The Savage Grace

by Bree Despain

  “Absolutely not,” Dad said.

  “But Dad, I have to—”

  “You’re tired, Grace, and you’re not thinking rationally if you believe I’m going to let you go waltzing back into the place where you were almost killed. Your mother would never recover if—”

  “If what?” I asked. “You tell her the truth again?”

  Dad and I still didn’t see eye to eye on that one. When I’d disappeared from the Halloween festival with Talbot (i.e., gotten myself kidnapped), Dad had taken it upon himself to tell Mom the truth about what all was going on. And let me tell you, that hadn’t gone over so well.

  Especially considering where Mom was now. She’d earned herself a one-way ticket to mandatory lockdown in the psych ward at City Hospital, courtesy of Dr. Connors.

  “Um, not to make you madder at me, but your dad has a point,” April said. “I mean, what if Mr. Caleb ‘I’m a scary nut job’ Kalbi is watching the place, just waiting for you to come back?”

  “I doubt he’d go back there. Besides—”

  “No,” Dad said. He locked eyes with me. “And don’t you forget that you promised me you wouldn’t go running off without my blessing again. I am not letting you go back there, and that’s final.”

  “But part of that promise was that you’d hear me out. That we’d work together—as a family. Daniel needs a moonstone. I know it. I can feel it. And now you’re telling me to give up before I can—”

  “What we’re telling you to do is be safe.” Dad reached across his desk and tried to take my hand. I pulled it away. “I’ve seen the way you’ve been limping around here all weekend. Not to mention the internal injuries you suffered because of Caleb. You’re in no shape to be heading into potential danger again.”

  He had a point about the ankle. Crouching in the gravel for so long had done little to help it reheal. I stood up and pretended not to feel the sharp twinge that shot through my leg when I put weight on it. I stood as tall as I could. “I’m fine.”

  “I suggest you go home and rest.” Gabriel scrubbed his hands down his weary face. “We’ll talk about this later. Come up with a more sensible plan.”

  “Think of the big picture, Gracie,” Dad said. “Your life is a lot bigger than this moment. You need to remember that you can’t let the trials you face right now derail your course forever.”

  “I am thinking about the big picture. Not only has the boy I love been turned into a wolf and he’s stuck that way, but we also have a psychotic werewolf with a gang of bloodthirsty demons after us, not to mention Sirhan and his pack, and whatever the hell they want with me.… Daniel may be the only one who can stop Caleb from killing us and then taking over the strongest werewolf pack in the country and doing who knows what horrendous things with his newfound power. Because when Sirhan dies, Daniel will be the only true alpha left on this side of the planet, if not the whole world. That sounds pretty ‘big picture’ to me!”

  My voice had risen louder than I’d meant it to. From the expressions on their faces I could tell I must look all wild-eyed and insane. How could I make them understand?

  “And I miss him,” I said, my voice much softer now. “I miss him so bad, it makes my heart ache like there’s something inside of it, pushing out, and the whole thing is just going to burst open at any moment if the pressure gets any greater. I miss being held in his arms.” I turned to April because I felt more comfortable telling her these things than my dad or Gabriel. “I miss that look he gets in his eyes when he’s really in the groove with a new painting. I miss the look in his eyes when he looks at me. I miss how everything I said to him was important. Like I was the most important person in the world to him. And now, I don’t even know if he understands me when I speak.”

  “Gracie…”

  I shook my head to stop Dad from interrupting. “It feels like he’s dead. Only it’s worse because he’s still here. Only it isn’t him. Not completely. He’s physically here, stuck inside that white wolf, and at the same time he’s never felt so far away. He’s not Daniel. We don’t even know what he is.” I looked back at Gabriel and Dad. “I swore I wouldn’t give up on him. And I’d move a whole damn mountain if I thought it would change him back. So how can you ask me to give up and go to school when all I have to do is search some abandoned warehouse for a few priceless stones that might change him back?”

  “Letting you go to the warehouse in this condition is not an option—”

  “Then I’ll go to Sirhan,” I said, even though that idea scared me more than the warehouse. “He’s the keeper of the rest of the moonstones, isn’t he?”

  Gabriel nodded solemnly, and I knew he’d been thinking the same thing.

  “Over my dead body,” Dad said. “The warehouse is foolhardy, but going to Sirhan is akin to suicide. I barely survived my encounter with him, and I’m not allowing any of you to go. He hates Daniel for being Caleb’s son, so what makes you think he’d want to help him?”

  This time I could see my dad’s point. I knew Gabriel was in hot water with Sirhan for not returning weeks ago—with me as his unwilling guest. If we sent Gabriel to get a moonstone for Daniel, I had serious doubts we’d ever see him again. And I didn’t know what Sirhan wanted with me, but the pure fact that he had ordered Gabriel to bring me to him made me fear him even more than Caleb sometimes. If I went to Sirhan, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to come back. And then there was the fact that Daniel had been banished from Sirhan’s pack, not only for being Caleb’s son but also because Sirhan recognized Daniel as a true alpha. I had no idea what they might do to him now that he’d embraced his own true alpha–ness. Sirhan might see Daniel as the ultimate threat.

