Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (23 page)

Fuming, I crossed my arms and glared at her some more, trying to decide the best way to get myself home.  She pointedly ignored the fact that I was looking less than loving all of the sudden, busying herself with putting the cake on the cooling rack on the counter instead.  If she thought we were going to have a nice family reunion now that I knew she had been a party to my kidnapping all along, she was crazy.

I knew the second Nathan entered the room.  I felt a change in the air, like an electric charge I couldn’t ignore.  He took up a stance against the stone fireplace behind me—which was full of nothing but ashes, another sure sign that Grams had known I was coming—and his scent wrapped around me, making my heart ache.  I closed my eyes, just breathing it in, and then wanted to kick myself for being so pathetic.

“You two are in more trouble than I thought,” Grams said, chuckling.  When she turned around to face us again, there was a devious little smile on her lips that made me want to run for cover. 

“And whose fault is that, Shea?”  My head snapped around at the totally pissed tone of Nathan’s voice.  It wasn’t just my ears playing tricks on me, either.  His eyes had gone pale silver again, and he was glaring at Grams, his expression black.  “If you hadn’t decided to mess with my life, this wouldn’t have happened.  Now, tell her what she needs to know.  Then I will drive her to the airport and put her on a plane back home before I run as far and as fast I can in the opposite direction.”

“You can walk away, knowing what you do and knowing how she feels about you?”  Grams asked, her eyes narrowing.  Nathan didn’t even stop to think about it.  His answer was automatic.

“Yes.”

Rejection hit me so hard I felt sick.  Right then, I could have curled up in a ball and hidden somewhere no one would ever find me.  If I had needed any further proof that he didn’t see me the same way I saw him, I had it.  Even if Grams didn’t, I got the message loud and clear.

“And what about the demon?” Grams asked, her eyes narrowing even further.  “Are you really going to leave her to deal with that on her own?”

Nathan opened his mouth to reply, then immediately snapped it shut again.  I could see the indecision on his handsome face, but I already knew what choice he was going to make.  I wasn’t important enough to him for him to stay.  I was on my own.

 “Leave him alone, Grams,” I told her, refusing to let her guilt trip him into staying with me.  I winced when I realized I sounded as devastated as I suddenly felt.  “It’s my problem.  I’ll deal with it.”

I looked away quickly when Nathan turned his gaze to me so he wouldn’t see the hurt and rejection that was clear to see on my face.  I wanted to shut up, I really did, but I couldn’t seem to stop the words from pouring out once they began. 

“I told you, you should have let him go.  So he had a toy to play with for a couple of days.  So what?   It’s not his fault I was stupid enough to fall for his game.  Now do what you should have done to start with.  Tell him where his soul mate is and let him go.”

If I had been able to look Grams in the eye as I spoke, I might have noticed the storm that was about to break.  In my defense, it never occurred to me that she would make the worst assumption based on what I had said. 

“You
didn’t
,” she hissed.  I turned to find her staring at Nathan with a murderous gleam in her eyes. 

“Don’t be absurd,” he replied coldly.  “Do I look that stupid to you, Shea?”

I looked back and forth between them for a second, confused, before I realized what was going on.  She thought I meant we had…

Oh, I only wish! 
I thought, then immediately blushed.  I glanced at Nathan, hoping he was too engrossed by the fact that Grams was getting ready to kill him to listen to my thoughts, and my face got hot enough to fry an egg on when his eyes widened slightly and turned toward me. 
Wait!  I did
not
just think that.  Just…just forget you heard that.

“Oh, God, Grams!” I cried, jumping to my feet and ignoring the smirk that was turning Nathan’s lips up in the most annoying way.  “That’s
so
not what I meant.”

For reasons better left to the mysterious realms of stupidity, I dashed over to stand in front of Nathan with both arms held out like I was going to shield him or something.  Grams took a step forward, and I saw something in her eyes I had never seen before.  I couldn’t really say what it was, but it was almost…electric.  My heart sped up and the hair on my arms and the back of my neck began to prickle as something deep inside me seemed to quicken in response to it.  I clenched my teeth against a building pressure in my chest as she took another step toward her intended homicide victim.

