by Kelly Oram
Ethan echoed Russ’s curse. Between the two of them, I would end up with the mouth of a sailor if I weren’t careful.
Simone walked up to me and caressed my cheek as she studied me.
I squirmed in Russ’s arms, though I made no attempt to climb to my feet. Somehow, even though he was completely frozen, I still felt safer with him holding me.
“Such an amazing resemblance. You, darling, are much prettier, though. You are Danielle as she should be.”
“Something you’d like to share with the rest of us?” Ethan’s uncle asked, coming to stand next to Simone.
Simone looked surprised. “You don’t know?” When it was obvious he didn’t, Simone released a cackle that would make the Wicked Witch of the West jealous—both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. “My dear Logan, I’m afraid these children have been keeping secrets from you.”
“What secrets?” Mr. Dunn demanded. He looked in Ethan’s direction for the answer.
“Ones that are none of your business,” Ethan replied.
“Fascinating all the same,” Simone said, “and too good to not share.” Simone pushed my hair away from my face. “This human is identical to the Chosen One.”
Simone smiled at Russ as she waited out the murmurs her declaration spurred. “Incredible, isn’t it?” she asked him. Her face fell into a look of pity. “How this face must haunt you to look at it.”
Russ managed not to react, but I couldn’t. “Leave him alone,” I gasped. When Simone looked at me with surprise I blushed and muttered, “There’s no need to be cruel.”
Simone burst into laughter again. “How positively tragic!” she cried with delight. “You finally have the affection you desire, and it’s from the wrong girl!”
“Shut up!” I shouted, surprising myself with my outburst.
Simone’s expression turned cold. “Tell me, human, are you aware of your connection to the Chosen One? Do you know your purpose?”
I couldn’t withstand the force of her stare and buried my face in Russ’s neck.
“This child knows her destiny,” Simone said. “Will you not share your secret with us, darling?”
When I didn’t answer, Simone hissed and muttered something very quietly. Then suddenly Russ dropped me and collapsed to the floor, screaming and writhing in pain. “Russ! Ethan, help him!” I screamed, but when I looked in Ethan’s direction he was suffering the same torture. “Stop!” I cried. “Stop!”
“Tell me what I want to know!” Simone bellowed.
I’d never seen this kind of violence before ever in my life. I was so scared I couldn’t process her request. “Stop!” I begged again, sobbing this time. “Please, stop hurting them!”
When my crying became so violent I couldn’t even form single words anymore, I pulled my knees into my chest and hid my eyes from the sight. There was nothing I could do to block the sound of their screams, though.
“Simone,” someone urged.
“She will tell me what I want to know!”
But I couldn’t. I wasn’t built for this. Political arguments and power plays I could handle, but I wasn’t equipped to deal with pure evil like this. I wasn’t tough. I was too emotional—ruled by my fear and panic.
“She’s too distraught,” someone else argued. “She can’t tell you anything like that.”
“Stop this now!” someone hissed. “Or I will kill you.”
I heard a scuffle and then the screaming was silenced. The only sound left in the room was my own hysteria. I looked up and Clara was standing over her mother, locked in concentration. She started to sweat and finally collapsed. The vampire whose name I didn’t know pulled her into his arms.
“You dare to challenge me?” Simone spat at Clara, but her breathing was ragged. Clara had weakened her pretty good.
“Broke the spell, didn’t I?” Clara rasped.
Simone looked ready to attack Clara, but Mr. Dunn put a hand on her shoulder. “Enough,” he urged. “You’ve frightened the girl out of her mind. You cannot treat humans as you would one of us. They’re too weak.”
I wanted to defend myself, but he was right. I’d completely lost it. Ethan? I knew I sounded like I was crying. Ethan!
It’s okay, Grace. Russ and I are fine.
Even his mental voice sounded ragged and weak, but it was enough for me to focus. Not knowing what else to do and scared Simone would hurt them again, I told her what she was waiting for.