  “I won’t go to Sirhan if you let me go to the warehouse. But I need to go soon. I’m afraid if Daniel keeps wandering farther into the forest … that he won’t come back again at all.” We’d heard him howling again last night, and it had sounded much farther away. I’d sent Marcos and Ryan to quiet him down, and they’d told me they’d had to run for almost a half hour at full speed to get to him in the depths of the woods.

  Dad sighed. “Then let me go for you.”

  “That’s a terrible idea, Paul,” Gabriel said. “If anyone should go, it should be me.”

  “You and the girls have school. I’ll go tomorrow while it’s daylight. I can at least have a look around to see what I can find.”

  “No way. You don’t have any powers at all. That’s even more dangerous than me going.” I couldn’t believe how quickly this conversation had turned surreal. I was used to Dad trying to convince me not to wander into dangerous places—but the vice-versa situation suddenly made me understand why he worried so much. “What if someone is waiting there—?”

  “So you acknowledge the danger now?” Dad folded his arms in front of his chest.

  I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have a response.

  “I’ll go with him,” came a familiar voice from the doorway of the office.

  I spun around to find Talbot standing there. He wore his favorite blue baseball cap and held a bowl from the parish kitchen filled with parking lot gravel in one hand. The thumb of his other hand was jammed into one of his belt loops next to his Texas Ranger star-shaped belt buckle. He gave me a look like someone who was crashing a party he knew he wasn’t invited to.

  I scowled. “What the heck is he doing here?”

  “Good evening to you, too, kid,” he said, and tipped his baseball cap to me and then winked at April.

  My hands balled into fists. I’m pretty sure I’d warned him what I’d do the next time he called me “kid.”

  “I come bearing gifts, at least,” he said, and indicated the bowl of rocks. “Those boys out there looked like they were about to fall over. I sent most of them home. Marcos and I are sharing rock duty for a while.”

  By home I assumed he meant Maryanne Duke’s old house, where the boys had been crashing for the time being—until Dad and I can figure out what the heck to do with five homeless teenage werewo
lves.

  “But that still doesn’t explain why you came here in the first place,” I said. “I told you to stay away from me.”

  “I asked Talbot to take the night shift with Jude,” Gabriel said. “I need to get some rest since I’ll have to deal with a couple hundred high school students tomorrow.” He stifled a yawn that must have been brought on by the very prospect of it. I still found it hard to believe that Dad had hired an eight-hundred-some-year-old werewolf to teach religion at the Christian private school I attended. But I found it even harder to understand why Dad and Gabriel would trust Talbot—like he’d had nothing to do with Caleb.

  “You’ve got him babysitting Jude now?”

  Not that I didn’t agree that Jude needed someone to keep an eye on him while he … adjusted to being back in Rose Crest. I just didn’t think that person should be Talbot. I know it’d been revealed that Talbot was Gabriel’s great-great-add-in-a-few-dozen-more-greats nephew, but I hoped the sudden familial obligation Gabriel felt toward Talbot didn’t come back to bite him.

  “Thank you, Talbot,” Dad said, ignoring my comment. “I’ll take you up on the offer to accompany me to the warehouse.” He picked up a couple of books and stuffed them in his briefcase. “So it’s settled. Grace, have April take you home so you can get some sleep before school tomorrow. I have to do some visits at the nursing home in the morning, and then Talbot and I will head over to the warehouse around lunch. I want to make sure we get out of there before nightfall.”

  “Sounds good,” Talbot said.

  “But—” I tried to protest.

  “I said it was settled.” Dad snapped his briefcase shut and gave me a look that said that if I pushed one more time, nobody would be going to the warehouse. Then his eyes softened. “Let me do this for you, Grace. Let me be your father and protect you when I still can. Let’s make sure Daniel has a future to come back to.”

  “Okay,” I said softly. “Marcos is still outside, isn’t he?”

  Talbot nodded.

  “Ask him if he’ll go with you, too.” I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I didn’t want my dad going anywhere alone with Talbot.

  “Okay,” Dad said.

  I grabbed my jacket.

  “Maybe you should go visit your brother on the way out,” Dad said. “I think he’d appreciate seeing you.”

  “Not tonight,” I said softly; then I sidestepped around Talbot and went out the office door.

  April gathered up her things and followed me out into the foyer. She stopped when I passed the stairwell that led to the basement of the parish where Jude was holed up—locked up—for observation.

  “I’m going to drop off some dinner for Jude.” April held up the paper sack from the Rose Crest Café. “Do you want to come down with me? Your dad is right. I think Jude would like to see you.”

  I shook my head and leaned against the wall. “I’ll wait.”

  “You’ve been practically living at the parish for the last few days, and you haven’t been down there to see him once. After everything you went through to get him back … it just doesn’t seem like you to ignore him like this.”

  “I know.” It wasn’t very grace-like at all. It’s just that there had been something in my brother’s eyes the last time I looked him in the face—back in the warehouse when I found out he’d asked to come home—that’d scared me. They didn’t look like his eyes at all. Like my brother wasn’t my brother anymore. I didn’t know if it was just a flash of emotion I’d seen—guilt, anger, remorse—or if his eyes were telling me we’d brought a monster back with us instead of Jude.

