Prologue

“I think you're faking it. You said you didn't want anything from me, and I just came to show you how wrong you are,” Nolan said, approaching Mia.

Mia took a step, then another, until she felt the door behind her. Nolan moved closer, lowering his head without looking away. Mia thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he buried his face in her neck and took a deep breath. His hands, one on each side of her body, were flat against the door. And where his nose touched her skin, Mia felt as if tiny electric currents were running through her body—something she had never felt before in her life.

Mia was breathing heavily and said, in a voice hoarse with desire she didn't know she possessed:

“Nolan!”

Hearing her name, he let out a moan and grabbed her waist, but kept his hands tense, motionless. His face was still buried in Mia's neck, and then he asked:

“Did you let him touch you?”

Mia was confused. She couldn't think clearly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your human ex-boyfriend. Have you slept together?”

The question brought her back to her senses. She tried to push him away, but he didn't move an inch.

“Answer me, Mia.”

He didn't speak angrily. It was as if he was in pain. And for some reason, she didn't want to cause him pain.

“No. I've never slept with anyone. I mean... I've kissed and hugged, but I've never gone further than that.”

She felt the tension leave his body. And then she realized he had said “ex-boyfriend.” Where did he get that ex?

Mia was about to ask, but now Nolan was looking into her eyes. They were so close.

“You... are... mine,” he said slowly, before kissing her.

Mia wasn't prepared for the explosion of sensations that followed. It felt so good, so right, as if his arms were her home. Mia raised her hands and intertwined her fingers in his hair, pulling him even closer. Nolan didn't hesitate and deepened the kiss. One of his hands caressed her back, while the other slid down to her ass.

Mia was overcome by a courage she had never felt before. She thrust her body forward and wrapped her legs around his waist. She felt Nolan's excitement through the hardness of his erection pressing against her. He moaned into her mouth and...

Everything went wrong once again. Mia stared frustratedly at the mirror in her now empty bedroom, her mind taking her back to a week ago, when it all began, when she was still in Chicago staring at the mirror and thinking she was too different...

A week ago...

Standing in front of a mirror, Mia let her mind fill with images, her first memories of how the chaos in her life began.

Mia didn't remember her mother's face that night.

She remembered the smell in the car.

The wet leather. The rapid breathing in the front seat.

She was three years old and her eyes were glued to the window, trying to understand why they were leaving everything behind.

It was the first time.

But not the last.

Every time they started to settle in, everything fell apart. A car parked too long on the street. A suspicious look at the market. A random comment from her mother: “They found us.”

And then came the suitcases. The rush. The escape. Always before dawn.

Mia grew up without putting down roots anywhere.

She never memorized her classmates' birthdays.

She never stayed too long at the same school.

She never had time to be normal.

At age ten, her mother pulled her out of class in a fit of rage. She screamed that they had to go. The principal tried to stop her. Teachers called the police. Her mother was arrested. The next day, they disappeared from the city.

No one ever explained anything.

Her grandparents just accepted it.

And Mia learned to do the same.

But at thirteen, her body began to fail her.

High fever. Intense pain. Cramps that made her scream. She spent days locked in a damp basement, begging to be taken to a hospital. Her mother cried. Her grandparents prayed. No one touched her.

On the third day, Mia heard the words that would change everything:

“Let’s go find your father. Only he can help.”

Mia never forgot. Because, until that day, her mother had told her he was dead.

On the fourth day, the fever disappeared.

And her mother returned to her lies.

The pain returned at fourteen. Then at fifteen.

Always the same reactions.

At seventeen, Mia had been living in Chicago for two years—the most stability she had ever had.

Two years at the same school.

Same neighborhood. Same room.

For the first time, it seemed like she could build something.

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her phone. Liam's message still glowed on the screen.

“Can't wait to see you tomorrow.”

That night, she looked at herself in the bedroom mirror, trying to believe it.

Trying to see herself as a normal girl with a normal life.

But she couldn't.

The reflection in the mirror distracted her. Hair too white for someone seventeen. Green eyes. Pale skin. Beautiful. Strange. Alone.

And the questions that wouldn't go away

What if her mother freaked out again?

What if she said they were being watched?

What if she decided to run away again?

And that's more or less how Mia's story begins, with her determined to put an end to her mother's madness, but fate had other plans for Mia.