Ungifted (53 page)

Andrew blinked slowly and tried to smile. “Love…you…”

I saw the life leave him and knew he was dead, but I couldn’t let go of his hand. I’d killed someone. Andrew’s blood was on my hands, and I don’t just mean literally. Sure, it was self-defense, and I knew I would tell myself that every day for the rest of my life, but it was murder all the same. And all because he’d fallen in love with me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

Clara sat up and groaned softly as she grabbed her head. It took a moment for her confusion to pass, but then she remembered what was going on. She gasped when she saw Andrew, but she didn’t throw herself on him like I was expecting. Instead, she crawled over to me. “Grace? Are you okay? I’m so sorry!”

With Andrew dead, Clara’s bond to him was broken and she could finally see past her blind devotion. As she thought back on everything she’d done under Andrew’s control, she finally broke down. She leaned over me and sobbed so hard that I felt the need to comfort her.

I didn’t get the chance to because Ethan and Russ came busting into the room, screaming my name. They crashed through the door looking half-crazed themselves, both covered in blood, weapons in each hand. They skidded to a halt at the sight before them. Their eyes darted back and forth between Andrew, Clara, and me until I couldn’t take it anymore and burst into sobs.

They both rushed to me and I fell into Ethan’s arms.

Russ grabbed Clara and before he could hurt her, I screamed, “No!”

Both Ethan and Russ looked at me as if I were nuts.

“She tried to stop him,” I said. “She tried to help me. She’s not under his influence anymore. Please, leave her alone.”

Russ grunted and threw her aside. “Is she okay?” he demanded.

Ethan looked me over and nodded. “It’s not her blood,” he said. “She’s in shock and she’s freezing, but otherwise she seems intact.”

Russ grabbed the remains of my dress and draped the material around my shoulders, helping to pull it around the front of me. Then he tilted my face up and grinned brightly. “I think I’m going to have to start calling you Buffy the Vampire Slayer from now on.”

The guys made me dye my
hair and Russ used magic to make me a fake passport to get me back into the States. When I asked why that was necessary, Ethan told me I didn’t want to know. His face was grim enough that I didn’t ask.

I found out when we hit U.S. customs. Even with red hair and a passport saying I was “Jennifer McDonald of Cleveland, Ohio,” the guy still nearly flagged me as the missing daughter of President Elect St. Claire. I’d been so preoccupied with being kidnapped and almost murdered that I hadn’t even thought about what my disappearance would have meant to the whole country.

Suddenly, I wasn’t in much of a hurry to get home. After dropping Clara off at her house—she’d insisted she could deal with her mother on her own, though I’d offered to go with her to help explain—Ethan, Russ, and I stopped for dinner at the Chinese restaurant down the street from my house.

“So,” I finally asked after I had some hot wonton soup in front of me, “how bad is it? Do you guys even know?”

“It could be worse,” Russ promised. But all that meant was that things were pretty ugly.

“We took care of Preston before we came looking for you,” Ethan said.

“Took care of him?” My voice cracked.

“We moved his body and cleaned up the backyard. We knew things would be worse if we left him and your dad came home and found him.”

“W-what do people think happened?”

Russ threw his arm around me when I started to cry. They both gave me a second to compose myself and then Ethan explained. “We couldn’t tell his family what happened. That would have started a war between the D.C. pack and every vampire in this city. It probably would have escalated to something much worse. We took him out to a national park in West Virginia and left him where he’d be easily found. Police declared it an animal attack.”

“That’s what it was,” I whispered. I shuddered and felt Russ squeeze me again. I leaned into him gratefully. “What does the pack believe?”

“They don’t know what to think, though Caleb and Cynthia most likely suspect the truth because of your disappearance.”

“They must be devastated.”

“Any worse than you are, Grace?” Russ asked. “What exactly happened, anyway?”

Once again I got too emotional to speak. After a minute, the best I could manage was, “I can’t talk about it.”

That seemed to translate into “I can’t talk at all.”

We were all quiet for the next twenty minutes while I slowly sipped my soup. My stomach churned and I wasn’t hungry, but I’d had so little to eat over the last couple of weeks that I forced it down anyway and prayed it stayed there.

Eventually, I gave up on my soup and leaned back to find Ethan watching me with the strangest expression. He was obviously very upset about something, but he wasn’t angry. It was more like he was sad.

“I hope you’re not blaming yourself for not being there,” I said to him.

“No,” he said quietly.

I had to ask him to elaborate. “Then what is it?”

It took him so long to reply that I wasn’t sure he even would. “I want you to accept our bond, Grace.”

I hadn’t seen this coming. None of us had brought up the subject since the day Ethan swore his oath to me. It was way too awkward and something I didn’t want to think about. Ever again.

“Oh.”

Ethan knew I was afraid—anybody could have seen that—and my fear made his face drop even more.

“Please?”

“Um.” I gulped. “I don’t know, Ethan. I don’t know what that will do to us. The way your dad talked about it…I don’t need you to give yourself to me.” I felt myself starting to blush and it was suddenly the perfect time to stir my soup. “I don’t want to take away your freedom any more than I already have.”

“But that’s just it. You won’t be taking anything from me. I
choose
this. I know I don’t deserve it, but I finally understand. I want to make up for my mistakes. I’m a warrior. It’s in my blood. I can feel it. I can feel
you
.”

