Gifts of the Blood (16 page)

“Thank you.” My words came out a little breathy, like I’d just learned to breathe. I risked a quick glance at the bed; just as I’d thought, my haphazard pile of clothes lay gathered at the bottom, folded into a neat stack by the man presently keeping me from falling. Fast, so fast. For the first time that morning, the full impact of who and what he was hit me, taking me low and cold beneath my ribs. “Ethan.” I closed my mouth and felt it curve, all on its own, into a tiny promise of a smile. “I… oh, God. I forgot to say good morning.”

He looked steadily back at me and I found I could not name all the emotions I saw in his unguarded blue green eyes. I wondered if he could, either. Vulnerable and wary, amused and… something else. Fierce? Possessive? No one else had ever looked at me that way, not ever in my whole life. And this was his first morning in our apartment, and he had brought me not one coffee but two, and I had responded to his gentle reminder about school by totally freaking out on him.

“Well, then.” Ethan did not loosen his hold on the curve of my spine. “It seems a rather dangerous event, this waking up business. Perhaps it’s just as well that you forgot the good morning bit,” he teased, but with an edge.

“Not so much,” I tried again, inching the cup of coffee out from between us. “It doesn’t have to be.” Suddenly, unaccountably shy, I found myself unable to look anywhere but at the hollow of his throat. I kissed it impulsively. He went perfectly, preternaturally still, his hand still warm in the curve of my spine. “I’m very new at this.” I admitted. I swear his body temperature rose when he smiled; I couldn’t see his face, but he absolutely radiated warmth at my words. “Let me try again.” I kissed him again on the throat, longer, this time, and let my lips linger there. “Good morning, Ethan,” I said against his skin. “Thank you for the coffee.”

He didn’t say anything. He scooped my chin up in the palm of his hand and kissed me, firmly and without hesitation, as if he sensed the veil of shyness between us and wanted to rip it away. It was all I could do not to drop the coffee; Ethan was, as always, an assault on the senses. Raw skin abraded of its uppermost protective layer; impossible scents that mingled seasons and plants and even places; the lowest light humming, so faint I could hear it or not, as I willed; and everywhere, warmth, even inside, where my lips broke from his tasting faintly sweet and spicy all at once. I pressed back against him, snaking my fingers through his hair, seeking kisses, but his lips were moving, making sounds. “School. Dressed in no time, and I can take you.”

“I could just not go,” I offered, pressing myself against him. I felt his low rumbling laugh travel across the front of my body.

“You were frantic, earlier,” he reminded me.

“I’ll take her,” Logan said from my bedroom doorway. I froze, grateful Ethan’s back was to the door that connected my room to the living room. Hopefully, Logan wouldn’t see I was wearing nothing but a Horse to Water t-shirt and underwear.

“Ethan can get me there really, really fast,” I countered, risking a peek at my brother from around Ethan’s shoulder.

Logan wore one of my favorite sweat suits. The dark green Adidas hoodie and baggy pants were a good color for him. He even had a matching ball cap, pulled down low to shield his eyes, as always. For my brother, this was his version of dress clothes. He didn’t quite smile at me, his eyes fixed on the tip of his sneaker instead. But he twirled the car keys easily in his hands and he seemed relaxed. “Come on, Cas,” he coaxed. “You’re so late now another ten or fifteen minutes won’t matter much. Plus I’ve got breakfast to go for you.” He did smile at me then, his shadowed brown eyes seeking mine over Ethan’s sheltering shoulder. If he didn’t like what he saw, he didn’t show it. Instead, he seemed kind of pleased. “Leftover microwave cheese pizza.”

Oooh, a definite peace offering. Logan always tried to get me to eat healthy breakfasts like oatmeal and cereal bars. My eyes widened in shock, but I didn’t move from Ethan’s sheltering form. I was wearing one of Logan's favorite band's t-shirts and little else. There were limits to any big brother’s level of tolerance, and I didn’t want to test his, not when he seemed so friendly. “Five minutes,” I promised. I wanted to spend some time with him, too. I had some things I needed to say to him. It seemed as if today was my morning for apologies. As he turned to leave, I shouted after him. “Hey! I don’t have to work tonight. Are you up for the Winter Festival on the Square? I promised to show Ethan downtown Whitfield last night, but...well, you know.”

