Read Online Under the Moon by Natalie J. Damschroder - Free Book Online

her birth family. But Quinn had decided, long before her adoptive parents died, that she wouldn’t dishonor them by seeking her birth parents. After they died, being alone was less painful than being rejected. She lived her life as if they didn’t exist, but now she was being forced to acknowledge them, and maybe more.
    It was far easier to talk about Nick.
    “What did you learn?” Almost out of habit, she swallowed some more beer before setting her bottle down, too. She didn’t need a fuzzy head, and she was already tired after being up all night and getting less than two hours of sleep on the plane.
    “Surface stuff. The names of your birth parents, adoptive parents, their parents, where you grew up, went to school, worked. You know.” He twisted to lean against the arm of the couch. Quinn kicked off her shoes, pulled her legs up onto the couch, and faced him from the opposite end.
    “Did you get assigned to me later because I’d been a training assignment already?” Her heart thumped a little harder as she waited for his answer. It came in a curl of his lips, a tenderness she’d rarely detected in his eyes.
    “Something like that,” he said, the curl lifting into a smile. “We get info for every goddess we’re assigned to. When your mother called for a protector, I was available and they knew I already had the background on you.”
    Quinn watched her knee rock back and forth, a little lost in the past. He’d been so confident and strong, even as new as he was to the Protectorate, and that had allowed her to turn away from her fear and be strong, herself. Maybe he’d been that confident because he already knew her. Maybe he’d even cared about her.
    Dangerous territory . Nick watched her steadily, as if he knew what she was thinking and wanted her to think it. But why? She already knew she meant more to him than a standard assignment. He didn’t talk about his other goddesses much. She knew he traveled all over the country to be wherever he was needed, and he protected other goddesses not even half as often as he protected her. But she also knew he wouldn’t take his relationship with her any deeper because his duty to those goddesses was just as strong as his personal feelings. No, stronger.
    Quinn had settled for what they had because it was so much better than not having him at all. She’d always believed that was also Nick’s motivation. But now that she recognized the same pattern with Sam, she had to see her relationship with Nick differently, too.
    The familiar ache of longing sharpened enough to make her turn away from that line of thought and face the other. Family ties. Alana could have meant only one thing.
    “What—” She swallowed, but the rest of the question still came out raspy. “What did you learn about my birth parents?”
    Nick’s tone was gentle when he asked, “What do you know about them?”
    She folded her arms and lifted her shoulders. “Not much. I met them once, when I was about eight. They were still together, but they were only twenty-three. They told me they’d given me up for adoption because they were too young to take care of me.”
    “Did your birth mother tell you what you were?”
    “Not really, but she didn’t have to. I was too young to understand the whole genetic thing, but I believed I was a goddess because my real mother—my adoptive mother, I mean—was a goddess. But they had different sources and skills.” She remembered the small tricks her birth mother had done and how awed Quinn had been. “My birth mother snapped her fingers and made a hair ribbon appear. I thought it was out of thin air, but it was probably from her pocket. My hair was frizzy beyond belief, and I hated it, but she smoothed her hand down it and tied it with the ribbon, and it was perfect after that.”
    “Still is.”
    He said it so low Quinn wasn’t sure she’d heard him. She hesitated before going on. “She left a box for me, some things her mother had handed down to