Shattered Grace (Fallen from Grace) (20 page)

The slight shake of his head couldn’t have been a good sign. As the furrow of his brow deepened and worry clouded his eyes, she felt a chill rush over her and had to remind herself to take air in and out of her lungs. “How do you know I’ve changed?”

With his right hand, he lifted the left sleeve of his shirt to show the tattoo wrapping around his bicep.

She chuckled awkwardly. “What, a fortune-telling tattoo?”

Quentin sat up and scooted along the couch closer to her, determination in his eyes. “This isn’t a tattoo. It’s a seneschal band and it links me to you.”

Caught up in the fire glinting from the diamond specks in his gray eyes, she heard herself say, “What does that mean?”

Quentin lowered the sleeve of his shirt, fisted his hands, and scooted away again, bringing her out of her stupor. “The band completed its change and that only happens when you’ve completed yours.”

“
But I’m not eighteen!” she snapped.

“
I know!” Quentin shot back.

“
And. What. The. Hell. Are. Shadow. Hounds?” Her temper rising, Grace bit her lip to keep from completely freaking out.

Quentin must have sensed her fear because he reached for her hands. Grace recoiled to the far end of the sofa, leaning dramatically away from him. She could barely deal with what she was feeling. If she was bombarded with his feelings too, it might be enough to push her over the edge. “Don’t touch me!”

With palms up, Quentin moved to the sofa across from her. “I’m sorry, I won’t. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Grace wasn’t afraid of him. He would never hurt her; she knew that. Quentin completely misunderstood her response. So like a man.

“
Shadow Hounds are the shadows cast from Hell Hounds. They were on your trail. Well, they were on a Chosen’s trail, not Grace Morgan’s.”

“
How can you be so sure they don’t know who I am?” she asked doubtfully.

“
Because the Shadow Hounds didn’t touch you.”

“
And how the heck do you know that?” she shrieked. Wound up like a tight coil herself, Grace flinched with surprise as she sensed him relaxing, seconds before he visibly released his tension, easing back into the couch and slouching down into the sofa cushions. What the hell was that, her inner voice shrieked.

“
I was watching the whole time. It was close, too close, but they didn’t.”

Over and over she replayed the second she heard the first growl, and how fearful she was. The thought of Quentin watching her while those things stalked her—and doing nothing—was like a swift kick to the gut. Anger spiked her heart rate instantly. The roaring whoosh of beats sounded like a steady drumbeat in her ears before settling to a hammering pain behind her eyes. She resumed rubbing her temples, unwilling to meet his gaze. “You saw what happened today and did nothing?” Her accusation was quiet, almost a whisper. “I thought you were my Guardian?”

Before she could stop it, he was kneeling before her, his hands covering hers. Grace focused on the onslaught of sensation as she dragged air in and out of her lungs. An ethereal heat washed over her skin as their emotions collided. Fear matched fear. Despair with despair. Confusion. Quentin was wound as tightly as she was. Miraculously, he was holding himself together.

“
Please understand, Grace. It took everything I had to hold myself back. If I had come anywhere near you, they would have found you instantly.” His eyes pleaded with her.

“
Why is this happening? I just want to be like everyone else.”

Quentin softly shook his head. “But you’re not like anyone else, Grace.”

“
I don’t want to be the Joan of Arc of the twenty-first century. I’m not even eighteen.” The panic inside picked up in pace with each passing second as she hugged herself and rocked numbly. The calm Quentin managed to channel did nothing to tame it.

“
Joan of Arc was only nineteen herself.”

“
Yeah, and then she died!” she threw out frantically. “See, another reason not to be like her!”

Quentin lifted her chin with his finger. “Look at me. I am your Guardian, and I swear to you I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you. Ever.”

That’s about when she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her two-day streak of dry eyes was over. Instead of holding it in, she let it out. All of it. Her issues with her grandfather, her parents, her greedy family, and her fear of what was coming—all of it spilled out in wracking sobs. Quentin gently pulled her off the couch and onto his lap, rocking back and forth, stroking her hair with one hand and holding her tightly with the other while she cried.

“
This sucks, Quentin,” she sobbed against his chest.

Over and over he shushed
her fears and told her it was going to be okay. When the sobs faded away and the tears were finished, she wiped her face with the palms of her hand and noticed the large round wet pools she’d left on his chest. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”

He gazed at her with compassion as he brushed a lock of her hair from her face. “It’s just a shirt. You’re way more important.”

No one had ever been so tender with her. Sure, she’d had a boyfriend before, but she’d never call him tender and he certainly didn’t light any fires within her. His first kiss had been soft and sweet, and totally misleading. The ones that had followed weren’t anything like the first. He’d had one thing on his mind. The only thing on Grace’s mind after she realized what her boyfriend had wanted was to drop him like the slimeball he was. And so she did.

Cutting through her thoughts, Quentin cleared his throat and gently transferred her to the floor. She watched as he got up and walked out of the family room. He came back with the box of tissues he’d brought for her last week.

