Hotblood by Juliann Whicker Page A

complicated. “Wilds are able to get tattoos that work like runes on their skin to increase their natural abilities. Satan is extra-large, strong, and fast because of his runes. The runes also enhance his natural abilities with fire.” He shook his head. “I’m probably not the one to tell you about Wilds.”
    “ Then what am I doing here? Mother said that you were the one who was the best to explain everything no one else wants to tell me.”
    “ Your mother told you that I was going to explain everything to you?” He smiled again, a slow smile that ended with him chuckling. “That does surprise me. Wilds are very particular when it comes to explanations. Cools are not typically on the best terms with Wilds and so any explanation that I gave would not be subtle enough for them. I can’t imagine Satan would have felt comfortable leaving you with my version of Wilds.”
    I remembered the car ride and how Satan had been trying to press something on me. “He tried to say something but then he fell asleep.”
    “ He fell asleep mid-sentence?” My dad asked then laughed again when I nodded. “That would be Grim’s doing. He’s one of the only people who can make Satan stop talking. Grim is an interesting Wild. He left the House before your mother met me. I was surprised to see him at the funeral and here with you.”
    “ What House? Last night mother and Satan were talking about the House and the end of the world. Are all Wilds paranoid?”
    My dad’s face shifted slightly. He looked uncomfortable as he stood and looked down at me. “I’m going to get you a tray and you can eat while I answer your questions. I’ll be right back.”
    I sat in my bed in the empty room feeling like I’d missed something. It seemed like my questions had chased him away. Maybe he was paranoid too. He returned before I had the chance to worry about it with a tray full of food that I ate eagerly. I felt like I hadn’t eaten for a month.
    He smiled slightly as he settled back in his chair, frowning when I reached too far across the tray and the needle pulled in my arm. “The Wilds are very worried about the end of the world. Some Wilds can foretell the future, or at least they think they can, and enough of them had visions of a world empty of all Wilds that they began to scheme and plan ways around it. They came to the conclusion that the only way to avoid utter destruction was to annihilate another breed, the Hollow bloods. Unfortunately, it turned out that only made destruction for the Wilds more likely, according to their foretellers.” The look on his face was so disgusted I stopped eating while I thought about what he’d said.
    “ They killed an entire breed, like genocide, because they were paranoid that they would die, so that made them even more paranoid about dying? Okay. No wonder mother thinks Satan’s completely crazy.”
    My dad was quiet for some time, then he spoke quietly, as if against his will. “I started it.”
    I stared at him, at his face the way he looked blank, and not empty exactly, but like he was looking inward so closely he couldn’t see anything else.
    He snapped out of it and gave me a smile that felt wrong after that moment. “If you’re done with the meal, I’ll take it down. You probably want to rest again.” He was on his feet with the tray and gone before I could blink. He was fast.
    I sat in the empty room staring at the chair he’d left empty and tried to understand what he meant by “I started it”. Did that make him a foreteller? I’d never gotten around to asking about what he did as a Cool blood. The thing he’d done when I’d gotten here, looking through me like that and knowing right away that I was Hotblood, made me think his talents were mental. I had a moment’s unease as I wondered if he could read my mind, but then why would he have to ask me questions if he already knew what I thought?
    My dad came back a few minutes later. He apologized for being so abrupt and