Losing Grace Chapter X: What Can I Do?, a secret circle series fanfic

TITLE: Losing Grace formerly titled Green

DISCLAIMER: Nightworld concepts belong to LJ Smith. Characters belong to me…ask if in the unlikely event that any take your fancy and you want to use them. SUMMARY: "…Joseph would never use her like he had used other girls. He had never fed from her and never would unless she let him. Harri's name entered her mind unbidden; Harri was with her soulmate right now. Harri who's innocent smile made Gracie want to slash the girl's throat with a nice sharp and pointy kitchen knife…."

Gracie Bismarck always knew that her relationship with her soulmate Joseph Hannah wouldn't be easy, but she never expected so many humans to get in her way.

WARNING: As you may have noticed from Chapter VI I like to use all of my English vocabulary…unfortunately this means that some words classified as 'swear,' words are used, simply because I'm not a saint and don't have the literary skill to imply that a character has used these words without actually stating what they are…sorry if this offends anyone.

NOTE: I changed the tittle…I didn't think Green suited it much…but anyhow still the same story.

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Sorry for any inconvenience, last time I check on this story the chapter didn't end where I though it did….so I'm updating Chapter 10 again….make sure you get to last scene with Ari and Harri…that means it worked..

CHAPTER X

Ari watched his soulmate pace. She was pacing back and forward. It was strange and reminded him of the caged tigers at the zoo, but Harriet Miller was no tigress.

Harriet Miller was human.

For all of her nightworld conscience she couldn't change that. The fact that Harri destroyed her friendships willy-nilly, and manipulated people constantly, didn't make her anymore nightworld than the next human.

Ari wondered if he was disappointed. He got a human, not a nightworlder. Not someone who would understand the secrets. He got someone who would reject what had been hidden from them all their life. He had got someone who would reject him. Ari shook his head. No, that wasn't right. He was the one already rejecting her. She was abhorrent, detestable and utterly immoral. Besides there was Gracie... Gracie who had lived in his heart for so long. He was not going to let her be shoved aside by the manipulative tigress that passed in front of him. The air tingled as he felt her body heat pass. He knew that wasn't normal. It wasn't right. Harri should not be the one to do that to him. Gracie should be.

He loved Gracie.

The words he had spoken to Boss echoed in his mind 'Soulmates aren't always meant for each other.' Ari shook his head. God, he didn't know how to deal with this. He didn't know how Gracie had coped with Joseph Hannah for the three months she had known about him. He had only just found out that Harri was his soulmate three hours ago, and he had no idea how he was going to deal with it.

Harri looked up at him. Ari realised that she could hear him. Hear his thoughts, and his uncertainties. Ari looked away. He didn't want to see the crushed sadness in her eyes. He knew it would be there, he could feel how his thoughts were affecting her. He felt the rush of determination that swept her frame. She would prove to him that she was decent. Ari wanted to laugh, how could she prove that?

"Christ, Ari, you think I know? I don't know why I care so much about your opinion of me, I never did before…" Anger raged in her, it was mixing with the determination. Melding with it, turning it in to molten lava stubbornness.

It stung him, oh everything him stung him. He knew that maybe he should just leave it. Let it be. Nothing good could come of it.

"You're right," Harri told him, anger and stubbornness burning in her throat. How dare he think that nothing good could come of this? The furious indignant look came over her face, and Ari was struck by how much she looked like the seven year old memory. He could almost hear her cry 'you cheated!' A wry smile crawled over his lips. Oh, it was amazing, truly amazing.

"Look, I just think that we're not meant to be together. Or at least, we're not meant to be together right now." We're too young, the thought whispered in his mind, too young…too young for what? Too young for love? Too young to work out our differences? The word love sent revulsion through him. He could never love her, he didn't even think he could bring himself to like her, but he couldn't argue with the Old Powers. There had to be a reason they were put together, a very unfathomable reason, but still a reason.

Harri sighed, she agreed. It was too sudden, too rare, and way too bizarre. "I just don't know how to cope with…well, everything."

Ari stared at her; neither of them knew how to cope. Or was that just his helplessness being transmitted into her? He hardly knew where he ended and she began. It was too much. "Well that makes two of us," Ari sighed. He couldn't deal with this. Maybe he should just go on with his original plan. Kill her and leave. He could never go back and face Gracie now, not that he had ever really intended to. The girl who stood before him had caused so much damage to the witch he loved. Harri had crossed the edge of the map and was in a place where Dragons be.

