by Devyn Dawson
“Pretty amazing isn’t it?” Jack asks as he leans on the concrete railing. I stand next to him and lean forward too. Down below there are people talking and having a good time.
“Who are the people down there?” I ask.
“The chamber staff are off work for a couple of hours, they’re getting ready to go out and have drinks with everyone else.” The heat from his body is close enough for me to feel it pouring over me like a giant blanket. “Tell me something, are you and Thorne serious?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. We’re not getting married or anything, but we hang out. Why do you ask?” My chest feels a little tight as I say the words. Thorne and I are cool together.
He turns to face me and my nerves light up from the inside out.
A slight breeze comes along and rustles his hair. “I was wondering what flavor lip gloss you have on.”
Errr? That was incredibly cheesy on one hand, but there’s the other part that made me break out into goose bumps. Sarcasm, don’t let me down, I need you. “Does that line really work?”
“I’m not sure yet, you tell me,” he replies with a wink.
If eyes could talk, his just told me to rip off my clothes and have my way with him. He leans forward and I tilt my head up to look at him. Don’t kiss him. Don’t you dare kiss him. Don’t you even come close to kissing him. I close my eyes and wait for his lips to touch mine.
“One day, when you’re not in a relationship, let me know, because I happen to love cherry lip gloss.”
The heat of his breath tickles my lips and I open my eyes to see him watching me intently. I’m a chump. I was actually going to allow him to kiss me. I’m a terrible girlfriend. What! He set me up to look like an idiot!
Jack takes a step backing away from me. A sigh of relief escapes me as I realize how close I was to being a cheater.
“I was messing with you! I wasn’t going to let you kiss me; I have a boyfriend,” I say haughtily.
“Whatever you say,” Jack says. “You closed your eyes and everything, I know what it means when a girl closes her eyes.” His eyes twinkle with mischief as he stares me down.
“My eyes were dry from the wind, I needed to close them for a moment to let them moisten up.”
We both turn to peer out over the patio and watch people dancing on the lawn.
A few minutes pass before I get up the courage to speak again. “Do you know why your mother wanted us to come here?”
“I had a talk with one of her assistants and she told me she was sizing Jessie and Caleb up. I don’t know if I believe her or not, but she said that my mom had control the entire time. Supposedly there were guards following us to make sure we had safe passage. That is hard to believe, considering the fight with the giants. Queen Jessie’s carriage will take you home tomorrow. Let me walk you to the Queen’s room before people start to notice our absence.”
We step out into the hallway in time to catch up with Jessie and Avalon coming around the corner. The shocked look on her face amuses me for a moment.
Jack turns to Avalon and asks her if she can get us to our room. They talk for a second before he turns his attention back to us. “Ladies, I’ll see you in the ballroom.” He turned and headed back the way we came.
“Spill!” Jessie demands.
“There’s nothing to spill,” I say as we step inside of her room. The first thing I do is kick off my shoes and collapse on the bed. “I don’t think I can move.”
“No diversion techniques on me. What were you and Jack doing? You both looked guilty as hell when you came out of the room.” She collapses on the bed next to me.
“Nothing happened, I swear. He showed me one of those little balconies that were sticking out on the side of the castle. I thought we were going to kiss, but we didn’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m an almost-cheater and thoroughly disgusted with myself.” My heart is racing at the memory of our moment. We had a moment! Nah, I’m not that girl.
“You’re a tease!”
“And an almost-cheater…don’t forget that!” Suddenly it occurs to me that Thorne isn’t here. “Hey, where’s Thorne?”
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, he’s outside making sure the carriage arrived. We have to meet with the time-clan in the morning before we leave.”
“That’s so weird,” I admit.
“Isn’t it?”
“Did you enjoy dinner?” She rolls to her side and props her head up with her hand.
“It was okay. They haven’t gone to a nutrition class and learn to term, portion distortion. I bet one of those enormous giants would have been full if he ate everything we were offered. Isn’t King Tyler handsome? He sure doesn’t look old enough to be Jack’s dad.”
“Yeah, the King is nice looking; he smells good too. Speaking of smell, everything smells like vanilla. Have you noticed?”
“You’re right, it does,” I answer sleepily. I should sit up and get this corset off, but I’m so comfortable I can’t bring myself to change clothes. After a few moments, all I hear is the rhythmic sound of Jessie’s breathing. It isn’t clear how long we’d been in the room, but my mind was giving up on me. Soon, I’m unable to keep my eyes open any longer.
Chapter 8. Deja Vu
JESSIE has a bright green and yellow rain-jacket on over her school uniform. She’s running from her front door to my Jeep. The rain has been coming down since about two in the morning. Jessie’s mom thought she’d be safer with me in the Jeep since Craven County is under a flash flood warning. Thorne is picking Caleb up in his truck and promises to meet us at school.
“Gawd, glad you got your top back on. This is some horrible weather. It was thundering so loud, I thought the house was going to explode. Was it loud at your house?” Jessie pulls down the sun-visor to look in the mirror. “Ugh, why I bothered doing my hair is beyond me.” She flips the visor back up.