“I don’t have a purpose!” I sobbed. “I’m just supposed to be alive. I’m the opposite of the Chosen One. The Creator calls me the Ungifted One because no supernatural power can touch me. I can’t hurt you, and I can’t help you, and you need to leave me alone. I exist to keep Dani balanced. We’re connected somehow, and without me she’d become too powerful. She would destroy everything. I’m just supposed to exist, that’s all. Just supposed to live my life! I don’t want to be a part of all this!”
Someone picked me up off the floor and cradled me tightly against them. I didn’t know who it was until he spoke. “Of course not, love. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I can keep you safe. I’ll take you away from all of this and give you the best life you could possibly imagine. You only need ask. If you wished it, your nephilim would let you. He could even come with us if you couldn’t bear to be separated from him. I would allow that. Give me a chance to make you happy, Grace.”
If anyone but Andrew had given me that offer right then, I might have taken it. But Andrew, despite all his gentleness and sweet talk, was a monster. He stroked my hair and continued to murmur soft assurances, but they weren’t helping. I was just as scared of him as I was of Simone.
“Ethan!” I squeaked, my panic obvious in my voice. “Don’t let him take me! Please!”
“Let her go,” Ethan said. His voice sounded strained but better than it had before.
Then I was pulled from one pair of arms to another. I didn’t need to look to see who it was. I was beginning to recognize the feel of Russ’s arms around me.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Never better,” he grunted, laughing at the obvious lie.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” Russ said. “Now I have enough of a reason to kill her and not feel bad about it.”
“As if you could, darling.”
“Maybe not yet, babe, but someday. I promise you’ll regret the day you met me.”
Simone laughed, but it quickly turned into a longing sigh. “So much like your father,” she cooed.
“Enough of this!” Andrew suddenly shouted. “Get your hands off her, boy! She is my mate! I claimed her! That my blood didn’t turn her doesn’t change that fact!”
“If that’s true, then my Caleb has just as much claim to her as you,” Mr. Layton interrupted suddenly. “More, even. He was pursuing her first!”
I couldn’t believe the strangeness of the direction this conversation had just taken. They were actually fighting over who owned me. Before I could even wrap my head around that, Ethan put a stop to it.
“She’s not for you to claim!” he roared. “Grace knows the truth of the supernatural world. That makes her subjugate to council law and should also entitle her to our rights, which are that no species is allowed to claim a mate against their will.”
All of the nephilim balked as well as Andrew and Mr. Layton.
“Are you out of your mind?” Ethan’s uncle asked. “Give a human supernatural rights?”
Okay, that stung just a little.
“If you expect her to abide by our laws, then you should be forced to offer her the same protection you would any supernatural.”
“Why should we give her protection?” one of the other nephilim asked. “She’s refusing to help us. She said she didn’t want to be involved in our cause. That makes her a threat. I say we let the vampires have her. Let them figure out why she’s different.”
This comment drove Ethan over the edge. In a burst of light, he exploded into his tru
e form, stretching his massive wings in the small space and brandishing a pair of daggers he’d been hiding somewhere on his person that I didn’t want to know about.
“I will kill anyone who touches her!” he shouted.
Everyone was surprised by Ethan’s reaction—or his overreaction, as they clearly thought.
“And why should you care?” Mr. Layton sneered with a knowing smile. “You have no more claim to her than any of us.”
“The hell I don’t!”
“Ethan,” I whispered. He was upset enough he was about to give away the secret he was so desperate to keep.
“Everyone knows you’re in love with the little human girl,” Mr. Layton went on. “Both of my sons have said as much and my daughter has been prattling on about it for nearly a year. But Grace doesn’t even like you, does she?”
Both Caleb and Preston shifted uneasily. When they looked at me, I gave my head the tiniest shake and hoped they registered the panic in my eyes.
Ethan’s clan members all gasped. “Just like his mother,” one of them grumbled.
“Disgusting,” the other agreed.
“I’m not in love with Grace!” Ethan snapped. “I’m her warrior!”
“Ethan!” I shouted.
He interrupted me immediately. “No, Grace. They need to know.”