  I wasn’t ready to go see him yet because I was afraid of what I might find if I looked him in the eyes again.

  What if I didn’t see my brother there at all?

  April gave me a sad smile and then headed for the stairs.

  “Be careful,” I said. “We still don’t know why Jude asked to come back home. I don’t want you to get hurt.” emotionally or physically.

  April nodded, and I felt a pang of guilt as I let her go down the stairs without me.

  “Grace?”

  I sighed heavily and turned away from Talbot. He’d followed us out into the hall—I should have known that I wouldn’t get by him so easily. I pursed my lips, determined not to talk to him.

  “What you said in there, about Daniel not being able to—”

  “Stop,” I said. I’d never been very good at holding my tongue. “You don’t have the right to ask me anything about him.”

  “Then can I ask when you’re going to give me another chance? When are you going to trust me?”

  “I trusted you before, Talbot. I trusted you when I thought you were the only person on my side. You were supposed to be my mentor. I thought you were my friend. But you were working for Caleb all along. You were the enemy.” You’re one of the people responsible for what happened to Daniel.

  “You seem to be forgetting the part where I turned on Caleb and tried to help you escape. And then I used my powers to help heal you. Do you know how difficult that all was? But I did it because I care about you. Because we are friends. I’m on your side now.” He sighed. “So what more do I have to do to prove to you that I’m a changed man?”

  I was quiet until I heard April’s footsteps coming back up the stairs from the basement. “Keep my father safe tomorrow,” I said, and stepped outside through the exit doors without looking back.

  Chapter Five

  SILVER BULLETS

  MONDAY, AT SCHOOL

  If Dad had thought a day at school would be good for my sanity, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Part of the “home and hospital” arrangement for Daniel was that I was supposed to gather his missed assignments from his teachers through the day. Which meant I was hit over and over again in the gut each time I was asked how he was doing, and had to lie through my teeth about how his doctor thought it should only be a few more days, and how appreciative he was that they were willing to let him make up his assignments. I swear my neck must have looked like it was on fire considering how many fibs I had to tell.

  To add insult to injury, Daniel’s homework pile was so heavy I had to use some of my superstrength just to heft my backpack around. He’d missed almost a whole week of school before the midterm break, and since the policy for sick leave was that he still needed to turn in his assignments by the end of this month—it meant that I was going to have a lot to do in the next few weeks if I wanted to keep Daniel from flunking out of high school.

  As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate.

  But things only got worse in fourth period when Mr. Barlow handed me two thin manila envelopes in addition to a stack of drawing exercises for Daniel. “I think you’ll be needing these,” he said. “I’m sure Daniel has been asking about it. Thought I’d put his mind at ease so he can rest and get better.”

  My expression must have said something like, Huh? because Barlow tapped the envelopes on top the pile and said, “They’re your and Daniel’s letters for Trenton.”

  “Letters for Trenton?”

  “Don’t tell me Daniel’s forgotten about the application due date? If so, we’d better get a whole team of doctors in there to look him over. Might have fever-induced amnesia or something.”

  Oh no! I almost dropped the whole stack of papers. How could I have forgotten about our Trenton applications? If there was one thing Daniel wanted (other than to regain his human form, I suppose), it was admission into the Amelia Trenton Art Institute. It had one of the best industrial design departments in the country—and was pretty much everything Daniel had staked his future on.

  “No,” I said. “Of course not. He’s just been a little slow at getting things together. Being … sick and all.” I bit my lip. “Is there any chance they’d accept a late application?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Barlow stroked his jowls. “It’s a competitive school. All their slots and the waiting list will fill up just from the applications that are turned i
n on time. Both you and Daniel will need to get your applications, essays, letters of recommendation, and your portfolios turned in by Friday of this week, or neither of you stands a chance—no matter how good your work is.” Barlow put his hand on my shoulder. “I wish there was something more I could do.”

  “No.” I indicated the letters. “These are enough.” I left Barlow’s office and headed for my desk. My hands were shaking, and I wanted to put all those papers down before I lost them all over the floor.

  “You okay?” Katie Summers asked as she slipped into the empty seat that should have been occupied by Daniel. I wanted to tell her to move, but instead I gave a slight smile and said, “Yeah. I’m just worried about Daniel, you know.”

  “I bought him a little present to help him feel better.” She smiled sweetly, but I couldn’t help noticing that the regulation khakis and polo shirt required by HTA’s conservative dress code looked down right salacious the way she wore them. Katie was one of those girls who could make anything seem sexy. “I was thinking I’d stop by his place this afternoon to drop it off.”

  “No!” I practically shouted. “I mean, he’s like super-freaking-contagious. You don’t want to go over there.” The last thing I needed was for Katie to show up at Daniel’s place to find not only that he was missing, but also that a pack of teenage were-boys lived there—especially looking like she did.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, scrunching her nose. “Will you give it to him for me then?”