The Gifted Ones: A Reader (26 page)

“Oh God, El, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel this. C’mon!” Angel leaped off the bed, grabbing Ellie’s arm.

Ellie stumbled after her. “Where we goin’?”

“Kitchen.”

“And that’s gonna help?”

“Oh yeah.” Angel stopped and looked back at her. “I know where Chef Ren keeps the chocolate.”

# # #

“Ellie? What are you doing?”

What was that?! Joe sat straight up in bed. He was dead tired and really confused, but he’d heard something. Something about Ellie. And alarm bells had gone off. He shook his head out and looked around. Okay, yeah, he was in his bedroom at home, on the farm. The bedside clock said it was half-past four in the morning, and it was perfectly dark and quiet. Must’ve been a dream. He dropped back down on his pillows. Was this what it was like to be a parent? To be constantly worrying about your child, even when there was nothing to worry about? He sighed and rolled onto his side, facing the door of the room, and let his eyes close again.

“Joe?”

The voice was soft, gentle, and timid. Definitely a woman. He was hoping it was the start of a nice dream.

“Joe, are you awake?”

That didn’t sound very dreamy. The door creaked as it was pushed open. Joe opened one eye. Through the grayness, he could see a head peering around the door. “Grace, is that you?” He sat up again. “I’m awake. What is it? Is everything okay? Is it Ellie?”

She stepped inside, and pushed the door closed behind her. She was wrapped in a thin, faded, flowery bath robe, and her hair was hanging free, wavy and disheveled. Fuzzy slippers completed the ensemble. “Yeah, it’s me, Joe. Nothing’s wrong. Ellie’s fine. I just saw her and Angel going down to raid the kitchen.”

Joe laughed, then yawned loudly and ran a hand through his hair. “So…four-thirty’s a bit early, Grace, even for you…”

“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. I know how tired you must be, but I couldn’t sleep.”

She sounded stressed. He reached over and turned on the small bedside lamp, then tossed back the covers and swung his legs over the side. The hardwood floor felt cool to his bare feet. “Don’t worry about it, honey. What’s wrong?” Instead of answering, she turned abruptly to the side, averting her eyes. Oh, geez. He stood up, grabbed a wrinkled tee shirt off the chair near his bed and pulled it over his head. Good thing he slept in pajama pants, or she’d really be embarrassed.

He stepped closer to her, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Tell me, Gracie. What’s on your mind?”

She took a deep breath and looked directly at him. Her brown eyes looked almost black in the low light. “I had some time to think while you were all in Washington. Joe, you were right. You’ve been right about everything, all along. I mean, even back in the day—when Lucy sent you away. She shouldn’t have done that.”

Hmm. Not that he disagreed, but what brought this subject up after so many years? “She had her reasons, Grace. I understood. It was confusing for Ellie.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “It was confusing for Lucy.”

Joe raised both eyebrows. “Oh?”

She pushed his hands off her shoulders and turned away, pretending to study the handmade doily on his bedside table. “Never mind. Forget I said that. The point is…” She turned back around. “Ellie needs you now. She needs you and Granny and Willow and Angel. Especially Angel. You guys can do things for her that I never could, not the least of which is keeping her safe.” Grace sighed deeply and sunk down on the side of his bed. “I guess down deep somewhere I thought, I hoped, that her Gift would never manifest. That we two would just go on living our lives together, like normal people. Ellie would go to college and get a job and get married and none of this…” She waved her hand in the air, apparently indicating the whole Gifted world, “…would ever be a part of her existence.” She looked up at him again. “I just wanted her to be happy.”

Joe gave her a wry smile and sat down next to her. “You think a Gifted person can’t be happy?”

“No, I don’t think that. It’s just…the track record of the ones I’ve known has been, well, rather tragic.”

“Gracie—”

“C’mon, Joe, be honest. Are you really happy?”

