Tegan's Power (The Ultimate Power Series #4) (17 page)

I want to say so many
things to her in this moment, but my mouth won’t work. Emotion catches in my
throat. Seeing someone you consider one of your closest friends look at you
like they don’t even know you will do that.

“Rita,” I whisper.

Her name seems to be
the only word I can think to say in this moment.

“Who is she?” one woman
shouts.

“What’s wrong with her
hand?” another wails in fear.

“Rita,” I whisper again,
but saying her name doesn’t seem to elicit any response in her.

Suddenly, Theodore is
marching to us and pulling Rita away from me as though to protect her. I feel
like laughing and crying all at the same time.

“Don’t hurt my
daughter, you abomination!” he shouts loud enough for everyone to hear.

The word ‘abomination’
seems to create a frenzy among the crowd as there are shouts of agreement that
yes, this girl standing before them is an abomination and needs to be done away
with.

I feel a sharp pain
shoot through my scalp when a woman grabs my hair from behind and pulls down
hard. Another woman smacks me across the face and I let go of the sparks for a
moment to clutch my cheek in surprise.

The noise of a gun
firing rings out and then I hear Finn shouting, “Get away from her, all of you,
or I’ll shoot.”

Some people move, but
others continue to attack me and man does it hurt. I regain my composure long
enough to summon my sparks back to me and I throw them haphazardly at my
attackers. Finn is still too far away to be of much assistance, but then
seconds later the attack stops and all I can hear is an angry hiss. I look up
to see Ethan standing before me, facing my attackers. His fangs are out and his
silvery eyes are murderous.

“It’s a vampire!”
somebody screams in terror. “A vampire in daylight!”

Complete and total
chaos follows as a stampede forms, the crowd now desperate to get away from
Ethan. I can’t decide if this one guy is being courageous or just plain stupid as
he jumps on Ethan with a stake. Ethan swats him away like he’s nothing but a
particularly irritating fly. The man hits the ground hard and then scurries off,
realising the error of his ways.

Then, from somewhere
close by I see a white light. I pull myself to my feet and stand to see that
the light is emanating from Allora, and the people who haven’t yet fled are
strangely beginning to calm down. Finn stares at her with a look of amazement
that seems to mirror my own. Is she doing this? Is she calming them?

My attention is only
drawn away from her when I hear Ethan hissing again, but this time his anger is
directed at me. He pulls me into his arms and glares down at me.

“Coming here without
informing me was a very bad idea, Tegan. If I hadn’t found you in time you
could have been beaten to death by those humans,” he seethes and his silver
eyes go dark.

“I know. I wanted to
see Rita,” I tell him in a chocked voice, tears forming in the back of my
throat.

“The witch is not worth
risking your life for,” he replies, his tone softening.

“She’s risked plenty
for me before all this happened. I know I can get her back, I just know it.”

Ethan’s hard expression
falters and sympathy fills his features. I don’t want to see that. It’s worse
than the anger.

“Don’t ever do anything
like this again,” he says. “If you want to go somewhere dangerous I’m not going
to stop you, but at least let me come with you. I can’t lose you.”

His heartfelt words
give me pause and I wrap my arms around his waist, pulling his rock hard body
into mine. I kiss his collarbone, which is basically the highest part I can
reach on his tall frame without him bending down to me.

“Jesus, that was a
close call,” says Finn coming up to us holding Allora’s hand. Ira is on the
other side of him and I look around to find that Theodore, Rita, and everyone
else has fled the scene.

“The humans have seen
you in daylight,” Ira says addressing Ethan. “Rumour will quickly spread that
vampires are not confined to the night and things should settle down.”

“In other words,” Finn
adds. “Even though that’s not exactly true, they’ll be too scared shitless to
leave their homes and the city will be a ghost town again.”

“That’s preferable to
what happened here today,” I interject meeting Finn’s eyes.

“Theodore knows we are
onto him now. He also knows where you live. You must all come and stay in my
house until we know it’s safe,” says Ethan and his words surprise me.

To be honest, I didn’t
think he gave much of a crap about my group of friends up until this moment.

“I hate to admit it,
but you’re right,” Finn agrees with a dismayed expression. “And I’d only just
gotten back into my own bed and everything.” He pauses and eyes Ethan. “Is
there room in your place for all of us?”

Now I’m surprised that
Finn is going along with this and not putting up a fight. Perhaps we’re all
maturing.

Ethan nods. “There is
plenty. Go pack up your things and gather the others. You’ll need to act fast
before Theodore decides to pay you a visit. I’m sure he knows where I live,
too, but he’s scared of me. He won’t dare come to my house.”

Finn quietly agrees and
begins leading Allora and Ira back to wherever he parked his van. Silently,
Ethan lifts me up onto his back and only minutes later we’re outside his place.

“I’m still mad at you,”
he says as he opens the door and gestures for me to go inside.

The way he says it
makes something erotic stir deep in my belly and I decide to goad him.

“Be mad all you want.
You’re not the boss of me,” I say and then saunter into the kitchen to make
something to eat. I left so early this morning that I didn’t have the chance for
breakfast. My stomach is rumbling for food.

Opening his fridge I find
the ingredients for a Spanish omelette and proceed to throw them all together
in a pan. While I’m doing this Ethan watches me. I haven’t glanced at him once,
but I can feel his eyes and from that feeling alone I know they’ve grown hot
and needy.

He might be mad, but he
still wants me.

“Your face is bruised
and I think you might have a couple of bruises elsewhere, too, given the hits
you took before I got to you,” he says a few minutes into my food preparation.

