Page 30 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“He was the man on the phone, yes.”

“Then yeah.”

“And he took your sister?”

“Yes.”

She could think of only one reason Julian would abduct anyone, much less give one of those abducted individuals to Elijah Winters. “Did Julian know that you’re a—” what term had he used? “—Shifter?”

Jensen nodded, a movement her Aspect pinged as true.

“How?”

“I don’t know. Believe me, I wish I did.” True. “My kind does everything we can to stay hidden from yours. Aspect Society is the bogeyman we frighten our children with.”

She frowned. “Why? I’ve never even heard it theorized that Shifters actually exist.”

“That’s because we’ve worked very hard to make it that way. Your kind and mine have an unpleasant history. If I’d known you were Aspect when I met you, I never would have come anywhere near you.”

Ouch.

“Did Julian take you and your sister at the same time?”

“No. Natalie disappeared a couple months before that, and eleven more Shifters right after her. I had no idea who took her, but it stood to reason it was Aspect-related. So I came to Aspect Society’s doorstep hoping to find some trace of her.”

She’d met him in Fayetteville, on one of those times she’d made the twenty minute drive from Seclusion, hoping that acting like a normal person in a normal city would make her feel normal. It hadn’t, but he had.

“I’d shift and glamour and search the city. Never found anything. I was about to admit I was never going to find anything when Julian grabbed me outside the hotel.” His eyes turned cold. “This guy. How do you know him?”

“He used to work with my mother, and before you ask, no, she wasn’t a nice person.”

“You called him after you found the sword. You think he tried to break in here. Why?”

“If I knew why, I wouldn’t be meeting with him. He has an unhealthy obsession with me, but even I can’t see him spending Elijah Winters’ sword on my wards just because he can’t get into my pants. He wants onto this property and I’d bet ten to one it has something to do with my mother.

“As for you…don’t take this the wrong way, because I hate the man, but are you sure he took your sister and the others? He gave you to Elijah. My friends and I have spent the last six months tracking down absolutely everything to do with Elijah, and there’s nothing left of his to find. You are the first Shifter we’ve come across.”

“I’m sure. The guy practically got off on telling me because he knew I was looking for the others. Because he wasn’t sending me where he sent them. From what I gather, he owed Elijah some kind of debt and I was payment. The guy specifically wanted a wolf Shifter.”

“So you aren’t all wolves? Some of you become other animals?”

He hesitated. “The less you know, the better.”

“Better for me, or better for you?”

“Both.” There was something in the tone of his voice that set all of her alarm bells off.

“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t supposed to be discussing any of this with me?”

He hesitated. “Because you have good instincts.”

“Elaborate.”

He ran a hand over his face. “Don’t betray Shifter existence is the first edict Shifter kids learn to live by. Especially where Aspect Society is concerned.”

Which begged the obvious question. “And what happens to those of us a Shifter has told?”

“If they’re Null, most of the time they don’t believe whoever told them. In the rare event they do, we convince them they were confused, or we discredit them. It’s not hard to do these days with social media. If that doesn’t work, more extreme measures are taken.”