Ungifted (28 page)

That didn’t sound good at all. “‘Blood bond’?”

“It’s not something magic users like to enter into. The immortal puts some of their blood into a binding potion. The person who drinks it becomes bonded to the immortal for life. The binding creates an unbreakable devotion that goes beyond loyalty, almost like adoration.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” I asked. “Who would want to give up their free will like that?”

“Usually it only happens if the magic user is infatuated with the immortal anyway, but they do it for the power, or coven protection, and because immortal blood gives them supernaturally long life.”

“And in exchange, the immortal has very powerful magic at his disposal,” I said. I shuddered to think that Andrew could use super powerful magic whenever he wanted, for whatever purpose.

“I don’t like it either, Grace.” Cynthia sighed. “But at least magic doesn’t work on you, and you can’t be turned. Don’t worry. We’ll keep you safe.”

When we finally rejoined the conversation, Ethan, Preston, and Caleb were in a very heated discussion of what sounded like how to take out an entire coven of vampires. “No!” I said. “Absolutely not! Nobody is killing an entire coven of vampires.”

“But, Grace—” Ethan began.

“No. No way. I don’t like Andrew, but so far all he’s done is what his kind do. He even made sure he really wanted me before he tried to turn me. Then he only wanted to apologize and explain what happened and he sent me flowers. He said he wants to protect me. That’s all. You can’t kill the guy for that, and you especially can’t kill his entire family for that.”

Preston looked as unhappy as Ethan. “Grace, you don’t understand. Immortal magic would explain the attack at school. After Russ said it was witch magic, Simone went over there to check it out herself, and she could still feel the traces. She said the magic was insanely powerful.”

“Oh, that’s the other thing. Andrew admitted that he was the one who tried to kill me. He said he knew the resistance was after me even when I didn’t know about the supernatural. He said they were going to try to use me once my father was elected president. He said they were going to try to manipulate me, using my relationship with you guys or using me as leverage against my dad. He wanted to prevent that from happening, but then he met me and changed his mind.”

Everyone stood there gaping at me in stunned silence. I didn’t understand what their problem was. I know I’d freaked when Andrew admitted what he’d done, but ultimately it was good news. I was relieved.

“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “No one is trying to kill me anymore. I’m safe now. In fact, I’m even safer than I was before because I’ve been placed under the protection of Andrew’s coven. He’ll be watching out for me now, just like you guys. And, let’s face it, now that I’ve accepted everything, I’m even more of a draw to the resistance, and I’m a huge target for the council. I need all the protection I can get.”

“Grace, I know what you’re thinking, but Andrew De La Cote isn’t on your side,” Ethan said. “If he really has developed a fixation—”

“You don’t even know if he has!” I shouted. “I know he tried to kill me, but you don’t understand. Even if he does get a fixation, he won’t hurt me. He
won’t
. I seriously don’t understand how you can all stand around and condone
murder
!”

Preston sighed. “You’re too kindhearted to be supernatural, Grace. Our world works differently than yours. It’s dangerous. Sometimes you have to kill your enemies.”

I was horrified, and they all knew it.

“Sorry, Gracie.” Cynthia tried to comfort me.

“No! Even if that is how it works in your world, we’re not to that point yet. I haven’t even talked to him.”

“It won’t matter,” Ethan said.

“Look.” I tried to rub the tension out of my head. “I’ll go over there and talk to him. I’ll lay everything on the table and then tell him that if he doesn’t leave me alone, I’ll have to get the authorities involved. The
supernatural
authorities,” I amended when Ethan started to argue.

“No, Grace. You can’t get the council involved. They can’t know about you. If Andrew bothers you again, then I’ll kill him. End of story.”

“Fine!” I screamed in frustration. “You threaten him however you feel compelled. But you have to give him the chance to do the right thing first. You can’t just go slaughtering a bunch of people because one guy is kind of a creep.” I took a breath and then steeled my gaze. “Take me to Andrew’s house,” I demanded.