“That isn’t what I meant!” I gasped again, fighting the sensation that was beating at me.  “Grams!  Chill!”

I felt sweat bead on my forehead and my heart was pounding like a jackhammer.  I closed my eyes and counted to ten, but it didn’t seem to help at all so I tried again.  Still nothing.  If anything, it was getting worse with every passing second.  I began to count down to what could only be a disaster by the frantic beating of my heart.

Tha-thump!

My hands balled into fists as if I could hold back what was coming that way.  Fat chance.  Whatever was happening to me was coming at me like a speeding freight train.  I could see my pulse racing in flashing lights as I closed my eyes.  And still that pressure built, tightening my chest to the point where it was actually starting to hurt.

Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!

My body began to tremble convulsively.  Now I was completely terrified to go along with all the other things I was feeling.  What the hell was wrong with me?

Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!

My chest was killing me.  I couldn’t breathe.  I couldn’t think.  Something terrible was about to happen, I just knew it, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. 

Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!

“Shea!  Help her!” Nathan demanded, sounding slightly panicked, as I started to sway on my feet.

Help me what? 
I screamed mentally.  What were they talking about?   Something was wrong with me and they were just standing there.

Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!  Tha-thump!

“
You
help her.”   

Yeah, Grams
really
sounded concerned.  Not.  No reply from Nathan.  Big shock there; I already knew he didn’t care.  I was falling completely apart and neither of them thought it was their job to help me.  I hoped they would both be happy when I spontaneously combusted right there in the middle of the kitchen.  It would serve them right. 

Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump!

And that was about the point when the oven door blew open and a jet of fire shot out of it, the orange-red tongue of flames licking at the countertop across from it like it was looking for something to consume.  I immediately backed away from it, my already racing heart picking up extra speed I wouldn’t have thought it capable of, and found my back pressed against Nathan’s chest.

“Did she…?” Nathan gasped behind me.

“Yes, she did, indeed,” Grams said, sounding extremely happy about her oven going wild and trying to burn down her kitchen.  “What do you suppose is next, Nate?  Considering how close you’re standing to her at this moment, you’d best hope it’s not you.”

Wait.  They thought
I
had made the oven go nuts?  Were they on
drugs
?  That was fire!  Even if I had been planning to kill them, I wouldn’t have lit a fire in the same room with me!

Just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, Nathan wrapped his arms around me and it all just…stopped.  No more racing heart, no more anger.  The only thing that remained was that terrible pressure in my chest, like I had been holding my breath for way too long.  Uncomfortable was an understatement.

“Calm down, Ember,” he murmured against my ear.  “Just try to breathe normally.  It’s all right, baby.  I won’t let you fall apart.  Just focus on me.”

I leaned back into him and listened with my eyes closed as that wonderful voice continued to whisper in my ear.  The longer I listened, the clearer and more painful the truth became.  It would have been so easy, being with him, like breathing or blinking.  It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be held by him, like that was where I was supposed to be.  But it wasn’t.  That space was already reserved for someone else.

“There isn’t a two of you, huh?” Grams asked from somewhere nearby, an amused edge to her voice. 

Really, she just didn’t know when to leave well enough alone, did she? 

“Don’t, Ember,” Nathan whispered in my ear when I started to ask her just that.  “It doesn’t matter, not anymore.  Just let it go.”

I fumed silently but obeyed him without even thinking about it.  He must have used his weird vampy compulsion thing on me again.  I wasn’t really known for being obedient, after all.  I was just too independent to abide someone else, even my parents, telling me what to do.  But I did what Nathan said without even asking myself why I should. 

The pressure finally receded, and I was left weak and drained.  If it hadn’t been for the strong arms around me, my mutinous body never would have supported me.  Had I been asked to describe the feeling, I would have equated it to the exhaustion I felt after stupidly allowing Kim to talk me into running a local marathon with her.  I was as exhausted as I had been then.  That was okay, though.  Nathan was holding me and I felt safe and…kind of loved. 

