“I’m Gracie, ma’am,” I forced myself to say, ignoring the fact it came out kind of hoarse and that my heart was starting to beat fast enough that she’d be able to sense it.
“Gracie,” she repeated slowly as if savoring the word. “You children with your English names.”
I wanted to apologize. “It’s Altagracia on my birth certificate.”
Her eyes glowed faintly purple.
“Ximena is my middle name.”
A little smile played at the corners of her mouth, but it didn’t feel that friendly even though it looked like it wanted to. “Altagracia Ximena Castro. You may call me Grandmother.”
I had full-on goose bumps.
This was his grandma. How the hell else would she know my last name?
“I met your grandfather once.”
The fear suddenly left me, and I sat up straight. “You did?”
“Oh, yes. When he was young.” She smiled big, and I had to tell myself not to pee. “I lived in Limón for a time. You smell just like him, and he smelled just like his mother and grandmother.”
He had always smelled great, like almonds or something sweet. “He passed away a few years ago,” I said, even though I had a feeling…
She didn’t look surprised. “He had a long life. It’s the best end any of us could ask for.” Her gaze moved over mine again before her eyes flicked creepy quick toward the door, a moment before I heard a knock, then Alex’s careful voice as he called out, “Gracie?” There was a loud clearing of his throat before he spoke again, his voice stiff. “Greetings, Grandmother.”
“It’s about time you came to see me, Alexander,” the older woman said. “I had to get Asami to borrow your Gracie to get you to come.”
His Gracie?
“Don’t be angry with me,” she continued on, not asking, but telling him. “I assisted you as much as I could.”
Absolutely nothing registered on his stoic features. “I’m not. I understand.”
Understand what? And what did he have to be angry over?
“Hi, Uncle Lexi. I picked up Uncle Leon’s tractor yesterday. Can we play Trouble now?” Asami’s sweet, little voice asked. “Please?”
She’d picked up a fucking tractor?
I heard Alex’s steps, but my mind had already stuck on to what she had said.
Luck was one thing.
And this… this definitely didn’t feel like that at all.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
“Bye, Gracie!”
“Bye, Asami!” I called out over my shoulder as I followed Alex out of the game room an hour and a long—and eerie—game of Trouble later.
Seeing Alex sitting beside me at the table in a beautiful tux, pressing the little bubble in the middle and moving his pieces around the board, smiling occasionally at the ruthless girl sitting between me and who I was sure was her great-grandmother had been something else.
He called her “stinky,” and she’d hooted, and I’d almost fainted. But that was beside the point.
On the other hand, watching said grandmother sitting at the table, her back totally straight, her long fingers plucking at pieces as well, while the most primal, raw power radiated from her in invisible waves was probably also going to be stuck in my head and body for a long time.
In my nightmares more like it.
I felt nauseous.
I was pretty sure I’d seen her mouth the number that appeared every time the dice was rolled a second before it settled.
She had nodded often, and her expressions were pleasant, but when her gaze landed on you… it was like being spotted by a shark in the middle of the ocean with no way of escaping. Like being in the middle of a field during a lightning storm. Honestly, she scared the shit out of me, and I had no real reason why she had that effect on me, but she did.
And that’s exactly what I told Alex when we were reentering the ballroom.
“So, your grandma is terrifying,” I whispered. “I thought your mom was intimidating, but she took it to a whole new level.”
His attention was up and forward, but I watched him huff. He’d seemed distracted throughout the game, and I had a feeling it had to do with the tension none of us had been able to ignore between him and his grandmother. I’d noticed Asami, the tractor-carrying child, peeking back and forth between them. There had also been that weird comment about him being mad at her. It hadn’t been an angry type of tension, but I had seen a smug smile cross her features when they’d made eye contact once or twice.
It had been like seeing a car about to hit an ice patch, knowing it was about to spin out of control and hit a road barrier, and not be able to look away.
Alex’s grunt was off, rougher than usual. “She likes it that way. I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did in her presence. Most people can’t.”
Maybe that explained why I felt so weird. “Really?”
Alex glanced down. “Selene says she’s like looking at the sun. Agatha met her once and hasn’t seen her since. She says she saw her life flash before her eyes and claims she knows the day she’s going to die.”
My eyes went wide. “That’s amazing and scary as hell at the same time.”
He raised his eyebrows in a mix of pride and wariness and maybe something else.
“What is she?” I asked.
“She says she’s the last full-blooded one of our kind. She’s the strongest… the most powerful of all of us.”
My mouth dropped open. “Oh shit.”
Then I processed what he’d said. He was part human.
Those bluish-purple eyes flicked toward me, and he nodded. “She can’t be around most people because they sense what she is. Or at least, they know she isn’t like everyone else unless she wants to hide it, and she rarely bothers. Her abilities go… further than the rest of ours.”
I didn’t want to ask, but chances were a drop of sweat was about to roll down my spine.
“She’s the one who wanted you to find me, right?”
Somehow his grunt sounded suspicious, but I wasn’t about to poke at it too much. I already had too much to think about. Turning my attention toward the ballroom, I spotted a waiter making his way over, holding a tray of something. “Say, Alex, she knew my grandpa.”
I peeked at him. He raised an eyebrow, not looking surprised even a tiny bit.
“She said she met him in Costa Rica.”
“She lived in a lot of places before coming here seventy years ago.”
“I wanted to talk to her more about it, but you know, she’s kind of scary. I wonder if she was friends with my great-grandmother.”
He turned to me slowly, measuring his words, thinking a thousand words a minute from the look in his eye.
I got this feeling again, just a tickle in my stomach. “Just out of curiosity, how powerful is she? Like really?” I asked.
“She’s the reason why the Trinity was formed, Gracie,” he answered. “We think she might have had a vision of what would happen if some of us didn’t come out in the open, and that’s why she pushed it.”
Oh boy.
“I only know a fraction of what she’s capable of. My mother told us to never ask for more information unless she offered it first. There’s a reason she picks and chooses who she meets.”