by Alex Lidell
Copyright © 2020 by Alex Lidell
Danger Bearing Press
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Credits:
Edited by Mollie Traver and Linda Ingmanson
Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design
Last Chance Academy
The Immortals of Talonswood Book 1
Alex Lidell
Also by Alex Lidell
New Adult Fantasy Romance
POWER OF FIVE (Reverse Harem Fantasy)
POWER OF FIVE (Audiobook available)
MISTAKE OF MAGIC (Audiobook available)
TRIAL OF THREE (Audiobook available)
LERA OF LUNOS (Audiobook available)
GREAT FALLS CADET (Audiobook available)
GREAT FALLS ROGUE
GREAT FALLS PROTECTOR
IMMORTALS OF TALONSWOOD (Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance)
LAST CHANCE ACADEMY
LAST CHANCE REFORM
Young Adult Fantasy Novels
TIDES
FIRST COMMAND (Audiobook available)
AIR AND ASH (Audiobook available)
WAR AND WIND (Audiobook available)
SEA AND SAND (Audiobook available)
SCOUT
TRACING SHADOWS (Audiobook available)
UNRAVELING DARKNESS (Audiobook available)
TILDOR
THE CADET OF TILDOR
SIGN UP FOR NEW RELEASE NOTIFICATIONS at https://links.alexlidell.com/News
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Preview of Power of Five
1. Leralynn
2. Leralynn
3. Tye
4. Coal
Also by Alex Lidell
About the Author
1
Sam
Sinking into the red vinyl booth at the back of the Lone Moon diner, I slide the manila envelope across the table. The paper whispers over coffee-stained plastic until the man on the other side pins it down with his fingers, as if trapping a mouse. His square jaw clenches as he scans my face, his golden eyes seeming capable of piercing skin. Then, with a flick of his fingers too fast to catch, he picks up the envelope. With his sleeves rolled up at the elbows, I can see the muscles of his forearms shifting as he pulls out the three photos inside, face as hard and unreadable as stone.
Breathe, Sam. I’ve never been intimidated by a client before, and I won’t start now.
Why someone would want photos of a hundred-year-old deed from a lawyer’s office, I have no idea. And I don’t care. My clients don’t come to me for questions. Given that the diamond signet ring on the man’s finger is worth more than the Lone Moon itself, I assume he has his reasons for not just buying a copy.
Either that, or he’s simply stupid. Considering he’s wearing diamonds and a four-thousand-dollar suit to the Newark slums, odds are the latter.
Perhaps it’s all a part of some cosmic fairness plan, the universe having to take something from the man to balance out that devastatingly beautiful face of his, with its chiseled angles and lashes so long, they belong on a Disney princess. Except on him, they look right. Just like his white-blond hair, tied back in a low knot. Everything on him looks right, from his strange eyes to the honed muscles sculpting his black silk shirt.
“Good morning, Samantha!” a waitress slides up to our table with her pot of house coffee—a day-old brew reserved for those who aren’t paying five bucks for the handcrafted beverage choices—and sloshes some into my stained mug. “All topped off. Will we be having anything else today?” She flashes my companion a hopeful smile.
“Privacy,” he says without bothering to look up. It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak, and his soft Scottish burr nearly makes me jump.
The waitress’s face tightens as she slaps the pot down on our table, striding away with a huff. In my head, I reduce my dinner money allowance to absorb the bigger tip I’ll be leaving. The Lone Moon is a hard enough shift to work without having to put up with self-absorbed men.
I tap my fingers against the table while my client thumbs through the three eight-by-ten images. He shoots my fingers a swift, nearly imperceptible glance, and I stop abruptly, reminding myself to breathe.
It seems stealing these was the easy part—delivering them is turning out to be another thing entirely. The power seeping off my client is burning all the air in this stuffy diner, and not just for me. In every corner of the room, eyes, faces, and sometimes whole bodies turn in our direction, taking in the tall, leanly muscled man in slick black Armani.
I’m almost glad he arranged all this through a secretary now—that face is a distraction that no thief needs on the job.
I pull out my phone for something else to do with my hands. One missed text message, from Janie. A quasi-foster sister of mine, except that she’s twelve and still in the system.
Court denied the stipend request.
I swallow a curse. Jamie is staying with Mrs. Leonards now, who isn’t a bad sort, but she can’t afford to support a twelve-year-old on what the state gives her. Another year and a fake ID, and Janie will be able to get a part-time job to help pay her upkeep. We just need Mrs. Leonards to hang on until then. Janie is a good kid. Too good for the system.
Tell Leonards I’ll pay the stipend myself, I type back. And don’t let her rent the spare room out to Joey.
