I squeeze my eyes shut as the images flood back, desperate to stem them before they fill my head. Before they overwhelm me and bury me in the grief I’m only just learning how to crawl out of.

The pain must show on my face, because suddenly my uncle is breaking the silence to ask, “Are you sure you’re okay, Grace? That chandelier was huge—and terrifying.”

It was huge and terrifying, and I’m not sure how my life has gone so completely out of control. Five weeks ago, Heather and I were shopping for homecoming dresses and complaining about AP English. Now I’m an orphan living with half an encyclopedia of supernatural creatures and dodging death on the regular. At this rate, my only hope is that the universe doesn’t hold a Final Destination–type grudge.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, because physically I am. There’s not even a scratch on me—or at least, not a new one. “Just a little shaken up.”

“Give me a break, kid. I’m traumatized, and I wasn’t even there. I can’t believe you’re only a little shaken up.” He reaches for the hand I have resting on the desk and pats it a little awkwardly. I know he’s trying to be comforting, but his eyes are filled with worry as they search my face.

I do my best to make sure there’s nothing for him to find there, and I must succeed because, eventually, he shakes his head and leans back in his chair. “You’re just like your mother, you know that? She always faced whatever life handed her head-on, too. No tears, no hysterics, just cool, calm resolve.”

His casual mention of my mom now—when I’m missing her so much—destroys me, has me squeezing my hands into fists and digging my nails into my palms in an effort to keep it together.

It helps that Uncle Finn doesn’t stay there, dwelling on my mom’s incredible ability to take everything in stride—something I haven’t inherited, no matter what my uncle thinks. Instead, he pulls something up on the computer and prints it out.

“You really sure you’re okay? You don’t want Marise to check you out?” he asks for what feels like the millionth time.

No freaking way. I know Macy said she bit me so that she could mend my artery, but that doesn’t mean I’m anxious to let her near my throat again—or any other part of my anatomy, for that matter. “I swear I’m fine. It’s Jaxon you should be concerned about. He shielded me from the glass.”

“I’ve already requested that Marise check him out,” he tells me. “And I’ll call him in later to thank him for saving my favorite niece from harm.”

“Only niece,” I remind him, falling into the game we’ve played my entire life. It’s a tiny bit of normalcy in this day that is anything but normal, and I grab on to it with both hands.

“Only and favorite,” he tells me. “One doesn’t discount the other.”

“Okay, favorite uncle. I guess it doesn’t.”

“Exactly!” His slightly strained smile turns into a delighted grin. But it doesn’t last long as silence once again descends between us.

This time I can’t stop myself from fidgeting—not because I’m nervous but because I want to get out of here and get to Jaxon. He looked like he was on edge earlier, and I just want to make sure nothing bad happens—to him or anyone else.

But Uncle Finn obviously takes my fidgeting for something else entirely, because he rubs a hand over his hair with a heavy sigh. Then says, “So now that the cat is out of the bag…”

“Don’t you mean the werewolf?” I ask with a raised brow. “Or do you have cat shifters up here, too?”

He laughs. “Nope, just the wolves and dragons for now.”

“Just.” My tone is ripe with irony.

“You must have a lot of questions.”

A lot? Nah. Just two or three million. Starting with the question I asked earlier that he chose not to answer. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could have told me when you asked me to move to Alaska, when you came for the funerals.”

“I figured you were pretty overwhelmed then, and the last thing you needed was for me to try to convince you that vampires and witches are real.”

It’s a fair point. But still… “And after I got here?”

He blows out a long breath. “I figured I would ease you in slowly. That first night, I had planned to let you know that things were different here than you might expect, but you had the most miserable altitude sickness. Then everything else happened, and it just seemed easier to leave you in the dark for a while. Especially when Dr. Wainwright told me that after talking to Dr. Blake, she thought we should let you get used to Alaska, and the huge change in your life, before you had to face the fact that everything you’d ever heard about the supernatural world was actually real.”

“Everything?” It’s my turn to lift my brows.

“Maybe not everything. But a lot of it, certainly.”