“But—”
“I can’t keep it a secret for my own pride anymore. That doesn’t help you.” He turned back to everyone in the room, singling out his uncle with his gaze. “I am a nephilim warrior, and I am physically bound to Grace as her protector.”
He pulled me out of Russ’s arms and set me back on the window seat. Then he stood in front of me and swept his eyes over the crowd. “By the Creator, I will do what I must to keep Grace safe—even if it means killing every single person in this room,” he said in a low voice. “You will not touch her.”
As he spoke, his glory started to shine brighter and brighter until it was almost painful to look at him. He sounded so dangerous that I believed his threat. I believed he could do it. Judging by the silence in the room, everyone believed him.
The atmosphere in the room instantly changed to one of wonder and excitement and disbelief. Only Andrew was still angry.
Ethan took in all the shocked faces, studying mine the longest of anyone, then sighed as he lowered himself to one knee in front of me. I sucked in a breath, and I wasn’t the only one. Russ, who’d come to sit next to me, was equally stunned. “You sure, dude?” he asked.
Ethan ignored him, sheathed his knives, and pulled one of my hands into his. “Grace,” he said softly, “I’m ready.” His determination made me tremble. He was really going to do it.
“By the angel blood that runs in my veins and the connection that binds me to you, I pledge you my oath as a warrior and give myself over fully to you. I swear you my eternal fealty and vow to protect you always, with my life if needs be.” He swallowed hard and in a quieter voice added, “From now on, I’m yours in any way that you need me.”
“Holy shit,” Russ breathed.
“Will you accept me, Grace?”
“I—I—” My brain failed me in that moment. I couldn’t say yes or no. I couldn’t even make my mouth move properly. My head was screaming a million different things at me, and all those amped up emotions the angel Michael said I had were going haywire. “I—”
“A warrior,” someone whispered. I didn’t see who. I was still so freaked I couldn’t think straight.
“Impossible.”
Ethan finally tore his eyes from me and rose again to face our audience. “Not impossible, Uncle,” he said. “My father was not human. My mother never said he was. You only ever assumed that.”
Ethan’s uncle staggered toward him, barely able to take his eyes off of him long enough to blink. “A warrior,” he whispered. His face crumpled in on itself as it filled with despair. “Forgive me, Ethan. I never knew. I didn’t know the truth.”
Mr. Dunn reached out to Ethan, but Ethan stepped back out of his reach. “It shouldn’t have mattered,” he hissed. “She was your sister.”
“And I’ve mourned for her your whole life,” Mr. Dunn said. “You can’t know how happy you’ve made me, Ethan. She should have told me. She never would have been cast out. Of course she will be welcomed back to the clan. You both will.”
I couldn’t blame Ethan for the way every muscle in his body tensed. I knew what it was like to be accepted just because I was special. It’s not a good feeling.
I stood up to put a supportive hand on Ethan’s shoulder, but Ethan pulled my fingers into his and clung to them desperately. There was no hesitation, no awkwardness on his part, and my touch calmed him immediately. It was so strange that I started to pull away, but he tugged me closer.
“If my mom wants to come back to your clan that’s her choice, but I won’t have any part of it.”
Mr. Dunn was shocked. “If what you say is true, you’re the first warrior the world has seen since the Oracle’s time. How can you simply turn your back on your clan?”
“My clan?” Ethan’s free hand drifted to the angel’s pendant around his neck. “I’m not turning my back on my clan,” Ethan said. “My mother was cast out of your clan when she was pregnant. I wasn’t born under the covenant of any clan. You reluctantly agreed to train me because I was powerful, but I’ve never received the mark of your people. I always wanted to be accepted into the clan, but you never wanted me to be one of you. As it turns out, I’m not one of you, and for once I’m grateful for that.”
Mr. Dunn finally got over his shock and managed to get angry. “I see becoming a warrior has gone to your head, boy.”
“No.” Ethan turned to me and smiled. “It’s humbled me.” He held me in a gaze I couldn’t look away from and addressed his uncle without taking his eyes off of me. “My mother was chosen because she embraced her human lineage more than any other of her kind. Humans are not weak. We can learn a lot from them. I have learned a lot. Grace is human, but she is a better person than either you or me.”