Ethan crossed his arms over his chest defiantly and stared me down with a scowl on his face. There was no way he was going to give in.

“Take me there now, Ethan, or I’ll wait until my father’s home and invite Andrew over for dinner or something. I’m pretty sure Dad won’t object, and you won’t be there to stop me.”

Ethan spouted every curse word in the book but opened his car door for me. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’m trying to keep
anyone
from getting killed.”

“If he even looks at you funny, I will kill him. I will kill them all.”

Ethan looked so determined that some of his glory started to shine around him. I had no doubt his threat was real.

“He won’t,” I promised.

“Okay, everybody settle down,” Caleb said quickly. He threw an arm over my shoulder. “Why don’t we all discuss this seriously before anyone goes barging into a vampire lair?”

“Yeah, Grace,” Cynthia added, shuddering. “Be reasonable.”

“At least tell us what happened with Andrew that makes you think he might have a fixation,” Preston added.

I sighed and sat down in the passenger seat of Ethan’s car. I let my sore leg stretch out of the door in front of me. Everyone gathered around me as though I were about to tell a good story around the campfire.

“So what happened?” Preston asked after I’d hesitated long enough.

I grimaced and pulled the scarf off my neck. Aside from the puncture wounds left by Andrew’s fangs, half of my neck was bruised a deep, dark purple. “Andrew bit me.”

I didn’t realize how strong a reaction I would get from Preston and Caleb, or I would have explained first. As it was, they saw my neck and almost went ballistic. Cynthia had to grab on to them both and order them to calm down, or they would have shifted into their wolf forms right there in the parking lot.

I quickly assured them that I was okay and started from the beginning with my dad’s campaign and how Andrew’s father got involved. Once I’d finished, there was a long, tense silence.

Eventually Caleb broke it. “And you won’t let us kill him?” he asked incredulously. “Sorry, Gracie, but the guy’s not getting away with this.”

“He’s not a threat.”

“The hell he’s not!”

“I wish I’d have known all this last night,” Preston interrupted in an impressively calm manner. “I could have brought it up at the pack meeting.”

Cynthia saw me frown and elaborated. “The meeting of our pack’s leaders. Not the Boy Scouts,” she said, snickering. “Preston turned eighteen yesterday, so he gets to sit at the grown-up table now.”

“Happy birthday,” I said automatically.

Preston lost focus for a minute and gave me a smile. “Thanks. I didn’t really get to celebrate it, but it’s good to finally be treated like an adult.”

“That’s a bummer,” I said. “Eighteen’s kind of big. You should celebrate it. I don’t have anything to do tonight, so if you want, I’ll take you to dinner. I know that’s not much of a party, but I’m sure we could find a tacky restaurant where the staff sings to you over a sparkling volcano of chocolate.”

Preston had already started to move on with the conversation, but my answer stopped him short. In fact, it stopped everyone. Even me. I’m not sure where that came from. I’m never so brave.

“Or not. Sorry.” Everyone was staring at me in so much shock that I wished the floor would just open up and swallow me. “I didn’t really mean anything by it. I was just saying it’s your birthday…Never mind.”

“No!” Preston said quickly.

“Okay.” Ouch. Remind me never to do anything like that again.

“No, I mean
yes
! I was just really surprised by the offer. But yes, that sounds great. I’d love to go to dinner with you tonight, Grace. Thank you.”

And now I was blushing again. “Okay.”

Everyone stared at me with surprised and curious expressions—except for Caleb. He looked more like he was pouting.

“What?” I shrugged defensively, hoping my angry expression would deter everyone from how embarrassed I was. “I get lonely when my dad’s out of town and I don’t exactly want to spend the nights home alone right now. Andrew knows my dad’s gone until Thursday. He won’t hurt me, but that doesn’t mean I want him showing up at my house while I’m by myself.”

“My pack really needs to know about this.”

“How much does your pack know already?” Ethan asked. “Do they know about Grace?”