He paused for longer than I thought he would, both hands tight against the doorframe. He nodded slowly before turning to smile at us. “Sure thing. I’d love to go. I think it’s important that Ethan feels at home here. As much as possible.” His voice was husky as he looked at the two of us, me obviously hiding, and at the pile of clothes on my bed. He fixed me with a mock glare. “God knows you need looking after, Caspia. The least you can do for Ethan is take him out.”

He left quickly enough that my boot bounced harmlessly off the door instead of his face.

***

I shrank as far back against the wall as possible, and invoked every deity I knew that Dr. Christian would remain benignly ignorant of my tardy, assignment-less presence. So far, so good. I’d texted Amberlyn from the parking lot, begging her to try and create a distraction. She’d texted back that Dr. Christian hadn’t yet taken roll and was very occupied demonstrating a particular crosshatching technique he’d used for some famous drawing of his. She even told me which side of the classroom to slink into in order to avoid notice.

I kept working my way down the list of deities, just in case.

“So you can see,” Dr. Christian announced in his booming professor’s voice, the one that made every female head and some of the male ones lean forward attentively, “that by arranging the lines just so,” he magnified a portion of a flower petal, “the leaves retain the slightly grainy look of live Calla lilies.”

A collective sigh went up from the class. I rolled my eyes. Dr. Christian didn’t affect me as he did most of my classmates. I recognized his artistic talent and knew I had a lot to learn from him, but I just didn’t feel the need to swoon over his model-perfect looks every time he opened his mouth. In fact, I found his plastic perfection kind of creepy.

Instead, I let my mind wander back to my car ride with Logan. He’d given me a steady, if a bit shaky, one-armed hug as soon as I jumped in the car, which he’d kept running so I’d be warm. He immediately shoved greasy pizza into my hands and another cup of coffee. I wouldn’t eat, though; I had something to say, first.

“I’m sorry,” we both blurted at the exact same time, then burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I insisted through a mouthful of cheese. “I’ve been whiny and self-centered and a terrible brat. If I could, I’d spank myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Logan sighed, gunning through a yellow light. “I shouldn’t have said all of those things to you last night. I was scared.”

“God, me too.” I chased cheese with coffee. “I’m still scared. We’d be fools if we weren’t.” I gave up on the pizza in favor of tanking up on as much coffee as I could before creeping into Dr. Christian’s class. “But, Logan, what I really want to apologize for is the way I’ve been treating you. Or
not
treating you. For pushing you away. I never meant to hurt you. I’ve been having trouble dealing.”

His long, thin fingers looked positively skeletal as they tightened around the steering wheel. “No. You don’t owe me any apologies. I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with you, either. I pushed you away because I wanted to shelter you. You’re my little sister, and I wanted to protect you.” He reached out to tuck one escaped strand of unbrushed hair behind my ear. I’d twisted the rest up into a messy knot at the nape of my neck. As soon as he touched me, I got an odd cold feeling at the base of my shoulder blades.

“What do you mean, Logan? What are you trying to protect me from?”

We’d reached the school in record time. For once, I cursed my brother’s daredevil driving. Normally, it delighted me. He sighed and pulled me into another one-sided embrace. “Nothing pressing, Caspia. You just get to class, and we’ll have plenty of time to talk more after the Festival on the Square.”

Logan placed both hands very carefully on his lap. He looked me straight in the eye. “I watched Ethan rip out what looked like a demon’s heart for you, Caspia. More than one heart, in fact. He saved your life, probably both of our lives, and whatever he is, he’s not made of Darkness. But more importantly,” he grinned. “Abigail likes him, and she hates almost everyone, so he must be ok.”

“Ok?” a sonorous baritone voice echoed from across the room. I blinked. I could see tiny dust motes floating peacefully in a slant of sunlight hitting the desks in front of mine.

Desks. Oh, hell.

“I said, are you ok, Miss Chastain?” This time, Dr. Christian’s rumbling lecture voice was followed by a chorus of prissy little giggles, like minions worshipping their master. I tried to stuff down twin feelings of disgust and alarm.

