’t know it.

The same green eyes stared back at me, no weird, divine glow. I looked human.

But a lot of monsters did.

Scrubbing my face with my hand, I abandoned my reflection, snatching the whiskey off the table and taking a long swig before placing it back down.