Chapter Three
Grant
When I wander downstairs the next evening, blinking sleep from my eyes, I’m surprised to find Paxton sitting on the sofa in the living room.
I hardly slept at all today. I wore myself out wondering whether I should just give in and go to the clan like Maurice has offered, or whether I could try to sneak out again just so I can have a minute to breathe.
Paxton’s face creases in sympathy when he looks at me. His power pulses around him, not as rich as what I sense from the vampires because he doesn’t have death magic sitting alongside it, I think. For a moment, I let the feeling wash over me.
If I didn’t know better—and I only do because I trust my new instincts, for the most part, and because obviously now Asher has told me—then I would’ve thought Paxton was the wolf out of the lot of them.
I know he and Jeremiah spent a bunch of time watching over Kieran’s former pack.
Paxton has that same calming energy that almost all the wolves I’ve met also have.
Asher does too. Obviously. But he spends a lot of time fighting his blessing, too.
“You’re going to sleep through this,” Paxton says, voice a low rumble. He sounds amused.
“I won’t.” I stifle a yawn and glare. “I won’t.”
I don’t ask where Vlad is. He’s somewhere in the house. Probably his own bedroom. It’s only just after sundown, and he doesn’t tend to emerge until it’s fully dark.
“Come on,” Paxton says. He moves from the sofa and sits cross-legged on the floor. I smirk at the tiny mice that decorate his socks. “We’re meditating today.”
I pull a face at that. I’m not a big fan of sitting still and doing nothing, and as much as they all try to convince me otherwise—Maurice is a surprising proponent of meditation, it turns out—this is just sitting still and doing nothing.
Paxton winces when I drop straight to the floor. It hurts a little, but my power soothes the pain in an instant, and I adjust into a position that mirrors his.
“How was everything yesterday?”
I rest my hands palm up on my knees and glare again. “You say that like you don’t know.”
I might not be attuned to the wards, not being an actual member of the Wild Hunt, but I heard Jeremiah’s voice not long after I left Vlad in the living room. I don’t know what they talked about. Probably more high fae. I don’t really care.
“You lashed out.”
“I didn’t—”
“Your power lashed out, then.” Paxton fixes me with his serious gaze. My spine curls as I sigh. “I know whatever magic you have won’t really hurt Vlad, but we do need to control it.”
We. I frown. But my magic isn’t like theirs. The Huntsman blessed them with a tiny fraction of what he carries. It’s enough to give them all some amount of power. To give Maurice back what he had in life. To keep Asher alive without his wolf.
Something different happened when Vlad turned me, and though I think they’ve all got their theories, none of them have looked into it and none of them have asked the Huntsman.
I’ve found nothing, either, despite all the research I’ve done. All I know is that I might not always be able to control the magic I carry, but it helps me. It heals me, it keeps me safe.
“Close your eyes now,” Paxton says. His voice falls into a soothing rhythm. “Deep breath in and out.”
I smirk but do as I’m told. We both know I don’t have to breathe at all.
I went a month without doing it when I was two years in, but it was…
weird. Even Vlad found it unsettling. That’s the thing about being a vampire; it’s strange to notice all the things I took for granted when I was alive.
You don’t know how much you notice other people breathing until they stop.
“Where’s Jeremiah?” I murmur. I’m trying to let my thoughts drift just like Paxton tells me every time, but sometimes it’s easier to get the questions out.
If Paxton is here, then Jeremiah is out doing something because I know when they get downtime, they like to spend it together.
But he can’t be doing anything all that dangerous because Paxton doesn’t have that faint aura of anxious energy he gets every time Jeremiah goes off on a job without him.
“With Maurice. They’re on the trail of one of the high fae.”
My eyes pop open. “They are?”
Paxton opens his own eyes and scowls at me. “Grant.”
“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter and close my eyes again.
Why is Paxton here then? They can only just have left. Unless Asher has been out there watching, but I’m pretty sure he’s not in the city right now. Unless he came back. But then he’d have let Vlad know, and probably me, because he’s getting into the habit of either him or Quinn texting me when—
“Focus, Grant. Deep breaths again.”
I fidget in place and concentrate on my breathing. This part isn’t too bad. It’s just exhausting, reminding myself to come back to this, not to follow every train of thought speeding through my mind.
Maybe that should be exhausting instead. But I spend a lot of time with my own thoughts, so it’s quite nice, all things considered.
After some indeterminate amount of time—it could be five minutes or five hours, fuck if I know—Paxton lets out a long breath.
“Right. Keep your eyes closed. You told me before you can see our power, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” I haven’t even told Vlad that, though I don’t know if Paxton has told him. Maybe not. Sometimes it feels like he’s way older than me and then I remember we’re not that far apart in age at all.
Anyway. Yes, I can see their power. It’s how I can tell who has the most control—Maurice’s is easy to see when he’s using it or preparing to use it because he can wield it so well.
I could see the energy from Asher’s wolf, too.
Weaker than all those wolves in Deacon’s pack house and embraced by the blessing he now carries, but I’ve always known there was something different about him.
“What about your own?”
“Can’t see it like that.” Not even when I look in the mirror. Or maybe because I can only look at myself in the mirror. Who knows?
“What about when you use it?”
“I don’t—” I frown and squeeze my eyes shut so I won’t open them. Lights flare behind my lids from the pressure I’m applying. “It’s not like that. I feel it.”
“You don’t see anything at all?”
“Not really.”
“What do you feel?”
I do my best to turn my attention inwards.
We’ve been through this before. It’s easier with Paxton than with Maurice because Maurice has only slightly more patience than I do.
Still. They all talk about the same thing—there’s this place in their chest where their power sits.
