Betrayal 2012 (11 page)

The water spout danced around the lily pads and jumped from pond to pond, growing larger with every passing minute.  The water level in the ponds noticeably dropped and I could no longer hear the trickling fountain.  I stared in awe as the spiraling water stopped moving and spread out across the width of the fountain to form a translucent wall.  The particles continued to flow towards the ground and seemed to be recycled as they rose to the top and fell to the earth over and over again.  It reminded me of an infinity pool where the water supply seems to be never-ending.  It was breathtaking.

If I hadn’t been so enamored, maybe I would have heard him walk up to me.  The sharp crunch of gravel nearly gave me a heart attack and when I turned around to see Graham staring up at the wall of water with a smirk on his face, I really wanted to punch him.  Not just for scaring me but also for letting me think that I had actually achieved something.

“You’re doing this?” I asked incredulously.

He shrugged and winked at me.  “Maybe.”  His hands were in his pockets and he had looked away from the water for a few seconds.  I needed to have all of my attention on the water balls in order to get them to even rise.  Graham seemed to be controlling this monstrous display without trying at all.

“How?” I breathed in awe.

“It was natural for me.”  As if I needed another demonstration, Graham flicked his head slightly to the right and the wall exploded into millions of tiny droplets.  But instead of falling, they moved in slow motion like someone had literally stalled time.  They spread out wide across every pond in the fountain and then as leisurely as snowflakes, fluttered to the surface and disappeared.  He must have noticed me smiling. 

“Pretty cool, right?”

I turned to look up at him.  Those dark brown eyes were glimmering again and the shadows from his stubble only enhanced the strong line of his cheekbones.  I swallowed hard.  “It is.”

He stared at me in that intense way again before finally turning his back to the fountain.  Leaning against the edge, he twisted his head so that he could still talk to me.  “Why are you out here all alone?”

“Am I not allowed to be?” I said with an attitude. 

Graham held his hands up in surrender and chuckled.  “Of course you are, luv.  I was just trying to make polite conversation.”  I arched an eyebrow.  “What?” he asked.  “Can’t I talk to you?”

“You can.  It’s just that you’ve made it all but clear that you want nothing to do with me.  I’m a burden and you’ve been sent to babysit.  You’ve barely said five words to me in the past twelve hours.”

“Hmm,” he sighed and crossed his arms.  Tilting his head up to the sky, he closed and eyes and continued.  “Sorry about that.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”  He smiled down at me and I’m sure that my breath caught yet again.  “It’s not you exactly.  It’s this bloody place…and Jeremiah…and I just really didn’t want to come back here ever again.”  He picked up a small piece of gravel and threw it towards the house.  I didn’t say anything hoping that he wouldn’t make me ask the silent question.  “Adele sent me here when I was fifteen.  It was just after Jeremiah had been shunned so nobody else even knew about it.  In fact,” he said while giving me another wink, “you’re the only other person that knows.  Well, except for Jeremiah of course.”

“And now you’ll have to kill me,” I stated with sarcasm.  That earned me another laugh.

“Maybe.  We’ll see how this week goes.”

“Why did you come here?”

He paused for such a long time that I didn’t think he was going to answer.  “My parents sent me to Adele because they didn’t know what to do with me.  I was out of control but that was mostly because I didn’t understand what was happening to me.”

“Your powers?”

“Yes, my
powers
.  It seems as if nature played a cruel joke when she created me.  An adolescent teenage male should not be allowed to control the minds of all those around, manipulate water without a second thought, and be a natural lie detector.  It was too much at once.  I was acting out, partying all of the time to dull the effects, and my parents simply couldn’t take it anymore.”  He shuffled his feet and I thought that he might leave.  “So they shipped me overseas and I’ve been here ever since.”

I thought about that for a minute.  In a sense, it was kind of like Brendan’s situation.  Being forced to leave home and live on their own at such a young age was heartbreaking.  They never really had a chance to be normal kids.  Well, I guess none of us were really normal, but at least I didn’t really need to face that truth until recently.  “How did you get a seat on the Council?”

“Adele.  She knew how powerful I really was and once I gave them a demonstration it didn’t take much convincing.”  I wondered what that demonstration could have been, but decided it was a conversation for another time.

“They don’t seem to like you much.”  I don’t know why I said it but thankfully he didn’t mind.

“They’re just afraid of me.  Fear is a big motivator of hate.  They know what I’m capable of and I don’t go out of my way to make their lives easy.”  He pushed away from the wall and held out his hand towards me.  “We should get ready for dinner.”

“Do we really have to stay here?” I groaned.

“Yes, luv we do.  But I promise that we’ll try and make the best of it alright?”  I smiled and grabbed his hand, allowing him to wrap his warm fingers around mine.  An electrical current shot through my arm as I remembered Kain’s warning about Graham’s reputation.  Sure, he was attractive, but I didn’t need another complication in my life right now.  Perhaps we could just be friends.  Graham laughed.

“You’re too much, Eviana Dumahl.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re attracted to me,” he said with certainty.

“No I’m not!”

