“Of course I was upset. What kind of father would I be if I wasn’t upset that my only daughter put herself at risk like that? I never wanted you to have to go through any of that. If anything, I am disappointed in myself that I couldn’t defeat Dugan for you.”
My heart swells with affection for my father. I throw my arms around his neck and hug him tightly.
“I love you, Dad.
“I love you too, Mia.”
Alberico and I finish the rest of our breakfast talking about much more pleasant things than Dark Elves, like school and my job and even cheerleading. Try-outs for next year’s squad will be in a few weeks and I’m in charge of organizing them. After our showdown with the Dark Elves, I’m more than confident I’m up for the challenge. In fact, I’m looking forward to doing something so completely ordinary again.
After breakfast I head to Jacoby’s room as I promised earlier. I feel a little giddy about seeing him, even though I just saw him an hour or so ago.
The door is ajar so I just let myself in.
“Jacoby?” I call out when I don’t see him. Maybe he is waiting for me in my room.
I’ve never been in his room before, so curiosity gets the best of me, and I decide to take a look around. His room seems slightly smaller than mine, but that could just be because of the slate and gray tones making the room much darker than my pale gold room. I know his closet probably isn’t nearly as massive as mine. Guys don’t need all the extra space for their shoes.
I wander over to the large bay window. It faces the west so he probably has a perfect view of the sunset every night. I idly wonder which view would be more beautiful, my view of the lush gardens or his of the rich gold and pink hues of the setting sun. I decide it’s a toss-up.
“Hey, Lark.”
I turn at the sound of his voice to find him coming out of the bathroom.
Wearing nothing but a towel and a crooked grin.
“Oh! Sorry! I was just, uh, checking to see if you were ready to leave yet,” I stammer as the heat rises to my cheeks. Nobody should be allowed to look that good in a towel.
“Not quite yet,” he smirks slyly, gracefully sauntering over to me with his damp hair glistening.
“Um, well, I’ll go. So you can finish, um, getting dressed.” I turn to leave but his hand catches mine.
He pulls me against his damp chest and places his hand on my back. He presses his lips lightly on my forehead before leaning down and kissing my lips. Even the lightest touch leaves me breathless and tingly, and I feel like my heart is seconds away from exploding with joy. I wonder if it will always feel like this?
I hope so.
“I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he sighs wistfully.
I’m still a little incoherent from the kiss, so I just nod.
“Gotta get you home before bedtime,” he grins. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
“We’ve got school tomorrow,” I correct him as I slowly make my way out the door, smiling brightly at the turn of events in my life.
I know that things aren’t over yet. In fact, they are just beginning. I may be blessed by the Sun goddess, but I have royally pissed off the Dark Elf king. I know that he will eventually seek revenge. And when he does, I’ll make sure I am ready to face the consequences.
But for now, I have other things to worry about.
Like homework.
Acknowledgements:
I’m incredibly lucky to have so many people willing to help me throughout this process.
Heather Sloan’s enthusiasm for my story was a huge motivator. She believed in me from the very beginning, and I honestly don’t know if I would have been brave enough to ever finish Lark if Heather wasn’t cheering me on the whole way!
I’d like to thank Maya Bentley for going through my manuscript with a fine-tooth comb. She has a keen eye, and any mistakes that you may have found can be entirely blamed on me going back and adding something after she edited it.
Komal Kant, author of Impossible, offered not only her support, but gave me a huge amount of advice and help as I was writing Lark and when I decided to self-publish. She even recommended my amazing cover artist!
Anna Capezzera, Michelle Flick, and Elizabeth Hilburn read, edited, and offered their feedback, and I appreciate all of their help.
I want to thank my husband, Zach, for not giving me (too much of) a hard time for spending so many late nights working on my story. I’m sure I haven’t been the easiest person to live with the last year. Heck, I’m sure I haven’t been the easiest person to live with the last six years, but he puts up with me and for that I gotta love him.
And of course, thank YOU for taking the time to read my story. I hope you enjoyed reading Mia’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
About the Author:
Erica Cope lives in Missouri with her husband and their three children. She has been writing short stories and poetry since she was a child, though Lark is her first novel.
She enjoys knitting, pretending she knows how to play her guitar, and reading pretty much anything you put in front of her.
