Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

But the Second may choose to turn back.’”

“I don’t understand.” Lena’s legs gave out from under her and she fell to her knees in the mud and tall grass, her long black hair dripping around her.

“You’ve always had a choice. Your uncle has always known that.”

“I don’t believe you!” Lena threw up her arms. Clumps of earth ripped up from the ground between them, swirling into the storm. I shielded my eyes as bits of dirt and rock flew at us from every direction.

I tried to shout over the storm, but Lena could barely hear me. “Lena, don’t listen to her. She’s Dark. She doesn’t care about anyone. You told me that yourself.”

“Why would Uncle Macon hide the truth from me?” Lena looked directly at me, as if I was the only one who would know the answer. But I didn’t know. There was nothing I could say.

Lena slammed her foot against the ground in front of her. The ground began to tremble, then roll beneath my feet. For the first time ever, an earthquake had hit Gatlin County. Sarafine smiled. She knew Lena was losing control, and she was winning. The electrical storm in the sky flashed over our heads.

“That’s enough, Sarafine!” Macon’s voice echoed across the field. He appeared out of nowhere. “Leave my niece alone.”

Tonight, in the moonlight, he looked different. Less like a man and more like what he was. Something else. His face looked younger, leaner. Ready for a fight. “Are you referring to my daughter? The daughter you stole from me?” Sarafine straightened and began to twist her fingers, like a soldier checking his arsenal before a battle.

“As if she ever meant anything to you,” Macon said calmly. He smoothed his jacket, impeccable as usual. Boo burst out of the bushes behind him, as if he’d been running to catch up. Tonight, Boo looked exactly like what he was—an enormous wolf.

“Macon. I feel honored, except I hear I missed the party. My own daughter’s sixteenth birthday. But that’s all right. There’s always the Claiming tonight. We’ve a couple hours yet, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

“Then I suppose you will be disappointed, as you’re not invited.”

“Pity. Since I’ve invited someone myself, and he’s dying to see you.” She smiled and fluttered her fingers. As quickly as Macon had materialized, another man appeared, leaning against a willow trunk, where no one had been standing a moment before.

“Hunting? Where did she dig you up?”

He looked like Macon, but taller and a little younger, with slick jet-black hair and the same pallid skin. But where Macon resembled a Southern gentleman from another time, this man looked fiercely stylish. Dressed in all black, a turtle-neck, jeans, and a leather bomber, he looked more like a movie star you’d see on the cover of a tabloid rag than Macon’s Cary Grant. But one thing was obvious. He was an Incubus, too, and not—if there was such a thing—the good kind. Whatever Macon was, Hunting was something else.

Hunting cracked what must have passed for a smile, to his kind. He began to circle Macon. “Brother. It’s been a long time.”

Macon didn’t return the smile. “Not long enough. I’m not surprised you’d take up with someone like her.”

Hunting laughed, raunchy and loud. “Who else would you expect me to take up with? A pack of Light Casters, like you did? It’s ridiculous. The idea that you can just walk away from what you are. From our family legacy.”

“I made a choice, Hunting.”

“A choice? Is that what you call it?” Hunting laughed again, circling closer to Macon. “More like a fantasy. You don’t get to choose what you are, Brother. You’re an Incubus. And whether you choose to feed on blood or not, you are still a Dark Creature.”

“Uncle Macon, is what she said true?” Lena wasn’t interested in Macon and Hunting’s little reunion.

Sarafine laughed, shrilly. “For once in your life, Macon, tell the girl the truth.”

Macon looked at her, stubbornly. “Lena, it’s not that simple.”

“But is it true? Do I have a choice?” Her hair was dripping, tangled in wet ringlets. Of course, Macon and Hunting were dry. Hunting smiled and lit a cigarette. He was enjoying this.

“Uncle Macon. Is it true?” Lena pleaded.

Macon looked at Lena, exasperated, and looked away. “You do have a choice, Lena, a complicated choice. A choice with grave consequences.”

All at once, the rain stopped completely. The air was perfectly still. If this was a hurricane, we were in the eye. Lena’s emotions churned. I knew what she was feeling, even without hearing her voice in my head. Happiness, because she had finally gotten the one thing she had always wanted, the choice to decide her own fate. Anger, because she had lost the one person she had always trusted.

Lena stared at Macon as if through new eyes. I could see the darkness creeping into her face. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve spent my whole life terrified I was going to go Dark.” There was another crash of thunder and the patter of rain began to fall again, like tears. But Lena wasn’t crying, she was angry.

“You do have a choice, Lena. But there are consequences. Consequences you could not understand, as a child. You can’t really begin to understand them now. Yet I have spent every day of my life pondering them, since before you were born. And as your dear mother knows, the conditions of this bargain were determined long ago.”

“What kind of consequences?” Lena looked at Sarafine skeptically. Cautiously. As if her mind was opening to new possibilities. I knew what she was thinking. If she couldn’t trust Macon—if he had been keeping this kind of secret all this time—maybe her mother was telling the truth.