He bristled. “That’s not fair. I’ve made mistakes. Bad choices. And I’ve had to live with that. If I’m not as happy as I could be, it’s my fault, not the fault of my genes.”

She took his hand. “A lot of people made a lot of mistakes. You don’t know…” He wrinkled his brow, wanting to ask what she meant, but she didn’t allow it. She shook her head and went on, “I want to fix one of them right now.” His heart surged, praying he’d hear what he wanted to hear. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay. Me and Ellie. At least for a while.”

“If it’s all right?” A broad smile split his face from ear to ear, and he turned toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You
know
it’s all right! You know how much I want you to stay. Both of you.” Did she have any idea how happy she’d made him?

She grinned then, too, showing him that yeah, maybe she did know. His exuberance snuck up on him, and, without really thinking about it, he pulled her close and kissed her, just quickly, like a friend-kiss or a brother-kiss. Except not. Because those kinds of kisses don’t make you feel woozy and dizzy and send little shock waves shooting through your belly like that one had. Grace gasped in response, and he pulled back as quickly as he’d gone in. Oh crap. What had he done? He jumped up from the bed like it was on fire. “Er, um, sorry about that, Gracie. Just got a little excited. I mean, uh…” He grimaced.

She gave him a look that rolled shock, horror, and bewilderment all into one. Then she pushed herself up from the bed. “Um, that’s okay, Joe. No…big deal…” She stepped carefully around him and made her way back toward the door of his bedroom. “You should probably get back to sleep now. You’re obviously over-tired.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

She gave him a little wave as she pulled the door closed, looking a bit concerned about his mental state. He gave her a wave back, then collapsed onto his bed. Nice work, Joe. What the heck was
that
all about?

# # #

Enrique Espinoza could have waited until morning to clean up the mess that his lovely guest from Monaco had left behind, but after living a good bit of his childhood on filthy city streets, he had found, as an adult, that he had limited tolerance for dishes in the sink, laundry on the floor, overfull trash cans, or bathtub rings, so he certainly wasn’t going to sleep well with shards of broken ceramics on his bedroom floor. By the time he’d driven Nadia home, barely escaping with his virtue intact, returned here to sweep up the smashed curios and dispatch the half-empty wine bottle and glasses, and then taken a long, hot shower, he was able to see the first trickle of pink creeping around the edges of the window shade. The alarm was set for seven-thirty, and he really wasn’t sure it would be worth the trouble to lie down.

As he stood next to the bed, contemplating the value of two hours of sleep, a sparkle caught his eye. The trickle of sunlight was dancing crazily along the baseboard near his closet, tossing a spray of colors onto the hardwood. He walked back over there and bent down. Oh yeah, the necklace. It must’ve fallen out of his pocket when he was undressing. He picked it up and held it so that a narrow stream of light passed directly through the stone. Immediately, his bedroom wall was covered with a million miniature rainbows. Huh. Maybe the thing was a real diamond. He decided not to “get rid of it”, as Angel had insisted, but instead, to hang on to it, if for no other reason than he would love to shove it down Carlo’s throat should he ever have the misfortune of seeing the little creep again.

Enrique closed his fist over the stone and then closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, in and out, per Angel’s careful instruction. Her voice played in his head, “Staying in control of those raging emotions is the key to being an effective Defender,” or so she never stopped reminding him. When he had successfully quashed the animalistic urge, he carried the necklace over to his dresser and dropped it into a pretty blown-glass keepsake dish that one of the kids at the farm had made for him. Then he stumbled back to the bed and flopped onto it, staring at the ceiling.

# # #

In a different part of town, another man was staring at his ceiling.

Lightly sweating and with his heart still racing, Archer Orucov threw back the covers and sat up on the side of his bed. He’d tried everything, from sleeping pills to acupuncture to herbal teas, but the one thing he could never shake were his nightmares. They’d be gone for months at a time, and then, bam, out of the blue, they’d return to torture him yet again. Although this time, he suspected it was hardly out of the blue. Obviously, coming so close to having Elodie had stirred the pot. Those haunting images of her mother’s face, terror and tears, shock and horror, would come rushing into his dreams and rattle him to his core. He just wanted to remember her as she once was—sensual and playful and so, so keen of mind.

