Free Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1) by Courtney McPhail Page A

‘talk’ about it. Evidently ‘talk’ in his mind means spearing my organs.”
                  “If you want vengeance, I will mete out an appropriate punishment,” he said his youthful face hardening with determination.
                  She couldn’t stop herself from laughing and Nicky frowned. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just hearing you promise to avenge me…you are so young.”
                  He smiled ruefully and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture that seemed to say, Yeah I get that a lot.
                  “I suppose my appearance would be disorienting to you. I was sixteen when I was changed but I assure you I am much older than that.”
                  “How much older exactly?”
                  “Two thousand, three hundred and nineteen years old.”
                  “Wow.”
                  It was all she could think to say. He made the others seem like infants in comparison. She probably should have saved the fainting spell for now. Yet somehow, it didn’t hit her as hard as the others. Maybe she had reached the point where nothing would surprise her anymore. Or maybe it was that the idea of living for that long was an impossible idea and so her mind was refusing to actually process it.
                  Two thousand, three hundred and nineteen years .
                  It did explain the opulent wealth of the home. You could build a hell of a financial portfolio over all that time. It also explained the varying ages of the mementos in his collection against the far wall.
                  Imagine the things that he had seen over that time. He had probably seen events that were now only notations in history books that only PhD candidates studied. They were talking Ancient times with a capital A.
                  She jumped up from the lounge, suddenly unable to keep still, a frantic energy filling her and she moved across the room to look at the wall of mementos. As she paced the length of the wall, she studied the marble busts, realizing that they were most likely likenesses of men Nicky had actually known.
                  “Did you know these men?” she asked, turning back to see Nicky nodding.
                  “Some as a Shadow Walker, some as a human,” he replied and came to stand beside her. “The busts are likenesses of the great philosophers.”
                  “You like philosophy?”
                  He smiled at that, as if there was a particular irony to it but he nodded. “I am a fan.”
                  She noticed that there was one bust that sat in the exact centre of the shelves and was the focal point of the entire collection. Whoever it was, he had been given a place of honour.
                  “Who is that?” she asked, nodding at the bust.
                  “Aristotle.”
                  “Is he your favourite?”
                  “Yes he is,” Nicky said, gazing up at the bust with a wistful expression. “He was also my human father. My full name is Nicomachus. I was Aristotle’s son.”
                  She was struck dumb at that revelation. It was one thing to hear the number of years he had lived; it was another to be given a point of reference. Someone like Aristotle was so old, he had almost a mythic quality about him and yet she was sitting here with his son. The idea of someone who lived during a time period she had learned of as ancient standing right in front of her was even more disconcerting than the idea he was a Shadow Walker. His kind were supposed to be a fantasy and belonged in fictional stories. Aristotle belonged in factual history books.
                  She felt like her mind had been split in two. One half was processing all this information at a breakneck