“Yeah, it kept me awake until about four. So blabbermouth, what do you have to say for yourself?” I turn sideways to give her my best Sherlock Holmes look.
She holds her hands in the air. “Sue me. If I didn’t, you would have gone through with it and the both of you would be miserable. He told me that he convinced you to stay with him. Of course I want that for you, but not if you feel we’re pressuring you into something you don’t want.”
“Have you seen him? I want him, trust me. No, we’re cool. We’re not like you and Caleb. You know who you’ll grow old with, and that works for you.” I look at Jessie for a second and then turn to stare out the window.
“Hello, anybody in there?” Jessie asks as she waves her hand in front of me.
“Yeah, sorry I spaced on you. That was the biggest déjà vu moment I’ve ever had. Like everything we just said was verbatim to a previous conversation. Freaky.”
“Oh, I hate it when that happens. I always feel like singing that song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show! You know, The Time Warp,” Jessie says as she pulls out her iPhone. “Here! I have it on my Halloween playlist.” She connects her phone to my stereo and we blast it as loud as we possibly can without our ears bleeding.
And like that, I’m over being upset with her for blabbing her mouth.
We pull into the school parking lot just as a song about a werewolf in London came on. For a little Flower-child hippie girl, she has it bad for Halloween. This will be my first one to have friends to go to the haunted houses with. I park next to Thorne’s truck. We all jumped out of our doors and ran like maniacs toward the school.
“Oh my god, look at that little raccoon, he’s all wet!” Jessie squeals as she points to a drowned rat looking raccoon.
“He’s fine! We’re going to look just like him if we don’t hurry up!” Thorne yells to be heard over the rain.
We get inside and we stomp our feet to get all of the rain off our shoes. I walk over and look out the window to see if the little raccoon was still outside. As if he knew I was looking at him, he turned and looked straight at me. I’m sure as hell not telling the
m about that, I’d be scooted off to the looney bin in a second!
“We stopped and picked up breakfast. The cafeteria’s open, we’ll eat in there,” Caleb says as he takes Jessie’s backpack from her. He’s one of those guys who’s always good, no matter the situation.
Thorne leans over and whispers to me, “We’re still good right? You’re not going to run off and kiss a prince or anything will you?”
“Okay, that’s random. Nah, I don’t dig the prince-type, I like guardians though,” I flirt. Before I know what he’s doing, he drapes his arm across my shoulder. I look up to protest just in time for his mouth to come crashing into mine.
P.D.A. at school!
I told you this wasn’t going to be your typical faerie tale.
If you liked this book, please leave a review. Not only do I read all of them, but it encourages future readers to buy the book. Be sure to keep your eyes open for Light Bound to read how the story ends for these friends.
KEEP READING FOR EXCERPTS FROM SOME GREAT YOUNG ADULT AUTHORS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, I’m incredibly thankful to everyone who takes the time to read my books. Life is great when you love what you do, and I love writing. I’m so thankful to all of my family and pets for putting up with my neurosis while writing this book. It is especially fun to throw in crazy elements like talking raccoons and the ability to make it rain. Amber is the most talked about character out of all of my books, so I thought she should have a little fun. I wrote this book for everyone who wanted to know more about Amber, I hope she lives up to everything you wanted in a character.
Moms, encourage your daughters or sons who love to journal or write stories, one day that imagination might pay their bills. Just because a kid looks different, with piercings and crazy hair doesn’t mean they’re wild…it usually means they want attention.
If you’re a young adult who wants to join my writing group, YA-Hooligans of NC, on Facebook, follow the link that will be listed after this speech. To the kids and their parents who’ve allowed me to mentor you this year, thank you for sharing your writing with me.
A special thank you to my bestest ever ever betas – Amber Clark and Julie Askew they’re like book-ninjas!
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The Gatekeeper's Sons: Gatekeeper's Saga, Book One
Eva Pohler
A young adult fantasy based on Greek mythology. It's permafree where all ebooks are sold:
Chapter One: The Drowning
Therese Mills peeled the white gloves off her sweaty hands as soon as she and her parents were in the car. Now that her mother’s thing was over, she could finally get home and out of this blue dress. It was like being in a straightjacket.
Anything for Mom, of course.
What the…
A man glared at her through her backseat window. She jumped up, sat back, blinked. The man vanished, but when she blinked again, she could still see the eerie face behind her lids: the scruffy black beard and dark, haunting eyes.
“Thanks again for making tonight so special,” her mother, apparently not seeing the man, said from the passenger seat as her father started the engine. “You two being there meant a lot to me.”
“Did you see that man?” Therese peered through her window for the face.
“What?” Her mother also looked. “What man?”
“What man, Therese?” her father asked.
“Never mind.”
Therese did not find it unusual that her mother hadn’t noticed the man. Although her mother was a brilliant scientist, she wasn’t the most observant person.
