Ungifted (26 page)

I finally started to put the pieces together and couldn’t stop my frown. “So you realized I was different and decided it would be to your advantage to turn me instead of kill me. You want to use me, too.” It always came back to my father. “Except you couldn’t turn me, which means I’m still a threat to you, so why haven’t you killed me yet? Why not do it right now?”

Andrew’s mood shifted instantly. His eyes softened, and his frown melted into a small smile. “Do you really not know?” he whispered. He brushed my hair away from my face and sighed. “I could never hurt you now. You have captured my heart the way no other creature has done before. I love you, Grace.”

His proclamation blew my mind. “How could you?” I asked incredulously. “How could you possibly love me? You don’t even know me!”

Andrew wasn’t bothered by my emotional outburst this time. He smiled as if he found it endearing. “It’s different for vampires. We are not ruled by emotion as humans are, but rather by our needs and desires. For us, to love is to want something so desperately our desire consumes us.”

That was a terrifying thought. I tried not to show my disgust, but I couldn’t help the way I shuddered.

Andrew sighed and picked up my hand. “You have no idea how you make me feel. I have been undead for over six hundred years. I sometimes forget that I once started out like you.”

“Like me?” I asked. I grabbed my fork and began eating again as an excuse to pull my hand away from him.

“Human,” Andrew explained. “When we touch, I feel things I haven’t felt in centuries. I feel your humanity. It is truly intoxicating. With a connection like ours, Grace, I know I could never be with anyone else.”

“Andrew, there’s something different about me. I don’t know what, but it’s not just you. You couldn’t turn me. Caleb couldn’t turn me. Magic doesn’t work on me. What you felt wasn’t some special connection we share. We’re not soul mates, or whatever you think.”

Andrew gave me a patronizing smile. “We do not need to be soul mates for me to love you.”

“But you can’t lo—”

“Before that night I’d never desired to claim a mate. I didn’t understand the connection I felt to you. I had to make sure of my feelings before I turned you, so I watched you. I saw how miserable you are, and how you long for someone to love you the way you deserve.” His voice turned hard again. “I saw how your nephilim tormented you and how the wolves looked at you hungrily. I saw how your father dismissed you. I knew I could give you a better life. I became desperate to make you happy. You were so innocent and pure. I found you irresistible.”

I couldn’t believe it, but I was actually blushing. Not that I wanted to encourage him, but nobody had ever called me
irresistibl
e before. I turned my face away, trying to hide the red in my cheeks with my hair, but Andrew had already noticed my blush. He pulled my face back up and said, “You
are
irresistible, love.”

His hand slid from where he gripped my chin up to my cheek. He left it there so long that he shivered. Then he began lowering his face to mine.

I scrambled back, letting out a tiny shriek of fear. I startled Andrew so badly that he nearly fell off the lounger. When he realized what had happened, his face grew dark. “You should be mine right now!” he snapped. “Why didn’t you turn?”

His temper came out of nowhere. He pulled my face close to his and stared into my eyes. He looked as if he could get violent at any moment. It scared me stupid, so I could hardly speak. “P-please s-s-stop touching me.”

“How are you resistant to my charms?” he demanded.

For the first time that evening I fully comprehended that I wasn’t talking to a regular seventeen-year-old boy, but a vicious monster that had once ordered my death. The last of my control broke, and I started to sob. “I don’t know!” I cried. “I wish I weren’t. Then I wouldn’t understand what’s happening right now. I hate being so scared.”

Andrew’s anger vanished. He scooped me into his lap, pulled me against his chest, and wrapped his arms around me. “Grace, my love, forgive me. Of course it’s not your fault. I’m not angry with you. I’m only frustrated. I can’t stand how you fear me. I want you so much, but whatever this devilry inside you is, it has made you detest me.”

I must have crossed the border into Crazytown, because even though he was completely psychotic his words offended me. “I’m not evil,” I whimpered.

Andrew’s grip on me tightened. “Of course not, love,” he murmured as he stroked my hair. “Of course not. Forgive me. I didn’t mean that.”

For some sick reason, I found his embrace comforting and let myself sob into his chest. He felt my body relax against him and held me even more fiercely. After a minute he pulled my face out of his chest. He kissed my swollen eyelids as he attempted to dry the tears off of my cheeks. More took their place.

“Oh, Grace.” Andrew sighed. “We’ll find a way to fix this. There must be a way to make it right.”

He kissed my temple and trailed more kisses down the side of my face.

I was so exhausted physically, emotionally, and mentally that I couldn’t fight him. I just wanted it to end. I wanted to be home, safe in my bed where I could sleep for the next billion years.

Ethan
, I thought weakly.

Andrew’s kisses became firmer and longer as he kissed me under my jaw and found the pulse in my neck. “I will make you love me,” he murmured and then his hands became restraints on my arms. “Forgive me for this, love.”

I tried to escape him, but his fangs sank deep into my skin and a burning hot pain seared through me. I shattered the night with a piercing scream.

Andrew pulled back immediately. “I’m sorry!” he promised over and over again in whispered tones. “I didn’t know! Love, I had to try. I’m so sorry. It will never happen again. I swear to you!”

His assurances did nothing to soothe me. My entire neck felt as if it were on fire. Andrew shook me in an attempt to get my attention, but when my eyes came into focus all I could see was his lips—stained the bright crimson of my blood.

I began screaming again and thrashed so hard I nearly fell off the chair. Andrew held me down and kept trying to calm me, but there was no bringing me back from my panic. I fought him as hard as I could until suddenly he was lifted off of me. The last thing I remember was a beautiful face backed by a pair of glorious white wings.

