dry eyes was over. Instead of holding it in, she let it out. All of it. Her issues with her grandfather, her parents, her greedy family, and her fear of what was coming—all of it spilled out in wracking sobs. Quentin gently pulled her off the couch and onto his lap, rocking back and forth, stroking her hair with one hand and holding her tightly with the other while she cried.
“This sucks, Quentin,” she sobbed against his chest.
Over and over he shushed her fears and told her it was going to be okay. When the sobs faded away and the tears were finished, she wiped her face with the palms of her hand and noticed the large round wet pools she’d left on his chest. “I’m sorry about your shirt.”
He gazed at her with compassion as he brushed a lock of her hair from her face. “It’s just a shirt. You’re way more important.”
No one had ever been so tender with her. Sure, she’d had a boyfriend before, but she’d never call him tender and he certainly didn’t light any fires within her. His first kiss had been soft and sweet, and totally misleading. The ones that had followed weren’t anything like the first. He’d had one thing on his mind. The only thing on Grace’s mind after she realized what her boyfriend had wanted was to drop him like the slimeball he was. And so she did.
Cutting through her thoughts, Quentin cleared his throat and gently transferred her to the floor. She watched as he got up and walked out of the family room. He came back with the box of tissues he’d brought for her last week.
After pulling a few tissues from the box, he offered them to her. “Here you go.”
She blew her nose, most definitely unladylike, crumpled the tissue, and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans. The gravity of the situation rested heavily against her, pressing her into the floor. Grace tried to see through blurry eyes. “Now what? No more surprises, Quentin. Just give it to me straight. Please.”
“Now you move here to the manor so I can protect you better.”
That was the second time in two days her moving to the manor was brought up. Wondering why in the hell she had to move, she folded her arms over her chest and looked back to Quentin. “How can you protect me better if I live here? And what about my mother?”
Even though she and her mother had their obvious differences, she couldn’t just leave her. If the Shadow Hounds came searching for Grace and found her mother instead… The mere thought sent a violent shiver racing up and down her spine. She couldn’t leave her mom now, even though she’d thought about it.
Quentin’s eyes were guarded as he spoke. “You and I need to be together always, so I can protect you. Your mother will move too.”
Her heart rate was not beating normally, at all. The thought of Shadow Hounds finding her mother kicked her in the chest, but the thought of Quentin being with her always stopped her heart completely. Confused, she shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she should be feeling. But then she wondered if her mom would be willing to move. “What if she won’t? I can’t just leave her.”
Quentin’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Don’t worry about that, she’ll move.”
Instead of arguing the possible reasons Laney might not want to move, or why he seemed different all of a sudden, she relented, trusting in Quentin’s quiet confidence.
“Anything else I should know?”
Grace noticed Quentin taking a couple of steps back, his confidence noticeably wavering. “And, tomorrow you’ll withdraw from Woods Cross.”
Wait, what? Suddenly she felt like she was thrown back in time before women’s suffrage. Any possible aspirations or future plans she had were wiped away as if she had no right to them. Grace was slowly disappearing and the new Chosen was taking over. It was bad enough she didn’t get any choice in being Chosen; she wasn’t going to let it rule every facet of her life. Standing up to Quentin, she squared her shoulders. “I’m not quitting school.”
He stared at her as if she wasn’t speaking English. “Why go to school when you no longer have to? With what your grandfather left you, you won’t have to worry about school or money for the rest of your life.”
“Yeah, and then I’d be no better than the rest of my family,” she scoffed. Tension began