A pause. Too long.
I type another message. Janie?
Leonards knows you can’t even pay your own rent. It’s all right. I’ll manage.
“This is incomplete.” The man’s low voice pulls me back to the diner with a jolt, and I slip the phone back into my pocket without answering Janie. He jerks his chin at the photos. “The signature line is missing.”
There we go with that high intellect. “A lot more than the signature is missing. Or, rather, missing from the envelope I just gave you.”
He cocks his head, looking genuinely surprised for a brief moment, before his eyes flatten into implacable stones. My heart speeds up in spite of myself. This is a dangerous game I’m playing. But I have no choice.
“I photographed the whole file. This,” I jerk my chin toward the photos, “is proof of life. Once you pay, you get the thumb drive with everything.”
The man raises one pale brow, still giving nothing away. It’s strange how his age is difficult to place—he seems in his midtwenties, only a few years older than me, but the aura of strength he carries feels much older. As if he truly owns the power young men usually only play at, cubs imagining themselves kings. Not him, though. He is for real. And that, more than anything, is setting me on edge.
Men with power never hesitate to
use it. Just ask any other graduate of the New Jersey foster system—we all have scars to prove its true.
I cock a brow right back at him, staring him in the eye as if we were equals, as if we occupy the same plane of existence. I can fake power with the best of them.
He snorts. “You imagine I’d go through the trouble of cheating you out of three hundred dollars?”
Three hundred dollars might not be worth the bother to my new diamond-encrusted friend here, but for me, it’s the ticket to getting my heat turned back on. “I am not imagining it one way or another. I’m just ensuring it doesn’t happen.”
Reaching into his pocket, the idiot pulls out a roll of hundred dollar bills right in the middle of the Lone Moon and counts off three Franklins, while I move the coffee pitcher to create a visual barrier.
The man’s eyes flicker toward the pitcher, a tug at the corner of his mouth saying he understood exactly what I just did. That maybe he’d pulled the wad out just to make me squirm.
“There you go.” Leaning in as he pushes the money toward me, he quirks his full lips into what could almost be called a smile—if the condescension dripping off him weren’t quite so palpable. He truly is too beautiful for fairness, and his cologne—a woodsy musk with a splash of winter breeze—is enough to make my head spin. Or maybe that’s my lack of breakfast today. Which is another correction that three hundred dollars will make.
“There you go.” I slide the thumb drive across the table as I pocket my payment. Maybe three hundred will buy Janie another month. We’ll see. Nodding to my client, I pick up the coffee bill.
The man pins the bill to the tabletop, our fingertips brushing for an instant that sends a zing of sensation through me.
“On me,” he says with another dismissive half smile that makes my blood boil.
I yank back the check. “I pay my own bills, thank you.”
Something shifts in his gaze that makes me go cold, suddenly all the condescension and half smiles seeming like a façade for something much deeper—and much more dangerous. “I insist,” he says. It’s so low, so commanding, that I pull back and lift my hands before I can stop myself. Then lower them, embarrassed—and furious with myself for reacting to his power grab like a scared little girl.
Right. That’s enough of this asshole—and the effect he’s having on me. I press both my palms into the tabletop, which lets me have some height on him. “I don’t care for men insisting on anything. We aren’t friends. We aren’t acquaintances. We don’t even have business together anymore. Now let me have my bloody bill and goodbye.”
The man lifts his hand with dramatized slowness, showing me empty palms. “All yours. My name is Ellis, by the way, if you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” I was. But I shouldn’t have been. It’s unprofessional and it’s dangerous, giving people an illusion of camaraderie that we don’t have. “Excuse me.”
I slide out of the booth and start toward the register, only to realize Ellis is following me. Which is no longer funny, no matter how good-looking he is. I spin on him with a curse on my lips, which dies as quickly as it came. Standing, his presence and sheer size are impossible to ignore. He’s even taller than I thought, standing at least a foot over my head. He casts a literal fucking shadow over me. I can feel his heat even from two feet away, sense the grace and restrained violence in every muscle of his body. Somewhat disguised in the booth, they seem to shimmer off him now, making other diners turn to look at him with full, open curiosity. Some with admiration, even lust in their eyes. Some with fear.
I know where I fall on that spectrum. My heart quickens, my muscles tightening to alert.
Scanning the tables, I spot a booth one row down, where a middle-aged couple has just finished eating, a steak knife now lying across one empty plate. Good enough. Plastering a huge, sparkling smile on my face, I walk down the row of tables and grab the dirty dish off the table.
“Let me get this out of your way,” I tell the couple, walking on before they can ask for the dessert menu or whatever it is people who eat in restaurants do at this point.