“We couldn’t exactly keep Caleb’s biting her a secret, so they pretty much know everything there. They also know all about the Supreme High Councilor and the Chosen One. One of the guardians came, like Duncan said, and told us the whole story.

“What they don’t know is that there might be a connection between the Chosen One and Grace. The guardian who came didn’t know about Grace, and I didn’t volunteer up the fact that she and the Chosen One apparently look enough alike for the girl’s own boyfriend to make out with the wrong person.”

He’d said this last bit very dryly, and Caleb frowned again. Preston gauged my reaction, which no doubt involved a lot of blushing, and then added, “I didn’t mention Grace’s infatuation with Russ Devereaux, either.”

I about died.

“So does the pack know about Russ, then?” Ethan asked. Whether because he refused to let the conversation wander, or was being nice and trying to spare me any further humiliation, I wasn’t sure. Probably the first one.

“Not everything. Apparently Clara passed his message on to her mom, and the higher-ups in the resistance got together to discuss him. He wasn’t lying about almost being killed last week. He should be dead right now. Simone said no magic on Earth should have been able to heal a wound like his.

“Russ also wasn’t lying about being innocent. Simone said his father’s been using him as a pawn his whole life, and Russ doesn’t have a clue what he’s really capable of. She said that if he’s here without his father it’s because something went very, very wrong between them and that the resistance should use that to their advantage. She said we need him. So that’s when I told the pack about meeting him and Duncan.”

Caleb hooted with laughter. “Oh man, I wish I could have been there to see that! Did they freak or what?”

Preston smirked. “I thought they were all going to piss themselves when I told them Duncan offered Russ a position in the guardians, and then made me vow to protect him when he refused to return to the consulate.”

“Do they know about Jackson?” Cynthia asked quietly.

Preston sobered immediately. “No. They have no idea. I stayed far away from that subject. All I did was try to fill in the pieces of the story that Duncan and Russ were talking about. From what we can understand after hearing the guardian’s story, Russ and the Chosen One—”

“Dani,” I interjected. “Russ calls her Dani.”

“Okay,” Preston said. “Russ and Dani were raised in some tiny town with no other supernaturals except Alexander Devereaux. Russ and Dani were inseparable. Devereaux manipulated their feelings for one another in order to secure their loyalty to him. He also never told either of them that Dani was a supernatural. She was raised human, and because he didn’t want Russ to know the truth, he held back on Russ’s training. He purposefully told Russ the bare minimum about the supernatural world. He had some crazy scheme that no one ever really figured out—just that it involved Russ, Dani, and the Angel of Death. The guy’s hard core crazy, and Russ never had a clue.

“So when the council took Dani, who was basically the love of Russ’s entire life, it messed up Devereaux’s big plan and everything hit the fan. Russ was betrayed by his father, and watched his girlfriend get tortured and brainwashed so badly that she turned her allegiance to the people who kidnapped her. She even fell in love with the guy she was forced to marry.”

“Damn,” Caleb muttered.

“No kidding,” Cynthia agreed.

Even Ethan said, “Poor bastard.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. There were no words to express what I felt right then.

Preston gave us a minute to let it all sink in and then said, “Russ Devereaux has no family, no friends, no home, and blames all his problems on the council. He’s vulnerable, desperate, extremely powerful, and knows more about the Chosen One and the Seer than probably anyone else on the planet. The resistance is chomping at the bit to recruit him.”

“Never gonna happen,” Ethan said. When Preston frowned, Ethan shook his head. “You were there. The guy’s got major trust issues.”

“Rightly deserved trust issues,” Cynthia grumbled.

“That makes it even worse,” Ethan told her. “I can’t blame him, either. If I were him, there’s no way I’d ever join either side. He’s a loose cannon. In fact, I don’t understand why Duncan Moore would trust him so implicitly after all that. Russ’s obviously got a huge chip on his shoulder and doesn’t show any kind of loyalty to anyone.”