He slid his hand across his balding crown, and then, not wanting to wake Kumika, he picked up his silken robe and slipped out into the sitting room. He fastened the sash around his waist as he walked over to the first set of French doors. Drawing back the curtains, he stepped out onto the narrow balcony. The sun was just coming up over the Tidal Basin, and the cherry blossoms, in full bloom, were spectacular against the pink and purple sky. Whatever else one might say about Washington, D.C., it was a well-planned city, and from the right places, there were breathtaking views. The Tai Pan Suite on the twelfth floor of the Mandarin Hotel was one of those places.

Archer sucked the chilly morning air into his lungs. It was powerful, powerful enough to clear out those cobwebs and allow him to focus on the future. A younger man might have been distressed by how things had turned out, but not Archer. With maturity had come the gifts of wisdom and patience. These were not genetic Gifts, like his scientific genius, but rather, gifts that came only through life experience—the good and the bad. He had made mistakes in his youth, the kind of rash decisions that one can only regret and hope to learn from, and never expect to be forgiven. But those mistakes had been invaluable; from them, he had learned that everything happens for a reason. Every misstep is a chance for improvement. Every failure is an opportunity. And so it would be this time.

Elodie was no one’s plaything. She was not an oaf to be outwitted, nor a possession to be taken by brute force. He should have seen that. His experiences with her mother should have taught him that. He felt foolish for not applying those early lessons with the child. No, if he wanted Elodie in his life, if he wanted to make her part of his world, or—dare he think it?—an heir to his throne, then he needed an altogether different approach. Elodie would have to want it for herself. She would have to be made to understand how powerful she was, and all that she could do with that power. This was Archer’s task, this was what he needed to be planning: to bring the gift of desire to his little freckle-faced prodigy.

“Archer? Where are you?”

Kumika’s voice drifted out through the open balcony doors, bringing him back to reality. He stepped back inside and closed the doors. “Here I am, my dear. I was just getting a little fresh air. I hope I didn’t wake you.” He walked back into the bedroom and stood next to the bed.

She slid herself toward the middle of the bed, inviting him in. “You had the doors open? No wonder it’s so cold in here.” She propped herself up on one elbow and reached for him with the other arm. “Come back to bed and warm me up.”

He took her hand, but resisted her pull. “Kumi, I have so much to do today, so much to plan. And we’re supposed to pick up Aiden—”

She looked up at him with her signature black-eyed stare and pouted, “But, Archer, you’ve been a madman all week. You need to relax and have some fun. Even Genghis Khan took a day off now and then.”

The backhanded compliment was enough to pull an uncharacteristic belly laugh out of Archer. “You flatter me, Kumika. But perhaps you’re right.” He dropped his robe to the floor and climbed in beside her. He ran his hand down the length of her angular frame, appreciating every inch of her taut flesh. “Perhaps today, we should stay inside and recharge our batteries.” He rolled onto his back and reached for the bedside phone. “I’ll call room service.”

“Not yet.” She crawled up on top of him, pulling his hand away from the phone. She pushed herself up so she was straddling him, then yanked the silky nightgown up over her head, tossing it back behind her somewhere.

Yes, Archer had learned many lessons in his life, and he knew the importance of heeding them. Not the least of these was that a strong leader surrounds himself with wise counsel. And another was that all work and no play made Archer Orucov a very dull man.

Author/Publisher

Message from the Author

Thank you for reading
The Gifted Ones: A Reader
. If you had fun getting to know this unusual group of people, and you’d like to read more adventures in the series, please pick up the second volume, which is due out in the third quarter of 2014. If you would like to be notified of new releases, please sign up
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