He stopped walking and stepped in front of me, face serious with concentration and focus.  “Natural lie detector here, remember?”

I gulped and he smiled again.  “So, you’re an attractive guy.  That doesn’t mean that I want to marry you or anything.”

He cocked his head to the side as though listening to my thoughts.  “Partial truth,” he stated.  “You don’t know me well enough yet to declare that you want to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“I don’t!” I protested but he covered my mouth with his hand.  I resisted the urge to bite down.

“Plus, your heart is elsewhere right now.”

“How do you know that?”

“Told you, luv.  I’m talented.”  With that, he ushered me into the house, holding my hand all the way to my bedroom door.  He placed a gentle kiss against my fingers before winking and telling me he’d see me downstairs at six.

I needed that time to calm my nerves and my racing heart.  Perhaps it was because I really missed Brendan or maybe it was because I’d been watching Kain and Carissa’s relationship bloom into something that I no longer had.  Whatever it was, I need to clamp down on these feelings because Graham Forrester was not someone that I should be with.  Ever.  And I needed to stop imagining his soft lips against mine while he scoops me up into his arms and we ride off into the sunset together.  What a cliché that was anyway.  Not to mention that Graham was off limits and as soon as I got through this trip, Brendan and I could be together again.

Eight

Jeremiah outdid himself with dinner preparations.  The room had been transformed into an elegant fine dining experience complete with candles and a live violinist.  For about a half a second I thought maybe he went through all this trouble for me, but when he greeted Graham, I knew that Jeremiah could care less that I was present.

“Master Forrester,” he said with a grand bow.  “It is such an honor to have you back in my home.  I hope that your travels were uneventful, mate.”

“I’m not your
mate
Jeremiah, and yes, so far the company I’ve travelled with has made this trip bearable.”  I was flattered by the compliment even if it was a backhanded one.

“Ah, yes.  Who wouldn’t be privileged to travel with the beautiful Miss Dumahl?”

“It’s Mistress now,” Graham said and detangled himself from Jeremiah’s grasp.  “I expect you to show her the respect she deserves.”

Jeremiah threw back his shoulders and feigned shock.  “Why, I would never disrespect Mistress Dumahl.  She is way too valuable to us all.”  That last comment was directed at Graham and it had an undertone of sarcasm.  I didn’t have time to digest it because Jeremiah began pulling me to the far end of the table.  “Eviana, may I call you Eviana?  I am so privileged to work with you.  If I would have known what you were capable of, things may have been a little different the last time you were here.”

My eyes darted across the table towards Graham to see if he knew what Jeremiah was referring to.  His face was perfectly blank as he sat down in the chair opposite me.  Jeremiah claimed the head of the table and as soon as we were seated, individual wine glasses and a small cheese platter was placed in front of us.  Jeremiah reached for the cheese and Graham downed his wine in one swallow before speaking.

“Yes, we all heard about your demonstration when Eviana and your cousin came to visit.”  Graham shook his head.  “Poor taste, mate.  Poor taste.”

Jeremiah let the comment slide, but I did notice a slight tensing in his shoulders.  His long blonde hair hung freely down his back and the red robe he was wearing over his clothes reminded me of a pimp more than an actor.  “Ah, don’t be so critical.  I hear that’s nothing compared to what our Eviana showed the Council.”

At first I wanted to cringe at the term “our Eviana” and then I panicked a little when I realized how much Jeremiah knew.  He might officially be shunned, but he certainly had eyes and ears all over the place.

“No, it wasn’t even close to the same thing,” I spat out.

“You made them dance.  And you stole them from Adele.”  He placed his hand on top of mine.  “That is no easy feat.”  I quickly jerked my hand away.

“You almost killed your staff!” I yelled.  “That is hardly in the same caliber as making them do the chicken dance!”

“Tomatoes,
tomahtoes,” he flicked his hand at the old saying and I wanted to argue more that we were nothing alike.  I might have this power but I did not want to dominate humans like Jeremiah did.  No, we were two totally different people with dissimilar ideas on how best to use our compulsion skills.

The rest of dinner seemed to evolve around the same few conversation topics.  Jeremiah was apparently extremely interested in Graham’s rise to power and he used that position to try and find out more about what Lucian Sutherland was doing.  It had been almost two hours and I’d had enough.

“He’s killing our kind!” I finally blurted out.  They’d been talking as though I wasn’t in the room and my patience had expired.  “He killed my mother right in front of me.  He snapped her neck like a bird and then forced me into leadership hoping that I would side with him.”

“Oh no dear, he didn’t force you into leadership.  It was your birthright.  He just happened to hedge the wrong bets.”

“What do you mean, Jeremiah?”  I was tired of his sing-song voice and cryptic tongue.

“He knew what you could do, he just bet wrong when it came to you siding with him.”

“Well, regardless.  He must be stopped and that is why I’m here.  I need better control and I need it now.”  The crooked smile that appeared on Jeremiah’s lips was enough to make me down the rest of my wine like a regular drinker.  I caught Graham’s amused expression and gave him a look that dared him to challenge me.  He smiled and refilled my glass.