“Message received.” Ellis’s Scottish-tinted words are soft behind me. “I come too close and ye stab me. Is there anything I’ve actually done to warrant this distrust?”
I snort. The whole question is a fallacy—distrust doesn’t need to be earned; trust does. It’s guilty until proven innocent in my world. Not that it matters since I don’t pair up with anyone anyway. Hand around the knife hilt, I head to the register.
“The only problem is that this wee setup makes it verra difficult for me to try and hire you for another job,” Ellis murmurs.
“No,” I say without turning my head.
“Ten thousand dollars.”
I stumble, the dish teetering in my hand before Ellis steadies it to prevent a fall, his warm fingers overlapping mine. When I look up at him, his golden eyes flash with real amusement for a moment as he hands the dish—knife and all—back to me. Just as quickly, he’s back to cool indifference, and I wonder if I imagined it.
“Oh, I’ll take that for you, hon.” A new waitress appears, tugging on the plate. The sudden return to the normal world is as jarring as the sum Ellis just mentioned. Around us, the diner continues as normal, with the low buzz of conversation and the clatter of silverware against plastic platters. The waitress finally manages to liberate the plate from my grip. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
I blink, smiling to buy my racing brain more time to think. Ten thousand dollars. Holy blessed crap.
“An espresso for me, if you please,” Ellis tells the waitress with a charming white grin, the woman’s face turning a bright flustered pink. The guy’s a chameleon—or just a full-on psycho. “Steak and eggs for the girl. Medium rare with a side of hash browns. Also a cappuccino. And orange juice.”
“That’s—” That’s a twenty-dollar bill for breakfast. My head clears at once. That’s why it never pays to spend too much time with any one person. “That’s not what I want right now,” I tell Ellis.
His eyes pin mine, making my chest tighten painfully. “I dinna care,” he says. And there is nothing soft about his tone now.
2
Sam
The back of my mind warns that letting Ellis buy me breakfast will come back to bite me, that no matter what I told myself, I stuck around to listen as much for his golden eyes as for the business. Which I turned down. Ten thousand dollars or no, the request was too dangerous.
“Don’t you break into houses all the time?” Janie asks when I pick her up from school so I can have a chat with Mrs. Leonards before the lady makes her decisions. “How is an empty mansion any different?”
“Alarm systems. Item value. A neighborhood where the police will actually show up to investigate.” I nudge Janie to my other side as we pass a row of bail bonds businesses. We have three right next to each other on Main Street, all doing a booming business. We step automatically off the curb to go around a man speaking loudly to himself about the upcoming alien invasion, and I tug my wool cap lower over my ears, my leather jacket luckily taking the brunt of the autumn wind. “Plus, I don’t trust Ellis. I don’t want to work with him.”
“You don’t trust anybody,” says Janie with a meaningful tilt to one brow. She’s about ten years younger than I am, but sounds like an adult. With a slim, serious face, a long sheaf of dark brown hair, and the style sense of a high school librarian, she kind of looks like one too. Not that her second- and thirdhand clothing options leave her much choice. “Is that sustainable in the long term?”
I snort. “It’s the only way to have a long term. You’ll see.”
“Is it bad that I trust you, then?” she asks.
I peer down at her, considering the question. “Well, I’m not a man, so that helps. But—” I stop short as we turn onto the residential block where Mrs. Leonards lives and spot the old Pontiac her stepson, Joey, drives. A moment later, the man himself appears, carrying boxes into the house.
“It’s all right.” Janie makes herself sound sunny, though I can feel the strain. “I’ve met him before. He won’t do anything—I don’t think I’m his type.”
Janie is female and twelve. She is exactly Joey’s type. I quicken my step down the row of two-story apartments in various shades of brick and gray, and across the small yard in front of Mrs. Leonards’s apartment, stepping around a collapsed beach chair. She’s on the front porch by the time I get to the steps, that sugar-sweet smile on her plump, fatigue-lined face. “Samantha, dear, it is so good to see you again. How are you holding up? Have you gone to see any talent agents like I told you to? With that soprano voice of yours—”
“You can’t let him live in the same house as Janie,” I say, my heart beating hard as Joey changes course to come over to us. The tip of his tongue darts out, licking his thick lips. He looks like a sex offender out of central casting—stout and towheaded, a black death-metal T-shirt stretching over his barrel chest, pale skin running to blotchy, a badly trimmed mustache clinching the deal. I swallow, angling my body between him and the girl, relieved when I hear him walk past us into the house. “He’s on the offender registry, Mrs. Leonards. He can’t live in the same house as a foster child.”