“Yeah.”
“How dare he!” I raged, pacing away, fists clenched at my sides.
“He?”
“Your father,” I spat. “He did this to you, and then he had the nerve to disown you! If I ever see him I’ll…”
Sam seemed amused by this, and I had no idea why. “You’ll what?”
“Punch him in the nose!”
He laughed.
“It’s not funny.” I glared at him.
He sobered. “Of course it isn’t,” he rasped and walked to me, grasping my balled fist. “You’re cute when you’re mad.”
A frustrated sound escaped me, and I leaned into his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Not for you.”
“No?” He pulled back and lifted an eyebrow.
I shook my head. “For them. They made a huge mistake by not keeping you in their lives. I can’t imagine not having you in my life.”
His eyes softened, but then he stepped away. “You turned me away too.”
I winced and stepped forward. “Not because you’re a hellhound. Because you lied to me and it hurt. But even before my dream last night…I was on my way back to you.”
“You were?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t stand being apart.”
He swept me into his arms and held me. He was solid and strong; he’d always been those things. Except now he was even more so because of what he’d managed to live through. He rested a cheek against my hair and his raspy, deep voice filled the room. “Original hellhounds were used a long time ago to take souls through obstacles into Hell. To enter Hell one must pass through a wall of fire and a body of water. They were used as guardians to the gates of Hell, and sometimes souls would escape, and they were sent to hunt them down and drag them back.”
“How did the hellhound gene end up on Earth?”
“Hellhounds were cast out of hell and sent to Earth, where they took human form and lived among humans.”
“Why were they cast out?”
“Hellhounds were extremely uncontrollable. Not even Satan himself could make them do what he wanted. So he banished them, he cast them out of Hell and gave them human traits. He sent them to live on earth where he had hoped they would spread evil throughout the human race. The hellhounds began to reproduce, and the gene was passed down from family to family, skipping a generation. Best I can figure is that eventually the gene pool became diluted and the children became more human and less hound. It was Satan’s ultimate revenge against God. He was using his evil to contaminate some of God’s children and twist them into sin.”
“I don’t believe you are evil, Sam.” I told him wholeheartedly.
“I don’t believe you’re evil either.” He said, giving me a knowing look. It dawned on me that we had more in common than I thought. “It’s why I got so upset that day at your house. I’m the one who came inside and kissed you. I’m the one who was so caught up in you that I didn’t hear your mom. And you are the one who got blamed for it. She said the exact words to you that my father said to me. He said I was marked by evil
“We have each other,” I said, “and what happened with my mother isn’t your fault. It had been brewing for a long time, and I just never noticed.” I had been too caught up in my own pity.
In two short strides he was in front of me, pulling me close for a long, hard hug. I tightened my arms around him and sighed then stepped away and pushed the hair from my eyes.
“How do you know all of this?”
“China. It was one of the reasons I went with her when she found me – and one of the reasons I stayed. I dropped out of school because she convinced me I would never fit in. She’s older than me. Older than my roommates. She’s lived longer inside her body, and she knows how to use her abilities. She taught us, showed us how to live and how to keep our secret.”
“Does it hurt very much?” I asked. “When your body changes like that?”
“Not anymore.”
“That’s good.” I didn’t want to think of him in pain.
I needed a minute to digest everything he was saying, so I went to the fridge to get a bag of carrots. They were a little wilted because I hadn’t been in here for a while. Sam watched me from the door as I went to each stall and fed the horses. They all eyed him warily, but the lure of the carrot was too strong, and soon they just ignored him. “They’re getting used to you.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. He was looking at me from beneath lowered lids, almost like he was shy. “I understand now why you love comic books so much.”
He grinned. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” He settled his shoulder against the doorjamb and made himself comfortable.
“Because you can identify with the guys who are different, with the guys who can do things that no one else can.” It made me think of something else… “Do you have any cool superpowers?”
He laughed. But I saw some sort of smug satisfaction in his eyes. The kind that guys always got when they scored a touchdown or pulled up in front of a crowd in a muscle car.
“Maybe,” he teased.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” I said, feeling mischievous. “I guess turning into a big dog is cool enough.”
For a second his mouth dropped open, but then he laughed. It was a rich sound, and it drifted to the rafters. It was a sound I wanted to hear over and over again. This was the real Sam. My Sam.
“I hear really good. And I have inhuman strength.”
“I figured that out.” I said, trying to sound unimpressed, when really I was totally impressed.
“I’m fireproof.”
“You are?” Now this was pretty cool.
“I can stand in the middle of a fire and my body won’t be affected; my core temperature would rise, but that’s it.”
“Interesting,” I said, patting Jasper. That would explain why the night I almost fell into the fire, his jacket and shirt got burned through but not his skin.
“I can survive being frozen, too. I would only lose consciousness until my body temperature returned to normal.”
“You’ve tried freezing yourself to death?”
His teeth flashed as he laughed. “No. China told me. I also read that we are really great swimmers. I’ve tried that one out.” He grinned again. “It’s definitely true.”