I woke up to the sound
of a beep and realized Ethan was struggling with the security code on my front door while cradling me in his arms. “Ethan?”

“Just rest, Grace.”

I did, and the next time I woke up it was to a stinging sensation in my neck. At first I thought it was Andrew again, but it was Ethan who responded when I started screaming. “Grace! Grace, it’s just me! I’m only cleaning you up!”

I was lying in bed, in my own room, and I noticed the peroxide and cotton balls in Ethan’s hands. I stopped fighting him and just lay there, silently letting the tears flow down my cheeks.

“Would you like to tell me what happened?” Ethan grumbled.

He sounded both annoyed and angry, yet as he worked at cleaning my neck I could have melted beneath his delicate touch. He huffed when I didn’t answer him. “You didn’t call for help.”

“I…I…” It was hard to remember exactly what happened. My brain was a little hazy. Trying its best to forget, I’m sure. “I didn’t…Everything happened so fast.”

Ethan pressed two small Band-Aids to my neck and then sat me up. He placed his hands on either of my arms and glared at me. “It couldn’t have happened
that
fast. The leftovers from your private candlelight dinner were sitting right there! What were you doing out there alone with him, Grace? How could you be so stupid?”

The rest of the night came flooding back to me, and I hated Ethan for the look on his face. He was disgusted with me. Appalled by my weakness and stupidity.

“It wasn’t my fault!” I screamed. “They did something to my father! They planned to separate us from the very beginning! Andrew’s parents dragged my dad off and left me there with him!”

I couldn’t keep up my anger and became every bit as distraught as I’d been at Andrew’s house. “He just left me!” I sobbed. “He sent me off with that creep! He
made
me go with Andrew! He doesn’t care about me at all!”

Ethan sighed. “Grace, that’s not true. Your father didn’t let you go on purpose. Vampires have a way of hypnotizing humans. It wasn’t your father’s fault.”

“It
was
his fault! I didn’t want to go! I wanted to bring you with me. I told him Andrew was a creep. Andrew’s the reason he hired you. He knew Andrew was the one who’d scared me before. He knew how uncomfortable Andrew made me. I begged him and he made me go anyway. No vampire charm did that.”

Ethan’s eyes fell to his lap. He couldn’t argue with my logic. Vampires may have snowed my father tonight, but he wasn’t completely blameless. “Everything’s always about his career! He’s my father, and he doesn’t love me!”

Ethan sighed again and pushed me back. “You’ve been though a lot tonight, and you’re exhausted,” he said. “You need to get some sleep.”

I about had a heart attack when Ethan stood up. “No!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “Don’t go! What if he comes back? Please don’t leave me here alone!”

I yanked Ethan down so hard he fell to the bed beside me. I didn’t care how pathetic it was or how much he hated me. I climbed into his arms and buried myself against him.

“Um, Grace?”

Ethan sounded so uncomfortable. I could feel him squirming beneath me, but I couldn’t let go. I needed him. Right then I needed him more desperately than I’d ever needed anything in my entire life, so I clung to him and cried. Eventually he gave up and put his arms around me.

. . . . .

I woke up to the sound of Cynthia’s gasps. “Grace?
Ethan?
”

The sun was shining through my curtains and I was still lying tightly in Ethan’s embrace. Apparently we’d been there all night and overslept. I knew I should feel embarrassed, knew I probably would eventually, but I didn’t let go of him. Ethan felt so good against me—so warm and safe.

Ethan sat up, and when I held on tightly he had to juggle me around until I was situated in his lap. He held me awkwardly, but, to my relief, didn’t push me off of him. “I think she may have finally lost it,” he said to Cynthia. “Last night was too much for her.”

“What happened?”

“Andrew tried to feed from her.”

“
He what?
” Cynthia cried. “But his charms don’t work on her! The monster! How
could
he?” Cynthia flew to the bed and pulled me from Ethan’s arms. “Oh, Gracie,” she crooned. “Hang in there. Don’t go anywhere, ’kay? Not now. Be brave.” She peeled the tear-crusted hair off my face. “They’ll kill him for this, Grace. Preston and Caleb won’t let him get away with it. We’ll make you safe. Just stay with me!”

“He wasn’t trying to hurt me,” I mumbled.

“What?”

I remembered everything Andrew told me the night before. He’d said feeding was pleasurable for humans, and I’d been so upset. I remembered the words he had whispered right before he had bitten me. “He didn’t mean to—he wasn’t sure—and I was so scared. I think he was trying to make me feel better.”

“Grace! How can you defend him?”

I knew it wasn’t rational, but I couldn’t forget the look of absolute horror in his eyes when I’d screamed. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He had thought feeding would make me feel better—make me love him. He was wrong, but he didn’t deserve to die for it.

“He was only doing what vampires do,” I whispered. “He—he says he loves me. He didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“Yup,” Ethan said. “She’s definitely lost it.”

“Grace, listen to me.” Cynthia shook me by the shoulders. “Andrew De La Cote doesn’t love you. He can’t.”

She was wrong about that. “Yes, he does,” I argued. It’s not that I wanted him to, or liked that he did. I just couldn’t deny the fact that it was true. “Vampires don’t love the same way we do, he told me that. But they do love, and he loves me. I saw it in his eyes. I heard it in his voice.”

“Vampires don’t love, Grace,” Ethan said. “They obsess. It’s dangerous. If Andrew becomes fixated on you, he’ll never stop. It’s a permanent thing for them. He’ll stalk you for the rest of your life.”