“Oh, yes, Dr. Christian. Thanks.”

“Excellent. I was afraid we’d lost you back there.” His smile was kind, even concerned, but something about it just didn’t seem sincere to me. I gave him a small smile back, hoping he would leave me alone. “So, would you be so kind?”

I took several deep, centering breaths, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Every face in the room turned expectantly towards me. I searched desperately for Amberlyn, but she looked back at me with the same horrified expectation many of the other students shared. No help there. Just what in the hell was I supposed to do? I realized I had been sweating, even though it was cold, all the way in the back of the class. “I’m sorry, Dr. Christian, but I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I finally admitted, waiting for the chorus of giggles that was sure to follow. I was not disappointed.

Dr. Christian smiled his tolerant academe’s smile and left the podium. He beckoned at me to come forward with a graceful sweep of his pale hand. “I merely requested that you share what you have been so feverishly drawing with the rest of the class, my dear,” he drawled softly, with the barest hint of an accent I couldn’t quite place. “After all, you have been quite absorbed in your work since you slipped in fifteen minutes late.” The class, predictably, tittered, but I was beyond caring as I felt the blood drain from my face.

I stared at Dr. Christian across a sea of rapt faces, realizing for the first time that I held a watercolor pencil in my left hand. I touched the surface of my desk with my bandaged right hand quickly, but not before I felt an open drawing pad and an entire box of pastel pencils. Something icy, with sharp feral claws, ate its way through the lining of my stomach. I knew without looking I had done it again. Once again I had used the gifts of my Nephilim blood to draw a prophecy. Dr. Christian’s dark blue eyes caught mine and held them. I dared not look down. My drawing hand was injured; with any luck, I’d drawn nothing more than barely recognizable squiggles.

Then Dr. Christian smiled at me, slow and soft and wild, and I knew two things all at once: I was afraid to look at the thing I had drawn, because it was prophecy and probably damning. Dr. Christian was going to look at it, too, and there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do about it.

I started my slow walk down to his desk like a condemned man on his way to dice with the devil. I pressed the drawing pad close against my chest, cradling it there, both arms wrapped around it. I felt a bizarre need to protect it from this man, and from public exposure in general. I thought desperately of fainting, or even just running, but that pair of dark blue eyes compelled me onward as surely as if he held a loaded weapon. “It’s probably not very good,” I heard myself say. “I hurt my wrist, you see.” I nodded towards it, unwilling to uncross my arms for even a second.

If Ethan was sculpted stone, this man was living fire, every delicate bone catching the light in such a way as to create shifting pockets of shadow when he moved. Hair so golden it could not be called blond framed eyes so deeply blue they almost drowned out the irises. His impossibly finely boned fingers steepled together under his chin. “Yes. I see that. How did you acquire that injury, Caspia?”

“Um.” Blue, blue eyes like the lake Logan and I like to swim in. In the summer. When it was hot. The lake would be freezing cold, even then. I blinked. What the hell? What was wrong with me? “Uh, I fell.” Keep it simple.

A perfect, arched eyebrow expressed doubt in one expressive motion. “I see.” But I could hear the whisper underneath his words, calling me a liar, making me doubt myself, doubt my gift, my instincts. I should just relax and tell him about things, this man with the freezing soothing eyes.

What the
bloody
hell? Internal alarms were going off. I swallowed convulsively. “I was just practicing. With my left hand. I can’t draw at all, with my left hand. I’m sorry, Dr. Christian.”

He smiled and gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, such things happen among friends. Only we weren’t friends, of that I was desperately certain. I stood in front of him and it was as if we were in a bubble. There was no sound, no time. He held out his hand for my drawing and I recognized the color of his eyes.

They were the color of fire at the very center, when it burns so hot it’s almost white.

I watched my hand hold out my drawing. I watched him take it and lay it carefully on the table between us. I watched as his eyes caught and burned, crackling with that fire I had just recognized. The air even smelled like burning. “Oh my,” Dr. Christian said, smoothing out my drawing on his desk. “Oh my dear Caspia. What talent you have.”