The girl had finally stopped pacing was staring at him with the same intensity his eyes held. He knew that it was the link between them that was doing this. After all, he could never lose himself in her eyes. Harri's eyes were deep, but had the dark murky brown-green that turbid water had. He did not want to drown in her eyes; he did not want to be pulled under by the mesmerising link that hummed between them, the link that made him feel like he was betraying Gracie, like he was betraying himself.

"No," he whispered, the word a ghost on his thin curving lips. He felt her fingers trail across his cheekbones, and he shivered. This was not right.

"Shhh," Harri whispered. She seemed as if she was in a trance, unable to wake from the deep magick that had come over her.

Ari stepped away, sensing the assurance the link wanted to pour into him, the comfort that she was being made to give. He didn't want this. He should just leave. Leave forever.

Her other hand reached out, searching for his hand, wanting to enclose his palm in hers. He moved it away; he was not going to be apart of this.

"Harriet," Ari tried to reach her verbally. Snapping her out of her thrall. Her hazel eyes focused and disappointment coursed through them.

Ari flinched. He didn't want to be made to feel every emotion she felt, he didn't want this heightened awareness of her.

"Is there anyway to get rid of this?" Harri asked, tears welling in her eyes. The link manipulated him. He went to her; he could no longer suffer her emotions. Their skin lit up as their forearms touched. Ari tried to ignore it. He wondered if the feeling would ever go away. Harri moulded to his arms, and sobbed. Ari was startled by the way she fitted so snugly against his body. He rubbed her back, trying everything he could to stop her from feeling these depressing emotions. She looked up at him, her hands cupping his. Ari couldn't look away, physical contact made him powerless, and he was sure she knew this.

"What can I do to make you not despise me?"

Gracie found her stepbrother. He looked disturbed, and angry. Gracie wondered why. Ursula had so kindly escorted her back to the rec room. Gracie wanted to hex the 'shifter, but knew better than to mess with an agent, especially an agent who had Shade Garland as a comrade and friend. Peter looked up at her as she sat in an armchair. She wanted to be alone, but she felt safer around someone. She wasn't quite sure if what she did was right. Was it an insult to the Old Powers if one rejected one's soulmate?

She sighed and her stepbrother looked up, a sullen look in his brown eyes. He didn't say anything. Just stared at her, no, he didn't stare at her. He stared through her. It was as if he wasn't seeing anything.

"Have they found Ari?" Gracie questioned him; she didn't want to think about the blue eyes that she knew as well as her own. She didn't want to feel guilty about going against the Powers. She knew that what she had done was right for her, but was it right for him?

"No," Peter replied to her verbalised question coldly. He wasn't the boy that had laughed and joked with Lily-May when they decided it would be fun to gang up on her. He wasn't even the protective stepsibling that had warned her against her soulmate.

"Oh," Gracie sighed. She was clam now. Everything was going to be all right. She had a deep-rooted anger at Harriet Miller, and that girl would get her 'just deserts' but she didn't feel like inflicting unbearable pain on the girl that had been her friend since primary school, right this moment.

"Rosie stopped by," the words sounded distant as if they weren't really sincere, but they weren't insincere either. They were just empty, devoid of what she wanted to hear from her older, slightly more mature stepbrother. Seven years was a long time, they had slowly accepted each other as a member of each other's family, as a member of each other's life. They had accepted each other's presence in their homes and their acceptance had forged a friendship, and now Gracie really did think of Peter Haywood as her brother, despite his human blood, and different surname. Pete was her brother, and she wouldn't forget what he had done for her over the years.

"Why wasn't she out looking for him?" Gracie asked. The empty conversation was keeping her mind away from the hum, away from the treacherous part of her that she would have to ignore if her and Joseph's separation were to succeed.

"Boss bumped her off," Peter had wondered the same thing. Ari Lindsay was Rosie's partner, wouldn't she know where to find him better than the rest of the CD agents?

Graci furrowed her brows. She had a strong disliking for that woman. Today's events were what started it. Before today Gracie had respect for Boss Cedars, even admiration, but not now. Now, Gracie wanted the vampire fired, striped of her rank, but Gracie couldn't do that. She was a civilian. Gracie wondered how Boss could lose all track of one her agents. Ari Lindsay was her friend if not today's saviour. How could Boss just lose him like that? Wouldn't an organisation like Circle Daybreak have a way to keep tabs on all of its agents?

"Bugger," Gracie sighed, she dug around the armchair she was sitting on. She felt a hard rectangular shape press into her buttocks. She found the remote control that had been thrown there in a moment of Peter's frustration.

