by Kelly Oram
. . . . .
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.”
I shuddered.
“It’ll be okay, though, Grace,” Cynthia promised. “My father won’t allow—”
“Not even the council would allow Andrew to continue on,” Ethan interrupted. “They’d force him to leave the continent. But he knows you’re different. You’re special. He won’t give up. He won’t stay away.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Cynthia promised.
“No.” My voice was so soft they both wondered if they’d heard me right. “Andrew doesn’t deserve to die just for loving me.”
“He’s a danger to the supernatural world because it’s you,” Ethan explained. “Usually when vampires take interest in humans they turn their prey and the problem is solved, but you can’t be turned. If Andrew truly becomes fixated, he’ll only become more and more obsessed when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
“He won’t hurt me, though. I know it. You should have seen him last night when biting me didn’t work. He hated himself. He won’t allow himself to hurt me ever again. He might harass me or beg me to forgive him, but that’s not a capital punishment. You can’t kill him for it. I can’t have that on my conscience.”
Ethan and Cynthia stepped back and watched me for a few minutes. “Does she love him?” Cynthia eventually asked Ethan. “Is it some sick abductor/victim thing?”
“I’m not crazy!”
“Probably,” Ethan said, as if I hadn’t spoken. As if I weren’t in the room. “I’m telling you, she’s cracking. She may not be gone yet, but…Well, just look at her.”
I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. I imagine I didn’t look my best, having slept in my dress and makeup, but one night of crying one’s self to sleep hardly equals insane.
“What are we going to do?” Cynthia asked. Apparently she agreed with Ethan about my mental status.
“Take her to school,” Ethan said. “Force her to keep going, try to keep things normal for a while, and, for the love of the angels, keep her away from Andrew De La Cote at all costs. We don’t want her getting more attached.”
Cynthia and Ethan were starting to piss me off. They were looking at me as if I were the crazy one while they were plotting to kill somebody just for having a crush. “I’m not attached to him,” I grumbled. “I’m just not okay with committing murder.”
“You wouldn’t have to—”
“I’m not okay with anyone committing murder, Cynthia! And I’m not going crazy, so please stop waiting for me to lose it. Stop talking about me as if I can’t hear you and don’t have feelings. I can make my own decisions.”
“I’m sorry,” Cynthia said, looking sufficiently chastised. “You just looked so…I mean, you slept with Ethan!”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and Ethan stumbled back a few steps. He wouldn’t raise his eyes any higher than the tops of his shoes.
“I didn’t…” It was hard to get the word out. “We didn’t sleep together.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Cynthia rolled her eyes. “But you know what I mean. You hate Ethan. If you were completely fine you wouldn’t have spent the night in his arms.”
“Fine?” I asked with a crazed laugh. “I didn’t say I was fine. How could I possibly be fine? I’m not fine, Cynthia! I’ll probably never be fine again. I was terrified! I was so afraid Andrew would come back. I was here alone, and Ethan was kind enough to stay with me. Maybe Ethan’s not my favorite person in the world, but can you blame me for wanting to feel safe after that? Yeah, I needed him last night, but that doesn’t make me crazy.”
Ethan cleared his throat, making me snap my mouth shut. Did I really just say I needed him? “Um, guys?” he said, still not able to look either of us in the eye. “I really need to go home. My mom’s probably freaking out and a shower and a change of clothes before school wouldn’t hurt.”
“That’s fine,” Cynthia said. “I’ll stay and give Grace a ride. We’ll see you at school. It’s daylight,” she added when Ethan looked as if he were going to argue. “He can’t come after her right now.”
“Wait,” I said. “You mean vampires really only come out at night?”
“Yeah,” Cynthia said. “That bit’s true. Sunlight really will burn them up.”
“But yesterday Duncan…?”
“He’s a really rare kind of vampire,” Ethan said. “There are maybe a handful of daywalkers in existence and Andrew’s not one of them. You’re safe when the sun’s up. From him, anyway.”