“Do you want some of
this?” I ask, ignoring his statement because I know what he’s thinking and I
can’t let it happen. I told myself I wouldn’t drink from him again, and despite
the fact I’m seriously sore all over right now, it’s nothing that a week or two
won’t heal. Still, I love drinking his blood. I love the connection and the feeling
it gives me.

Ethan seems to get the
message even though I haven’t said anything about what he’s inadvertently
trying to suggest. “Have it your way,” he says. “And yes, I would like
something to eat if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s your house, your
food,” I reply.

Once the omelette is
done I cut it in half and divide it onto two plates. Ethan eats quickly and
efficiently and I’m not even halfway done by the time he’s finished. He leaves
the room and I continue eating. When he comes back his shirt is off and the button
at the fly of his jeans is undone.

Gulp.

He walks to a cupboard,
rummages around for a minute and pulls out a new bottle of body wash.

“The one upstairs is
empty,” he says, silently referring to the ways in which we used it all up. “I’m
going to take a shower,” he continues. “Call me if you need anything.”

I need you to put some
clothes back on so that I can physically close my gaping mouth
.
Even though we’ve had quite a bit of sex in recent days, this is all very new
and I still find myself staring at his body in slack-jawed amazement sometimes.

The bastard knows it,
too.

I’m not going to give
him the satisfaction of begging him to do me right here on the kitchen counter,
so I say nothing until he leaves. Then I take in a deep breath for the
willpower not to climb right up those stairs and join him.

I hear the shower come
on and a couple of minutes later the doorbell rings. When I answer it I find
Finn, Allora, Ira, Gabriel, Alvie and Delilah crowding the doorstep.

“Delilah, welcome
home,” I say in a humorously cordial voice. “The rest of you, come into my
lair.”

Alvie lets out a yip of
laughter and is the first to walk inside. “More like your hunky vamp
boyfriend’s lair,” he replies with sass.

“And that,” I grin and
then he’s hugging me.

“I heard about what
happened with Rita today,” he says softly and I squeeze his thin body.

“Yeah, it was hard,” I
reply.

He releases me and I
lead them all into the living room, helping with bags. Delilah looks a little
disgruntled to be back, and I wonder if it’s because she doesn’t want Ethan
controlling her comings and goings like when Whitfield was in power.

I give them all a tour
of the downstairs and then Ethan decides to show his face, looking sexy just
out of the shower. He kisses me briefly on the lips and begins to guide
everyone to their rooms. There are a lot of bedrooms in this house since it’s
got three floors; one bedroom downstairs, four on the first floor and three on
the top floor, plus Ethan’s study.

I suddenly realise that
almost everyone I know in this city is now living under the same roof. Just one
big happy family – or not-so-happy as the case may be.

I go to check in with
Amanda and Rebecca, who have taken to each other like ducks to water since meeting
last night. Unlike me, Amanda knows exactly how to act around kids because she
had four younger siblings growing up. When I go inside Rebecca’s room I find
them both playing an elaborate game of Barbie dolls. I ask where all the toys
came from.

“Ethan gave me money to
take Becky toy shopping this morning,” says Amanda. “I was actually surprised
to find the shop still open given how crazy things are in the city.”

I’m momentarily touched
that Ethan did that. Perhaps this whole transformation thing has actually made
him better instead of worse. I mean, magic makes everything better, right?
Okay, maybe not, but with Ethan it seems to have worked wonders. Or perhaps he
was always wonderful and I was just too blind and stuck up to see it.

“People still have to
make a living, I guess,” I reply flopping down onto the bed.

I amuse myself by
watching them continue with their game for a while, laughing when I discover
the current storyline in which Amanda’s doll has found out that her boyfriend
has been having an affair with another doll who wears a skimpy pink outfit.
Rebecca is utterly delighted with all of it.

Their giggling makes me
smile until I get a tingly feeling in my hands. The tingling transforms into an
itch and then I can see Roman in my head.

“I need to talk to you,
Granddaughter,” he says.

Amanda and Rebecca’s
game of Barbies has become the background and Roman’s face the foreground.

“Where?” I ask in my
mind rather than saying the words out loud.

“Come to the roof.”

“You’re on the roof?”

“Yes, come. And hurry.”

I go up to the next
floor to Ethan’s room and crawl through the window. There’s a part of the roof
that juts out and it’s easy enough to climb to the top from there. However, it’s
not as easy as it would be if my body weren’t so battered and bruised from this
morning’s attack. I whine a little as I pull my body to the top to find Roman
perched there wearing an expression of amusement.

“Hey Gramps, care to
give me a hand up?” I ask reaching out with laboured breathing.

“Why, of course,” he
replies smoothly and takes my hand into his. A little zinging spark of
recognition runs through me and I instantly know it’s my magic identifying him
as kin.

Once I’m sitting beside
him, I take a moment to look at him now that we’re meeting in the flesh and not
in one of my dreams. If I thought he was handsome in a dream, it has nothing on
him in reality. His face is almost too handsome, his eyes shining like bright
blue sapphires.

We both seem to be
staring at one another, studying, because neither of us says a word for at
least two whole minutes. He touches a finger to my cheek where there’s a
bruise.

“What happened?”

“I mistakenly used
magic in front of an angry mob. They thought I was a freak of nature and
attacked me.”

His reaction to what
I’ve told him is a very slight narrowing of his eyes.

“And why would you do
that?” His tone sounds barely interested but I’m thinking that’s just his way,
being a sorcerer and all.

“They were going to
kill a man who didn’t deserve it and I was trying to stop them.”

“Ah, so you were being
a hero.”

“More like a fool.”

He grins now. “Hmmm,
that too.”