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.”

“No?” he asks, looking confused. “You’re not attracted to—?”

“I mean, no! Just no! I don’t know what, if anything, is going on with Jaxon and me, but we”—I gesture back and forth between us—“are not talking about it.”

“We aren’t?”

“No. We aren’t.” I shake my head emphatically. “Not now, not ever.”

“I swear, talking to you about boys is as bad as trying to talk to Macy about them,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Every time I ask her about Cam, she acts like I asked her to swallow eye of newt or something. But fine. No talking about boys. Except I do need to warn you that Jaxon is—”

“Dangerous. Yeah, Macy’s already ground that into my head. And maybe he is, but he’s never been anything but gentle with me, so—”

“I wasn’t going to say dangerous.” For the first time, there’s a touch of annoyance in his voice. “And you’d know that if you stopped interrupting me.”

“Oh, right.” I can feel myself start to blush. “Sorry.”

He just shakes his head. “What I was going to say is that Jaxon is not like any other boy you’ve ever met.”

“Well, obviously.” I do the same fang-miming thing I did with Macy, and Uncle Finn bursts out laughing, too.

“I meant for a lot more reasons than just his being a vampire, but yes, there is the vampire thing as well.”

Oh. His words set off butterflies in my stomach, though I’m not sure why. “What else is there?” I ask, because I can’t not ask. “I know about his brother—”

“He told you about Hudson?” Now my uncle sounds shocked.

“Just that he died.”

“Oh, yes.” The way his face relaxes tells me there’s a lot more to the story than what I know. Well, that and the fact that everyone has the same reaction when I mention that I know about Hudson. “His death left Jaxon with a lot of responsibility to shoulder—Hudson’s and his own.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, Grace, you can’t.” He looks more somber than I have ever seen him. “Because being a vampire isn’t like being a regular person.”

“Okay. Sure. But he was regular once, right?” I think back on every vampire movie I’ve ever seen, every novel I’ve ever read. “I mean—”

“No. That’s just it. Jaxon was born a vampire.”

Now I’m the shocked one. “What do you mean? I thought all vampires…”

“Not all, no. Vampires can be made—in fact, most of them are. But they can also be born. Jaxon was born, as were the other members of the Order. And that means…a lot in our world.”

I can’t even begin to imagine what it means, because I’m still stuck on his vampires can be born revelation. “But how? I mean, I thought you had to be bitten to become a vampire?”

“Usually, yes. But that’s assuming they want to turn you. If they don’t, you just get a bite. Like…”