I nodded and met Ethan’s gaze. It was the first time we’d looked at one another since things got awkward. I couldn’t stand the tension so I said the first thing that came to my mind. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I can’t go anywhere. Not unless someone wants to go knock on Andrew’s door and ask for my crutches.”
Cynthia frowned. “You mean the ones right outside your bedroom door?”
“They’re here?” I gasped. “How’d he get inside the house? I thought you locked all the windows after the first time he got in.”
“I did,” Ethan said, and then shot out the door. He came back a minute later, holding a note and looking visibly relieved. “Your dad.”
I took the note and read it several times with relief. It was from my dad. He was apologizing for leaving town without saying good-bye. He said Andrew told him I’d gone home early not feeling well. He didn’t want to wake me, so he’d call me later to c
heck in.
“He’s fine,” I said. “I told myself the De La Cotes wouldn’t dare hurt a guy running for office, but still…” I shivered. “It’s good to know he’s safe.”
“See?” Cynthia said, giving me a big smile. “Everything’s going to be fine. Except maybe me if I miss all of first period.”
. . . . .
Cynthia and I made it for the last fifteen minutes of first hour, and Ethan stumbled in about ten minutes after PE started. No one seemed to care that any of us were late. The school kisses my butt pretty badly, and with Cynthia as my ride and Ethan as my bodyguard, I was pretty sure none of us would even get detention, much less a call to our parents.
We were doing a track and field unit in PE, which left me sitting on the bleachers while everyone else attempted things such as the long jump and the pole vault. (Apparently there is at least one benefit of being in a cast.) When Ethan got there, he joined Cynthia instead of his usual crowd. That was the only sign that anything was out of the ordinary.
I gimped as always with Ethan’s help to third hour, and began to think that maybe life really could go on in a somewhat normal manner. But then, halfway through government a box full of at least two dozen beautiful, long-stemmed roses arrived with my name on them. If possible, they weren’t just a normal red. They were blood red. Of course, I could have just been imagining that.
Mrs. Wilson looked impressed, Cynthia and Ethan looked worried, Caleb looked suspicious if not slightly jealous, and the rest of the class looked shocked. I’m sure I just looked grim.
“Thanks,” I muttered as the school’s secretary placed them on my desk. Then I looked up at Mrs. Wilson with a grimace. “Sorry about the interruption.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” she gushed. “I’m sure this kind of thing must be fairly normal the week of the election.”
Right. Obsessed vampire stalkers are always a standard when your father’s running for office.
“Aren’t you going to read the card?” Mrs. Wilson pressed, as if my humiliation wasn’t already bad enough.
“I know who they’re from,” I said, dropping the box on the floor next to my chair. It fell with a loud thud that startled half the class.
Mrs. Wilson frowned but quickly forced herself to smile and looked at the rest of the class. “All right, then. Everyone flip to page seventy-two.”
Awhile later after everyone had forgotten about the flowers, I couldn’t help myself and read Andrew’s letter. Letter, not card. It was a thick, expensive, soft piece of paper sealed with wax, as if he’d sent it from the sixteen hundreds. But then, Andrew had lived through that century, so why not?
I understand if you’re not ready to see me, but please, please, please put my heart at ease, and let me know that you’re all right. I can explain if you’ll give me the chance. You have no idea how sorry I am.
Eternally yours,
Andrew De La Cote
555-6742
It was sick that Andrew’s letter could paralyze me with fear and yet make me worry about him at the same time. I couldn’t understand it. I feared him more than I’d ever been afraid of anything but I couldn’t hate him. I even wanted to do as he asked and call him so that he wouldn’t feel so bad.
Were Ethan and Cynthia right? Was I going crazy? Was I drawn to Andrew out of some sick mental condition from being so traumatized? I told myself to rip up the letter. I wanted to rip it up. Instead, I spent the rest of class reading the letter over and over again and memorizing his phone number.