After pulling a few tissues from the box, he offered them to her. “Here you go.”

She blew her nose, most definitely unladylike, crumpled the tissue, and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans. The gravity of the situation rested heavily against her, pressing her into the floor. Grace tried to see through blurry eyes. “Now what? No more surprises, Quentin. Just give it to me straight. Please.”

“
Now you move here to the manor so I can protect you better.”

That was the second time in two days her moving to the manor was brought up. Wondering why in the hell she had to move, she folded her arms over her chest and looked back to Quentin. “How can you protect me better if I live here? And what about my mother?”

Even though she and her mother had their obvious differences, she couldn’t just leave her. If the Shadow Hounds came searching for Grace and found her mother instead… The mere thought sent a violent shiver racing up and down her spine. She couldn’t leave her mom now, even though she’d thought about it.

Quentin’s eyes were guarded as he spoke. “You and I need to be together always, so I can protect you. Your mother will move too.”

Her heart rate was not beating normally, at all. The thought of Shadow Hounds finding her mother kicked her in the chest, but the thought of Quentin being with her always stopped her heart completely. Confused, she shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she should be feeling. But then she wondered if her mom would be willing to move. “What if she won’t? I can’t just leave her.”

Quentin’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Don’t worry about that, she’ll move.”

Instead of arguing the possible reasons Laney might not want to move, or why he seemed different all of a sudden, she relented, trusting in Quentin’s quiet confidence.

“
Anything else I should know?”

Grace noticed Quentin taking a couple of steps back, his confidence noticeably wavering. “And, tomorrow you’ll withdraw from Woods Cross.”

Wait, what? Suddenly she felt like she was thrown back in time before women’s suffrage. Any possible aspirations or future plans she had were wiped away as if she had no right to them. Grace was slowly disappearing and the new Chosen was taking over. It was bad enough she didn’t get any choice in being Chosen; she wasn’t going to let it rule every facet of her life. Standing up to Quentin, she squared her shoulders. “I’m not quitting school.”

He stared at her as if she wasn’t speaking English. “Why go to school when you no longer have to? With what your grandfather left you, you won’t have to worry about school or money for the rest of your life.”

“
Yeah, and then I’d be no better than the rest of my family,” she scoffed. Tension began to roll off Quentin in waves. He looked ready to do battle, but Grace braced herself, determined not to back down. “Look, I appreciate what my grandfather did for me. I’ve literally won the lottery, I get it. But this windfall doesn’t make me lucky because I don’t have to work anymore, or ever go to school again
.
I’m lucky because of all the opportunities I have now. I can afford to go to any school I want and not settle on a job I hate.”

She paused for a moment and smiled. “Or I could not go to college and get a fun job at Latté Da’s or Starbucks. I can travel to other countries and do some kind of mission work. I don’t know, something, anything. To me, the possibilities are endless.” The smile fled her face as she locked her gaze with his. “But I will not allow this duty, which was forced on me, mind you, to rule my life. It sounds like you want me stuck here, imprisoned, and I won’t settle for that.”

She peered down at him from her soapbox. Resolve and courage settled in the frame of her shoulders while she stood her ground, ready for him to fight back. Quietly, she watched as a twitch set to motion in the corner of his left eye. Grace refused to cower at what he might say, and braced herself for battle.

Without a word, the weight of his shoulders slumped forward, the fight obviously leaving him. “You’re right. I don’t know how keeping you here is going to solve anything. I’m sorry.”

“
It’s okay.” She looked away, waiting for a clue to tell her what might come next.

“
So, how does this work,” Grace began, when they finally slid into Quentin’s Jag. “Am I your boss, or are you mine?” The last half of her question made her face scrunch up.

“
This,” he said, waving a finger between them, “is a partnership, not a dictatorship. My job is to keep you safe and advise you on how to keep out of trouble. Got it?”

“
Got it.”

A million more questions bounced around in her head. Overwhelmed, she left the questions to their bouncing, their all too persistent bouncing. It was upsetting, to say the least, to think about what she was—a Chosen—and what that meant. What if she didn’t have it in her to do this? What if she didn’t want to…would the others still come to find her? As she leaned her head back against the coolness of the leather headrest, she felt the weight of all the unanswered questions wrap coldly around her already laden shoulders, pressing her further back against the seat. What could she possibly do? She wasn’t even eighteen yet. Heck, she was just a kid! Not that I’d ever admit that to my mom, she thought darkly.

Spiderman was just a kid himself, she mused, and yet he was able to fight villains and protect the people around him. On the flip side, his uncle told him, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Could that work in reverse? With great responsibility comes great power? Because she could use a little power right now. If not, she had nothing. In gym class the other day, she barely managed a pull-up.

It should have bothered her that Quentin didn’t need an address or directions to find her home. He probably guarded outside while she slept. Her heart squeezed a little, finding a small amount of comfort in knowing someone cared enough to watch over her. Parked in the driveway, she could see the inside of the house was pitch black. Her mother’s car wasn’t in the garage either.