What he says makes sense, I guess, but I’m still skeptical—especially since I haven’t even had a chance to meet Dr. Wainwright yet. But how could anyone actually think they could hide the fact that this school is filled with things that go bump in the night?

I mean, when I think of Flint jumping out of a tree to save me or Macy doing a glamour right in front of me or the shifters walking around in nothing but a pair of jeans or Jaxon…doing whatever Jaxon does, it seems impossible to imagine I wouldn’t catch on. Sure, I was thinking aliens instead of vampires, but I still knew something was very, very wrong.

My skepticism must show on my face, because my uncle kind of grimaces. “Yeah. In hindsight, it was a bad plan all around. It’s not exactly easy to hide the fact that vampires and dragons are real when we’re in the middle of a giant turf war.”

“Turf war?” I ask, because Macy has already alluded to the same thing. I thought she was talking about high school clique BS, but now that I know we’re talking about different supernatural species…her warning makes a lot more sense.

And seems a lot scarier.

He shakes his head. “That’s for another day. I’m pretty sure you’ve had as much as you can handle today—I know I have. Which leads me to the reason I’ve really called you in here.”

It’s pretty much the most awkward change of subject ever, and I almost call him on it because I know there is more to the story than he’s telling me. A lot more. I’m also sure there are a lot more stories that I don’t have a clue about, let alone the information that fleshes them out. But I don’t think arguing with him is the way to get him to talk.

So instead of demanding answers to all my many, many questions, I bite my tongue and wait to hear what Uncle Finn has to say.

“I was thinking, a lot of really horrible stuff has happened to you since you got here.”

“Not much has actually happened to me,” I remind him. “Jaxon has saved me a bunch of times.”

“I know he has, but we can’t count on Jaxon to always be around. Stuff happens here that doesn’t happen in other schools—as you’ve seen the last few days. What happened with the earthquake was a freak accident, and I’m sure the chandelier was as well. But it’s made me think. What will happen to you if someone loses control of their powers when Jaxon or Flint or Macy isn’t around to whisk you out of the way? What happens if you end up getting seriously hurt?” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Do you think that’s what happened? Someone lost control of their powers?”

“We’re not sure, but that’s the assumption we’re going with right now. Some witch was trying to see what she could do and bam… While we’ve never actually lost a chandelier before, we have had crystals fly across the room. Among other things.”

That might actually be the best news I’ve heard all day, because it means Jaxon was probably freaking out for nothing. No one is trying to kill me—someone just had an oops with their powers and I happened to be in the way. Which makes so much more sense than thinking that someone might actually be out to get me.

“Anyway.” My uncle is back to steepling his fingers. “That’s why I want to send you back to San Diego.”

44

Sweet

Home Alaska

“Send me back?” Horror slides through me like a plane on an icy runway—fast, desperate, all-consuming. “What do you mean? There’s nothing for me there.”

“I know.” He shakes his head sadly. “But I’m beginning to think there’s nothing for you here, either. And at least there, you’ll be safe.”

“You mean like my parents were safe?” The words are torn out of me, ragged and painful and terrified. Going back to San Diego means leaving Jaxon, and I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that, not now, when it’s obvious that something is happening between us. Not now, when he’s the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last before I fall asleep.

“That was a fluke, Grace. A terrible accident—”

“Accidents can happen anywhere. And if something is going to happen to me, I’d rather it happen here when I’m with Macy and you and—” I break off, unwilling to put voice to something I’m just beginning to understand myself. That somehow, in just about a week, Jaxon Vega has come to mean something to me.

But apparently, my uncle is more perceptive than I thought, because he finishes the sentence for me. “Jaxon?” he asks gently.

I don’t answer. I can’t. Whatever is between the two of us is between the two of us. No way can I try to explain it to Uncle Finn.

Then again, my lack of answer is pretty much an answer in and of itself. “I know Jaxon can be…” He pauses, blows out another long breath. “Seductive. I know how the girls feel about him, and I get it. He’s—”

“Uncle Finn! No!” I all but put my hands over my ears to keep from hearing my uncle refer to the boy I’m falling for as “seductive.”