I never heard the bell dismiss class. I only snapped out of it when the letter was plucked from my fingers. I scrambled to get it back, but Caleb had quite a reach. “They from your new wonder-wizard of a boyfriend?” he asked, failing to sound only curious.
His eyes scanned the note and he let out a full-on werewolf growl. He glowered at me as if the letter was somehow my fault. Cynthia snatched the note away from him while Ethan picked up the flowers.
“Maybe I should call him,” I said, trying to grab the note back. Cynthia had no problem holding it out of my reach, either. “Don’t you think he’d be less likely to visit in person if I just did what he asked? I could tell him that I’m fine and that I’m not mad, but that he can’t see me anymore.”
“No, Grace,” Ethan said. “You can’t respond at all. You can’t even keep the flowers.” To prove his point, he threw them in the trash. I was strangely sad to see them go.
“But he’s upset. If we just—”
“You don’t understand. If it’s really a true vampire fixation, he won’t take no for an answer.”
“Fixation?” Caleb asked. His jealousy turned into worry. “No. Please say no.”
Cynthia sighed. “Could be a possibility.”
Caleb took my letter from Cynthia and started ripping it up into tiny pieces. “You shouldn’t have even opened this,” he said. “If you call him, even if only to cuss him out, you’ll be giving him exactly what he wants. He’ll see it as encouragement.” Caleb was really stressed and turned back to Ethan. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll explain everything in the cafeteria. I’m assuming Preston will want to hear this, too.”
Caleb nodded. “We were going to find you anyway. There’s something else we need to talk about, too.”
“Later,” I said, suddenly remembering what Andrew had confessed to me last night. “After school.”
I looked at the building around me, thinking of how Andrew had been watching me. I had no doubt that he still was. Probably right this very moment. As if I could literally feel his eyes on me, a chill ran down my spine, raising a layer of goose bumps on my arms. Ethan watched me rub them away and cornered me. “What is it, Grace? What aren’t you telling us?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “I just don’t want to talk about all this supernatural stuff right now. I’m seriously about to lose it, and I really don’t want to do that in front of the entire school. Can we please just keep the conversation normal until after school?”
Ethan looked as if he wanted to murder me, but he bit his tongue and nodded.
Caleb started to argue but Ethan shut him up with just a look, and from then on out it was nothing but talk of sports, books, movies, and math quizzes for the rest of the day.
Apparently nobody was fooled by my lie. I knew Ethan would jump on my case the second we reached his car that afternoon, but I was surprised to find Preston, Cynthia, and Caleb waiting for us. “What’s going on, Grace?” Preston asked.
“We don’t believe for one second that you just needed a day of normalcy,” Cynthia said. “So what’s up?”
I sighed. I knew the overprotectiveness was only going to get worse now, but at the same time, that didn’t seem like a bad thing. “Andrew’s been spying on me. He said something about using a watcher’s spell.”
After a round of grunts and growls and hisses of frustration, I continued. “He said his witch friend wasn’t strong enough to place the spell on me. He didn’t realize that she couldn’t because magic has no effect on me, but she improvised and placed a spell on the school and my house. I asked him to remove the spells, but he wouldn’t. I’m sure he was watching me at school today, so I didn’t feel like talking about him where I knew he would hear me.”
“Andrew De La Cote has a patroness?” Ethan asked Preston. “Any ideas?”
“None,” Preston said with concern. “I know the resistance keeps pretty close tabs on the De La Cotes, but if he’s using immortal magic it’s news to us.”
“That’s the word he used,” I said. “He called whoever helped him his patroness. What exactly is that?”
The boys ignored me, but Cynthia took pity on the ignorant human and explained. “Vampire blood has a magical quality that makes it immortal. Faerie blood is the same. Immortal blood works like an amplifier when fused with magic. It’s so powerful that immortals don’t give it up freely. If they do give their blood, they usually demand a blood bond in return.”
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.”