Ethan’s compliment was so shocking that I actually gasped. I tried to pull my hand out of his, but he refused to let me go. “Grace, I completely misjudged you. I wanted to hate you because I was ashamed to be bonded to a human, but everything you said to me last night was true. I knew your feelings, but I willfully chose not to understand them. I needed to see the worst in you. I was the one full of self-pity.
“You’ve made me see how wrong I was so many times in the last twenty-four hours I’ve lost count. I’m sorry. I know that’s not nearly enough, and I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m begging your forgiveness and asking you to accept my oath.”
“I—” I had to sit down. I felt light-headed and unable to string together even a single thought. Ethan helped me sit and, thankfully, released my hand. It made it a little easier to breathe with a couple feet of space between us.
I finally remembered myself and looked around in horror. Everyone in the room, Andrew included, watched the two of us like we were a live soap opera.
“Please, Grace,” Ethan whispered.
“I accept your apology, Ethan, but…I’m sorry. I can’t…I’m not ready for…anything else. You’re really freaking me out right now.”
Ethan nodded. “I know. Sorry. How about friends? Can we try for that, at least?”
“Um.” I gulped. Somehow even the idea of being Ethan’s friend seemed too overwhelming. “Would you settle for trying to respect one another? I think I can probably handle that much right now.”
Ethan gave me a sad smile. “You already have my respect, Grace. If I can find a way to earn yours, it will be a good start.”
I felt a hand grab mine again and jumped. It was Russ this time. “You okay?” he asked.
I didn’t know about okay, but I would survive so I nodded. “I want to go home, though.”
Russ smiled and then looked up to Ethan. “I think she’s answered enough questions for one night, don’t you?”
&nb
sp; Ethan agreed and as he handed me my crutches, Andrew let out a snarl. Ethan whirled on him so fast that no one in the room even realized what happened before Andrew was on the ground beneath Ethan’s blade. “I will turn your worthless body to dust for what you’ve done to her!”
“Ethan,” I whispered, gently pulling him off Andrew.
Ethan turned around to look at me. “I can’t let him live, Grace. I know you don’t want me to kill anyone, but you will never be safe with him alive. He will never stop.”
I knew Ethan was right. Andrew would never stop. But I didn’t know how to condone his murder. I started to cry and Russ pulled me into his arms. “Don’t watch,” he whispered, knowing it wouldn’t make me feel any better, but unable to tell me what I wanted to hear.
Andrew and his vampires had backed up to the door. Clara was in front of them, shielding them from anyone who might try to stop them from leaving. “Forgive me, love,” Andrew whispered. “I must go now.”
With that the vampires stepped out into the hall, shielded by Clara. The door slammed shut and several people dove for it, but it had been spelled. Only Simone was strong enough to break the spell and open it, but by the time she did Andrew was gone.
Ethan looked torn between trying to run after him and not wanting to leave me. Eventually I won out and he handed me my crutches. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“Not so fast, son,” Simone said with a smile. “We still have to figure out what to do with the three of you.”
Ethan took his daggers from their sheaths again, but it was Russ who spoke. “You let us go. Obviously,” he said. “Try and touch me, and you’ll have my dad to deal with. One pissed off Devereaux is bad enough, but two of us? You’re not that good, Simone. And you heard Grace. Mess with her and you have a serious Dani problem. You’ve seen what that’s like. Then there’s Ethan. I highly doubt you want to piss off him or his father.”
“Yes?” Simone asked curiously. “And who might that be, exactly?”
Russ just smiled. “Take us prisoner and find out. I dare you.”
“Who said anything about taking you prisoner?” Simone laughed. “I was merely thinking of how best to place you within the resistance and who would be fit to train you. I’ve been told you were invited to join the guardians. We could certainly use an insider in those ranks, but if you’d prefer to stay here Marcus has already generously offered to teach you in the art of magic.”