Gifts of the Blood by Vicki Keire Read Free Book Online Page B

brother’s usually reserved orange cat crouched down in Ethan’s lap and rolled right onto her back.
    Him: “You’re wobbly, for a human.”
    Me: “You’re inhumanly fast.”
    Abigail’s belly was white and star-shaped. Ethan’s warm fingers moved in lazy figure eights across its surface. I stared. Cats rarely expose their bellies; it’s a sign of extreme trust. Abby only did it with Logan, and only once or twice, when she’d fallen asleep. He’d had her since she was a kitten. With others, she rarely got past the hissing and hiding phase. But there she was, fully awake and playful, stretched out belly-up across a total stranger’s lap.
    Human. Inhuman.
    My nausea morphed into the cold ache of fear. Maybe I had hit my head harder than I realized. Maybe I was crazy, after all.
    Abigail’s purr increased in volume before doubling and deepening until it sounded like there were two cats next to me writhing in ecstasy. Ethan stared down at her, his fingers still moving across her belly, his light eyes half-lidded and his mouth slightly open, the edges curled as if discovering a smile. I realized the other half of the double purr was coming from the back of his throat.
    “You speak cat.” I think I meant to be funny, but my voice came out flat and strange. His mouth snapped shut and his fingers quit moving, to Abigail’s indignation. She yowled but he ignored her, his blue-green eyes trained on my gray ones.
    “Caspia,” he said evenly. “You said you drew me.” I nodded carefully. “Does anyone else know of this drawing?”
    I blinked. He was so matter-of-fact, so accepting. Even my own brother had trouble accepting what I could do. Ethan’s unconditional acceptance unnerved me almost more than his inhuman speed, his ability to win total strangers’ trust, his strength, his appearance in my sketch, or the fact that he spoke cat. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m crazy? Aren’t you going to tell me it’s impossible? That no one can draw the future?”
    “I know you’re not crazy,” he said patiently, but his tone didn’t match his eyes. His eyes looked stormy. Instead of a steady glow, the light behind his blue-green eyes began to flicker exactly like gathering lightening. He flexed his hands against his thighs, the heather gray fabric of his pants mysteriously free of cat hair. He seemed agitated.
    “Amberlyn,” I blurted out. “She saw the sketch, but she doesn’t know what it means, and she didn’t seem to recognize you. And I tried to tell Logan, but you see how well that went.”
    He nodded once, and then dropped his head as if in prayer or deep thought. He put a hand on one elbow, as if to guide me or keep me from running. “Can you show me this drawing that frightened you so badly you screamed the first time you saw me?”
    I shrugged, trying to act like I didn’t care, but truthfully, suddenly I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to produce the frightening, damning drawing that would prove to him I was crazy and strange. I pointed at my knapsack, leaning up against my dresser, mere feet from where we sat. “It’s over there,” I said in a hoarse whisper, unaccountably afraid of something I’d been eager to show Logan earlier. He looked at me once, sharply, before kneeling to retrieve my black, ribbon-bound sketchbook in one easy motion. He held it out to me.
    When I took it from him, our fingertips brushed.
    His skin was like hot porous metal, radiating up my arm in electric spirals. I sucked in a breath and held it. My fingers trembled as I unbound the book. I tried, unsuccessfully, to still my shaking hands. I had to settle for going slowly so as not to damage my work. I flipped past still life drawings in charcoal and pencil of fruit, flowers, and classmates. Pastel drawings of the historic district, Old Town Square, and our ivy-draped patio followed. Finally, I came to the landscapes: Eddington Forest, the St. Clare and Navau Rivers, and the final sketch from today of the