Just last spring after all the snow had finally melted around their house in the Colorado mountains, and Therese and her mother had been able to enjoy their wooden deck with the melted lake spread out in front of them and the forest rising up the mountains behind them, Therese had spotted the wild horse and foal she had seen just before winter. They both had reddish brown coats with a white stripe between their eyes, the foal nestled beside its mother’s legs, staring intently at Therese without moving. The animals stood beneath one of two magnificent elm trees ten feet from their back door—the tree her mother said had gotten the Dutch elm disease. Therese relaxed with her mother at the wooden table on the deck, each of them with a mug of coffee in the bright Sunday morning. Her mother had the paper but wasn’t reading it. She had that look on her face when she was thinking of a scientific formula or method that she planned to try in her lab. Therese stared again at the horse and didn’t move. She whispered, “Mom.”
Her mother hadn’t heard.
“Mom, the wild horses,” she whispered again.
Therese looked from the beautiful creatures to her mother, who sat staring in space, transfixed, like a person hypnotized.
“Mom, are you deaf?” she blurted out, and then she heard the horses flee back up the mountain into the tall pines. She caught a glimpse of the foal’s reddish-brown rump, and that was that.
As Therese strapped on her seatbelt, she also considered the possibility that she had only imagined the man in the window. She was, after all, prone to use her imagination and fully capable of making daydreams as real as reality, as she had, just now, with her memory of the horses.
Her phone vibrated. A text from Jen read, “Heat sheets r n call me when u get home.” Awesome, she thought. Therese was anxious to see who would share her heat in tomorrow’s championship meet. She hoped she would be swimming breaststroke in the top heat against Lacey Holzmann from Pagosa Springs. She wanted to beat her this time.
She searched outside her window for the scruffy face but saw only a line of headlights as others, like they, exited the parking lot of the concert hall. Maybe she had only imagined the man. It was getting dark. The mountains across campus were barely visible as dusk turned into night.
“We’re both so proud of you, Honey,” Therese’s dad said from behind the wheel.
Therese probably got her imaginative talent from her father, who was a successful crime fiction writer. As soon as his first book made the New York Times bestsellers list, he moved his family out into their big log cabin in the San Juan Mountains.
Therese saw her father eyeing her in the rearview mirror. “Aren’t we, sweetie pie?”
She wondered at her father’s need to praise her mother all the time. Didn’t her mother already know she was brilliant and that her husband and daughter looked up to her? “Absolutely. You’re awesome, Mom.”
Therese’s phone vibrated again. A text from Paul read, “Wat r u waring?”
She cringed and murmured, “Oooh. How gross.” She couldn’t believe he had got her number. He had been stalking her around campus just before school let out for the summer.
Before she had a chance to delete the text, Therese heard the rear window behind her head explode. “What the…” Glass shards pricked at her neck and bare shoulders. The car swerved left and right. She looked back to see the window behind her busted. The line of headlights had dispersed into chaos, horns blasting, people shouting.
“What the hell was that?” her father yelled. “Oh my God! Linda! Linda!”
“Dad, what’s wrong? Is Mom…”
Another explosion rang out, and something zipped just past Therese’s head.
“Therese? Are you okay? Get down!”
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Therese cowered in the back seat as a third explosion sounded, this time near the windshield. Therese could barely breathe. She gasped for air, her heart about to explode.
“Stay down! Someone’s shooting at us!” her father shouted.
The car swerved, slowed, and turned. The smell of burned rubber permeated the air. Therese’s head whipped back as her father gunned the accelerator. Her fingers trembled so wildly, she was barely able to punch the correct numbers on her phone. She messed up tw
ice and had to start over. Finally she pressed them in slow motion: 911. It seemed an eternity before a woman answered on the other end.
“Nine-one-one, is this an emergency?”
“Someone’s shooting at us! You’ve got to help us. We’re leaving Fort Lewis College. Dad, where are we?”
“Heading toward Huck Finn Pond.”
“Huck Finn Pond!” Therese screamed into the phone as the car swerved, her seatbelt digging into her hip. Then she noticed the blood dripping down the back of her mother’s neck and onto her mother’s silk scarf. “Oh, my God! Mom? Mom, are you okay?”
“She’ll be okay, Therese!” her father shouted.
“Oh my God! I think my mom’s been shot! You’ve got to do something! You’ve got to help us!”
A crushing sound shot through the car, and Therese felt herself jolted hard to the right. She hit her head on the window and dropped the cell phone. When she bent over and tried to pick it up, the back end of the car lurched upward like a seesaw, and her head hit the back of her mother’s seat in front of her. She sat up and saw they were sailing through the air over the lake. The front end of the car hit the water, causing her head to flop forward and back. She heard the air hissing through the airbags as they inflated in the front end. She was so stunned, she couldn’t speak. She watched in silent shock as water crept into the front end of the car, up to her father’s neck, the untied bowtie of his tuxedo floating around him. The front airbags pressed against her father’s cheek, her mother’s face. Water spilled over the front seat and onto the floorboard in back where she sat elevated higher than her parents.