My soup needed stirring again.

Ethan reached across the table suddenly and pulled my hand into his. “Grace,” he said softly, “when you were gone, and I couldn’t find you…”

His voice trailed off and his hand trembled in mine. The depth of whatever he was feeling right then took the wind from my lungs.

“It was bad,” Russ muttered.

It must have been a lot worse than bad if even Russ Devereaux couldn’t joke about it.

Ethan took a deep breath, then covered our hands with his other one. “I want this. I want to stop hating myself. I want to make my father proud. I want to make
you
proud. I want—accept my oath, Grace. Accept
me
. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. My eyes filled with tears and I sniffled as I took my hand out of his. “I can’t. But you can still protect me without swearing an oath. You already have. You found me, Ethan. You saved me and you brought me home. I
am
proud of you. Andrew’s dead now. It’s not necessary for you to swear an oath to me.”

Ethan slumped back in his seat. He was taking this rejection a lot harder than I’d expected. “I’ve already failed you,” he muttered.

“No!” I said, startled. “It’s not that! I don’t care about anything from before. I understand why you felt that way about me. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.”

“I’m bonded to you, Grace!” Ethan pleaded desperately. “You heard my dad. You
are
what’s best for me. I don’t hate you anymore—not at all—and I’m tired of denying it.”

That scared me. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that, but after the way he’d been acting toward me since swearing his oath, I couldn’t help wondering if there was more to his intentions than just protecting me.

My thoughts automatically drifted back to our conversation with Michael about the way angels love. Ethan was more angel than anything else. Did he already possess some angelic traits, even without me accepting the bond? Probably. He was already surpassing his clan members in skill and he hadn’t even begun his real training yet. Did he love like an angel already?

I couldn’t stop my brain from wandering to his mother—the way she was about Ethan and Michael—even Russ and me. She loved so freely and unconditionally that she was practically a slave to it. Would Ethan be like that? Was he a little bit already?

It was torture. He looked as desperate as Andrew had when he’d begged me to love him. The familiarity in the moment brought on a bunch of unwanted memories.

Ethan was holding his breath for my answer. I shook my head and watched his face pale.

“Andrew kept asking me to accept him, too,” I said. “I know this isn’t the same, but it kind of is. Another person wanting something from me that I don’t want to give.”

Ethan went so pale that Russ had to speak on his behalf. “Ethan isn’t Andrew, Grace. And he’s not asking you to love him.”

I knew that, but still. I shook my head again and more tears fell down my cheeks. “I felt so trapped when I was with Andrew, and terrified of the future,” I tried to explain to Ethan. “I don’t want to feel that way again. I
can’t
. I’m sorry, but I don’t like you.”

Ethan jerked back as if I’d punched him, so I quickly said, “I mean, not in
that way
. I don’t want to end up like your mother. I want a choice in the person I love. Don’t you?”

“Grace, I really don’t think it will be like that,” Ethan insisted. “I don’t see how it could change things between us that much. Maybe we’ll finally be able to be friends the way we should have been all along, but we won’t just fall in love like we’re under a spell. We’ll still have our freedom. We’ll still be us. We’ll just understand each other better. We’ll be able to help each other instead of constantly hurting each other like we do now. Don’t
you
want
that
?”

I did want that. A little bit, at least. I wanted to really be able to forgive Ethan, and I wanted things to stop being so awkward between us. “I’ll think about it, okay?” Ethan nodded, but he looked crushed.

I felt a new wave of tears hit me. “Maybe someday I’ll be ready for that commitment, but right now I’ve been through too much,” I said. “I can’t handle anything else yet.”

Ethan nodded again.

“Well,” Russ said after about five of the longest, most silent minutes of my life. “Now that we’ve got one awkward conversation out of the way, shall we go tackle another? We have several goodies to choose from.”

“Like the one you need to have with your father?” Ethan asked with a sense of astonishment in his voice.

“The one I
what
?”

Ethan was staring in shock over Russ’s shoulder. I looked up just in time to see a handsome man give Ethan a very Russ-looking grin, and gasped. It was definitely Russ’s dad. The stranger smiling at us was Russ in twenty-five years, but with shorter hair and somehow less cocky-looking. But only a little.

“
Dad?
”

“Hey, Russ.”

The guy looked surprisingly nervous.

I glanced at Ethan.
I think that’s our cue.

Ethan nodded quickly and scrambled to his feet. “You ready, Grace?” he asked reaching for my crutches.

“We’ll be in the car,” I said to Russ.

I started to stand, but Russ had either forgotten to let go of my hand or he couldn’t. Either way, when he didn’t let go of me, I lost my balance and fell back into the booth, nearly spilling the bowl of cold soup I had never finished.

“Or we can stay,” Ethan mumbled, plopping back in his seat.

Russ didn’t notice either of us. He’d forgotten we were even there. He was still staring at his dad. Or, watching him, I should say. Like a hawk.

“What are you doing here?”

Russ’s dad glanced quickly at me and I recognized the look. He wasn’t noticing my resemblance to Dani, and he wasn’t recognizing me as the new president’s daughter. He was checking himself in front of the human. “I was hoping to talk to you,” he said carefully.