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

The instant I sagged against him, Nathan guided me back to my chair and put the entire width of the kitchen between us in a hurry.  For one second I’d had something wonderful, then it was gone as if it had never been.  Let me tell you, that is utterly soul-crushing.  I flinched involuntarily, and I saw a flash of sadness in Nathan’s eyes before they became as hard and cold as ice as he turned to face Grams.

“Tell her what she needs to know, Shea,” he bit out frostily, glaring at her.

“My, my, my,” Grams crooned mockingly.  “Someone’s a bit out of sorts aren’t they?  Gotten under that thick skin of yours, has she, Nate?”

“Let it be, damn it!”

Nathan’s furious roar was loud enough to shake the walls around us.  Grams had finally managed to push him past his breaking point.  To her credit, Grams didn’t look all that impressed.  Smug?  Yes.  Impressed?  Not even close.  I personally believed she had gone too far and it would probably be in her best interest to shut up.

If the tension in the room got any thicker, we were all going to choke to death on it.  I didn’t dare look at Nathan, and looking at Grams wasn’t doing wonders for
my
temper, either.  Therefore, I dropped my gaze to my hands and began to nervously pick at a chipped nail, a habit I honestly believed I had outgrown years before.  I didn’t even lift my eyes when Grams knelt in front of me and placed her hands over mine to keep me from destroying the rest of my nails.

“Ember, I know this is a lot to take in, honey,” she began softly.  “I wish I could make this easier on you, and if I could have spent more time with you as a child I might have, but I can’t. “

“Are we…witches?” I whispered, staring at her hand where it lay over mine.  “Tell me, Grams.”

“Yes, sweetheart, we are,” she said, brushing my curls away.

Even though Nathan—and even my probably-dead hero, Tyler—had told me that very thing more than once, it was only then that I believed it might be true.  I don’t know if it was the way I had felt before, when I’d thought I was going to shatter into a million tiny fragments, or if it was just because it was Grams telling me, but I suddenly thought maybe it might be true.

Oh. Frigging. Great.

“I should have tried harder with your mother when you were younger,” Grams said when I raised my eyes to her face.  She didn’t even look away when she saw the anger starting to brew beneath the surface of my calm expression.  “Camille is a practical person.  To her, we are another disease to be diagnosed and understood.  When I called her that summer and told her you had already started to exhibit phenomenal power, she just couldn’t take it.  I had hoped, given time…”

I could have told her that was a vain hope and she should have known better.  Was it possible that Grams had never understood Mom any more than Mom had ever understood me?    Mom was incapable of changing her mind.  Once she decided something, that was it.  It was the one thing we had in common.  Dad affectionately referred to us as his pit bulls.  Once we sank our teeth into a decision, there was no shaking us off.

I remembered that long ago summer, the way my mother had screamed hysterically that Grams couldn’t have me.  She’d said that I wasn’t like Grams, that I was just a normal little girl with a normal imagination and that Grams was just trying to make me like her because she was sick and twisted and wanted a prodigy. 

Mom had always known the truth, and she had never said a word.

“I don’t understand,” I said aloud.  “If we’re…witches…”  Was it truly ridiculous that I still couldn’t say that out loud without stumbling over it?   “Doesn’t that mean Mom is, too?”

“No,” Grams said, grimacing.  “It’s rare for the child of a bandraoi to not have any powers whatsoever, but it does happen.  Your mother is one of those cases.

“Your mother grew up surrounded by a world she could never be a part of.”  Her voice had dropped to almost a whisper, and I saw tears form in her eyes before she rose swiftly and walked to the window overlooking her garden to hide them from me.  “She was never accepted by the others.  They didn’t trust her and she learned very quickly to reciprocate in kind.  I believe that is why she became so obsessed with making everyone
normal
.  If everyone is normal, then she doesn’t have to feel like the outsider anymore.”

Poor Mom,
I thought, sadly. 

I had figured out at a very young age that I wasn’t like everyone else, just as she must have, so it really wasn’t hard for me to understand what that must have been like for her.  The difference between Mom and I was that I had accepted my differences and learned to work around them.  Mom had started a crusade to rid the world of those she viewed as different, to mold and shape them into little Ice Queen Clones.  I guess we all deal with the stuff in our lives in our own way, but I still felt sorry for her.