"Yeah," Peter sighed, "What do you know about Rosie and Ari?" he asked, some form of emotion sparking in his voice.

Gracie looked at her eighteen year old stepbrother, "Oh not much, Ari's," well, what could she say about Ari. She didn't really know much about the golden-eyed shapeshifter apart from his physically features, his animal, and that he was a CD agent. "Distant most of the time," yeah, that was right. Ari Lindsay was mostly distant around her, despite the fact that he was constant presence. He was always there, a flash of lithe golden eyed and haired boy. He was always around the centre, around school, or the mall. Ari had always been in her life since she moved with her father to be with Phyllis. "and Rosie? She was a bad ass, now she's as Daybreaky as they come. She used to be a lacer. She used to lace humans' blood with drugs and sell them. She was a very rich fifteen year old when they brought her in"

Peter looked down at his hands, and Gracie wanted to know what was wrong with him. The humming was distracting her, or Peter was distracting her from the humming. Either way she knew she was being distracted.

Gracie heard soft pads come into the room and she looked up in to ice blue eyes, they were a lighter shade than Joseph's but they belonged to the same sort of creature. The angular cheekbones of Lincoln Chalcedony emanated annoyance.

"What do you want?" Gracie asked her 'bodyguard,' the trio's annoying presence outside the room and their shadowlike stalking of her was really beginning to irritate her. She wasn't going to hurt any one any more! At leas not tonight, she wouldn't hurt Harriet Miller until she came up with a sufficient curse that made the girl feel every inch of jealously and seething anger she had felt at the girl's casual advances on her soulmate. Oh, Gracie didn't care that she had broken up with Joseph; she still wanted to damage the source of all her suffering.

"I'm going home now," Lincoln pronounced, equally as irritated and annoyed. He did after all have better things to be doing than babysitting a witch that seemed to have little to no spunk about her. In fact his charge didn't seem at all like the vengeance-filled raging sorceress that Boss had painted so beautifully when assigning him to guard her tonight.

Gracie waved her hand at him, "run along now." That had brought her some vindictive pleasure, dismissing him so facetiously.

Lincoln glared at her, and Gracie smiled shrugging turning back to her stepbrother. He was tense; she could see how his muscles were locked in place to lunge. Gracie worried slightly; Peter was no match for the vampire who was walking out now as she spoke. " Pete, what's up with you?"

Peter just looked at her, ice in his warm brown eyes.

"What can I do to make you not despise me?"

Ari pushed her away. Harriet felt foreign emotions in the pit of her stomach. She knew that there was something wrong with this situation. She knew that he wanted her as much as she wanted to be dipped in boiling hot wax. The rush of emotions that had made her ask that question confused her. Why did she care about what Ari thought of her?

Harri knew that she didn't really care; her real self didn't want Ari Lindsay in her room. Her real self wanted Joseph Hannah to laugh and flirt with. Her real self didn't really want the fair haired angel of vengeance that was attempting to comfort her. Oh, Ari was alluring, she wouldn't deny that, and what he had explained to her in that golden world did explain a lot of things, but her real self couldn't believe it. She couldn't really believe that Ari was an eagle shifter or that Joseph was a vampire. She would find the fact that Ari was her soulmate hard to believe, except she had these overriding emotions mixing with her real ones and that she could hear and feel what Ari was thinking. It only left her with one conclusion.

Everything Ari had said was true.

She was pretty sure that this new knowledge changed her world. It would change the way she looked at people.

Ari commanded her attention. He managed to drop her hands. She felt relief in some small twisted way. It made her feel as if she had some remnants of control despite the fact that it had been Ari who had pulled away.

"I don't think you can do anything Harri," the words were so solemn, so definite. The link between them wanted to protest, wanted to try and convince him that there was something. The real Harri quelled it, accepted that she couldn't change is opinion. The real Harri didn't want to.

Harri sighed as she got up. She was going to be careful about looking into Ari's eyes. She had a feeling that this link was made stronger whenever they looked into each other's eyes, and she didn't want to make it stronger.

"So what do we do?" Harri asked. She had to have some plan of attack, some way to deal with what was happening between them.

"Ignore it," the answer was too simple. Harri nodded, how did you ignore something that was trying to mix you with another person. "It'll be hard, but we can and will ignore it. It doesn't change anything."

Harri nodded, her inner-self happy with Ari's incomplete solution. Yes, they would ignore it. After all, the link had to have been there throughout the entire time they had known each other. It wasn't apparent then, so why should it be now?