“Austin and Ethan are twins,” I pointed out. “They’re high up in the pack.”

“Because of Eli. Because of Sabina. They were loathed. Everyone knows about them in the state. Twins are few and far between, and whenever they crop up, they’re universally hated. There’s a reason for it, but still, it sucks for them.”

“What’s the reason?”

He sighed. “You’re getting a condensed lesson, Lara. There are several lifetimes of stories I’m compressing for you. Let me pick and choose what you need to know for the moment, until I can share everything with you?”

My heart sped up at those seven words—until I can share everything with you.

Why did that sound so delicious?

His nostrils flared again, and he shook his head. “Now isn’t the time to get turned on, Lara. This is important. Do you have another sister?”

Though his words took me aback, enough to have me wanting to protest—no way was I getting turned on—I just grumbled, “Yes. Well, I did. She died a long time ago.”

He frowned at that, shaking his head slightly as I watched him try to piece things together. “The Mother and Father of all,” he said eventually, “gave birth to everything we know. They’re brother and sister—few know that they’re siblings. The Mother gave birth to nature and created animals and those who could turn into them, she controls the wind, the rain—the elements. The Father, on the other hand, created humans. His firstborn were a pair of twins.

“One of the Mother’s children attacked one of the human brothers, killing him, and in apology, she promised the Father that she would control the population of her children so that his never had to live in fear. She did that by making sure only one child was born to each couple and that a lot of shifters have to find their mates amid the human population.”

“Is that why shifter twins are really hated?” I asked curiously. It was quite clear he believed all this, so I was willing to go along for the ride. Especially as he was telling me all about a world my sister had dive-bombed into and one that I wanted to become a part of.

“Yes. It’s instinctual for people to revile something they’re taught to misunderstand. Every now and then, twins crop up, and it shows even the Mother isn’t infallible. Twins are visible proof of that, and that’s why twins are surrounded with such distrust and hatred.”

“That’s shitty,” I rasped, feeling sorry for my brothers-in-law.

“Yeah. It is.” He squeezed my fingers. “The Mother knew all along that the Father’s grief turned him. The story goes that she set things in stone a long time ago, just in case the day came where the Father sought to bring about a change where humans could overcome her children.”

“What did she set in stone?”

“The birth of three daughters,” he rasped, his eyes on mine. They were stark with awareness, and it made the song that filtered in from the radio, “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus, seem even more apt.

“One, who shall reign through nurture,” he intoned, like this was a story he’d had to learn by heart. Like he was reciting his multiplication tables. “Through her, she will bear the child that triggers the new dawn.

The second, who will reign over her people through fear of a future she can see. She will be tied to one skin, but her powers will bring about the catalyst for the third daughter’s ascension. The Moon Child.” He swallowed, and I knew his words affected him just as much as they were freaking me out. “She will reign through instinct and knowledge. She will make waves with her first child.”

His words resonated with me in a way I couldn’t begin to describe, but the driving urge to get out, to get away, was something I couldn’t fight. I needed space, distance, and it hurt when I thought about how I’d wanted no space between us at all. But I tugged my hands away from his, fighting his hold on me when he tried to keep them clasped. “No!” I snapped at him. “Let me go. You said there’d be no force between us—”

He flinched at my words, but immediately backed up, his hands raised like I had a gun on him.

“I know what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to make me think I am, but I can’t be… Jana’s dead, for God’s sake.”

“You told me that Sabina can see auras, and that you can see spirits inside people. What was Jana’s gift?”

My jaw tensed, and I shook my head, trying to blot out the memories of what Jana could do.

“No. Don’t hide from it,” he snarled at me, raising his voice at me for the first time. “Denying what you are is just a lie. A lie to me and a lie to yourself. Denying your fate is like avoiding what your name is. She could see the future, couldn’t she?”

I closed my eyes, twisting away to push open the door so that I could get out.

The cab was too small all of a sudden, too hot and too close. I breathed in diesel-soaked air, uncaring about the fumes as I staggered into the brush that lined the side of the road. I pushed ahead, not giving a damn about where I went, just heading forward, needing to run from him, needing to escape memories of my father making Jana watch the races, of him using her picks. Sometimes, she’d get it wrong, and he’d slap her for it. He started using her like she was a lucky rabbit’s foot, until it came as no surprise to me when escaping the vicious circle had become a priority to her.

Her death might have been classed as an accident, but I’d always thought it was suicide.

I gnawed on my lip as I thought of the time when she’d predicted our grandmother would die in a fire, and the time when she’d told our mother she’d be free of our father when he lost his wits.

Hadn’t Nanny died when her gas tank had exploded after she’d been T-boned? Hadn’t our father come down with Alzheimer’s?

My heart was in my throat as bushes scraped at me, the leaves and branches scratching my skin as I dove into the wilderness beyond the road. I could hear him crashing after me, but I needed to move, needed to roam. I needed to get away from him.

I wasn’t the Moon Child. Whatever the hell that was.

That couldn’t be me.

None of this was happening. None of it.

Like he heard me, he called out, “Seth is an embodiment of the Father. The child his mother carries, she’s an embodiment of the Mother. A Choi has been waiting on this information for centuries. It’s a catalyst,” he rasped, the words closer than I’d like…

It was then it hit me.

He was letting me run.

Giving me freedom.

Fuck.

I didn’t need him to ‘let’ me do anything. I was free. I lived that way by choice.

I twisted around to glare at him, jerking when I saw he was barely two feet away.

Around us, there was nothing but trees and brush for as far as the eye could see, and underfoot, my toes gripped onto root systems that spanned the forest floor.

“You’re the Moon Child,” he told me. “And I can prove it to you.”

“How?” I snapped at him, discarding his statement for the lie it had to be.

“You watched Nae Yeojachinguneun Gumiho,” he said, “I saw it too. In My Girlfriend is a Kumiho…you have to know about the yeowoo guseul.”