They feel it there, feel it push at the edges of their control like it’s too much, like it might burst out of them and do as it likes.
Mine is… everywhere. It’s part of me like the blood that still magically flows through my veins, or the air I drag in and out of my lungs. There’s no centre, no place where I end and this power begins.
It never feels like it’ll be too much either. I can, in a way, get it to do what I want, but that’s because I feel like it wants to help, not that I have any true control.
“I don’t know,” I say and sigh. “It’s just… there. It’s not like a strange thing.”
Paxton makes a sound of agreement and we’re both silent for a few more minutes.
It’s taking everything in me to stay sitting still.
There are a couple of books up in my room I want to finish going through.
Reijo sent me a text this afternoon and I need to reply.
Lots of the fae have been hiding since the high fae broke through, but that might only last for so long.
If the tide turns in their favour, then some of them will hedge their bets against us. Against the Hunt.
“Try reaching out,” Paxton says, interrupting my thoughts. “Eyes still closed. Tell me what you feel around us.”
I bite back another sigh but do as I’m told.
Maybe we do need to talk to the Huntsman about this.
He’s the one who wants me trained, after all.
Or I could push harder to meet the rest of Quinn’s pack.
I’ve been keeping my distance because of all this mess with the fae.
I don’t want to bring trouble to their door.
But the second of his pack is a mage, a true one, and he might be able to help me more than anyone here.
My magic creeps out in a slow-rolling wave, stretching out to fill the room around us.
Paxton lets out a little gasp. Oh, there’s a lot of it.
I know that. I don’t think any of them—even Maurice—have realised how much.
Even now, my power quivers but holds back, probing gently at the spot where Vlad hit the bookcase yesterday.
I flinch and curl my fingers inwards. My nails dig into my palms. I really didn’t mean to do that. I don’t like fighting him. I don’t want to hurt him.
I think he thinks I can’t. Not won’t. Can’t, like I’m not powerful enough.
But I am. My power generally tends to listen to me, and I can’t find the edges of it, but I know there’s a lot of it, and sometimes I’m dizzy with the fact that it would overwhelm the rest of them.
There’s no lingering magic where Vlad landed. He healed quickly. I know that. I feel the faint trace of Jeremiah from the morning and then of Vlad again because he stayed down here long after I’d run off to my room.
I turn my attention to Paxton. I think I see what the Huntsman means about bonds, which is the most frustrating part of all. Fae bonds are unbreakable. In death, one person follows the other over the edge, and by turning me…
Vlad did that. Oh, he didn’t know. I know he didn’t know. But he did it all the same.
And then he did know. If he were just my sire, the bond between us would already be fading. If he didn’t have the Huntsman’s blessing, I’d just be coming out of the worst of my bloodlust and I’d be learning how to interact with this new world I’m part of.
Instead, I’m trying to control some power I should not have as I follow the faint bond that ties Paxton to Jeremiah.
Neither of them can feel it, but I think now they know that it’s there.
My power pulses. I could break this one, I think, though I won’t.
I could feed it too, make it stronger, unbreakable.
I press my lips together and exhale through my nose. As I war with myself, irritated at the dismal turn my thoughts have taken, the bond I’m looking at sparks and shudders.
My eyes snap open, heart suddenly racing. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?” Paxton blinks his eyes open more slowly, then frowns at the expression on my face. “What did you feel? What were you looking at?”
“You—” I shake my head. “I think Jeremiah is in danger.”
He stares at me for another moment before he jumps to his feet. I stand too, watching as Paxton rushes out into the hall and snatches up his boots. Upstairs, Vlad’s phone rings. I hear him answer, then the thunder of his steps down the stairs.
“Wait,” he says and Paxton stops, but only just. I can see it. Vlad’s phone rings again and he frowns, jabbing at the screen to make it stop.
I almost jump out of my skin when my own phone vibrates in my back pocket. Fuck. I pull it out and frown when Njáll’s name flashes on the screen.
Should I have the vampire crai’s personal number? Maybe not. But I figured Maurice was going to lose track of his phone at some point anyway and now—
“Hello?”
“Grant. Something is wrong with Maurice. Where is he?”
I look helplessly at Vlad. He’s talking to Paxton in low tones but glances up at me as though he feels me waiting.
“Where’s Maurice?” I ask.
Vlad shakes his head and strides over. I hold out my phone before he even asks. Paxton is still standing in the hall, pacing like he’s a second away from bolting.
“No. I will let you know as soon as I can. He is with Jeremiah, so they should be—Yes. Of course, yes.”
Vlad hangs up and gives me my phone back.
“Where are they?” Paxton demands.
“Bromley. Maurice called me today and told me he had a lead on Merletta. We will go.”
I take a step forward. “I—” I don’t know where the sentence is going. All I know is that waiting around here for them all to come back is going to kill me. They’ve never left me entirely on my own before. Vlad never has.
“You will remain here. Inside the wards.” Vlad’s eyes flash, and I gasp at the strange pressure coming from him, evidence that our sire-turn bond still exists.
He can keep me here if he wants to. It’s the only reason I truly know he hasn’t meant to do that this entire time. If he wanted me inside this house at all times, all he’d have to do is flex that power and here I’d remain.
“But I—”
“No,” Vlad says, already heading towards the door. I follow, pausing just inside the living room doorway. “We will be back soon. Do not leave the wards, Grant. I do not have the time to worry about you right now.”
“Be—” He shuts the door, and my voice goes quiet. “Safe.”
The house is silent around me in a way it has never been. I let out a shaky breath and clutch my phone so tightly it hurts. They’ll be okay. I have to believe it. They’ll be okay.