You can find Erica on Facebook, Twitter (@EricaCope3).
The Lark Trilogy:
Lark (Lark #1)
In the Shadows (Lark #2)
Like the Dawn (Lark #3)
Other books by Erica Cope
Pieces of Me
Unfamiliar
A preview of the next installment of the
Lark Trilogy:
In the Shadows
A Lark Novel
Erica Cope
Chapter One
It’s dark in here. There’s a soft golden light surrounding me, casting eerie shadows on the stone walls. I see Brian’s face, his dark eyes pleading with me to stop. But I can’t. I look down at the glowing orb floating in the palms of my hands and I know what I need to do. I take aim and a blast of light hits him directly in the chest. His eyes widen in shock and the smell of burnt flesh fills the air as he combusts into nothing.
An evil voice cackles loudly from beside me causing me to jump. I turn and Dugan, king of the Dark Elves, is reaching out for my hand.
Instinctively I pull away only to have him grab my arm. His long, razor sharp finger nails bite into my skin. I try to yank my arm out from his grip but it’s no use. Blood drips down my arm in five intricate looking crimson lines.
“Come to me.”
“No!” I scream at him, but he just laughs.
“One way or another you will come to me. You will break the curse. It is your destiny.”
I wake up drenched in sweat and panting like I just ran up eight flights of stairs and my heart is about to pound right out of my chest. A thorough examination of my arm shows that it’s perfectly fine and I remind myself to take deep breaths; it was only a dream.
I’ve had the exact same nightmare every day for the last month. I destroy Brian and then Dugan tells me I’m one of them. You would think I’d be used to it by now, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the fact that Brian’s dead because of me. I killed him. The worst part is, I don’t think I really feel bad about his death, but more about the fact that I don’t regret that he’s dead. I’m pretty sure that’s not a normal response. It makes me feel like maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe there’s a part of me that is evil.
“Mia, are you okay?” Mom knocks gently and turns the knob of the locked door.
“I’m okay, it was just a bad dream,” I say, catching my breath.
“Another one?” She sounds curious, her voice full of worry like she’s afraid I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown.
“Yeah.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I tell her, trying to shake it off.
“Mia, you know if there’s something going on in your life, something that’s upsetting you, you can talk to me, right? I’d understand.” I know that she’s just trying to comfort me from the other side of the door and that I should get up to unlock it but
I’m frozen in place unable to breathe.
Besides, what can I tell her?
Oh, Mom it’s nothing much. Just a legion of evil Dark Elves that want me to unleash them upon the human world and because I refused they tried to kill me and my boyfriend but instead I actually ended up killing a co-worker of mine who had turned out to be just as evil as he was creepy and I don’t really know how to feel about that. Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep up with my schoolwork like a normal teenage girl, while constantly worrying about the impending retaliation from the Dark Elves.
But I can’t really tell her that, now can I? Is it really any wonder that I’ve been having nightmares about dear old Dugan and the inevitable war between the Light and Dark? I finally get up and unlock the door, allowing her to come inside.
“I think I’m just stressed out, you know, with everything going on. Cheerleading tryouts are this week, plus there’s preparing for finals and work. I don’t know. It’s just a lot.” I try to convince her that it’s nothing more than that, but I’m not sure how well it worked. She continues to study me with concern.
“You just seem different the last few months,” she says with a forlorn smile. “Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help?”
“No, I’ll be fine. Just got a lot going on right now.”
“Alright, honey. I’ll be in my studio if you need anything. I’m going to try to get in a little work before Maddie wakes up,” she says, glancing at the clock on my bedside table. “You better get up and ready or you’ll be late for school.”
“Okay, Mom,” I smile at her.
As soon as she leaves, I drop the smile and fall back onto my bed lifting the faded yellow comforter over my head. My dreams aren’t always so vivid. They definitely don’t always feel that real. But when they do, it takes my heart a while to calm back down to a normal beating pace.
I need to take a shower and relax. I also need to get ready for school, but all I want to do is go back to sleep and dream normal dreams like any other ordinary teenage girl. Alas, when you are the daughter of the King of the Light Elves, I guess you’re anything but ordinary.
I thought being captain of the cheerleading squad this year was going to be stressful enough. Little did I know that halfway through my senior year of high school, I’d be thrown into a whole new world where creatures of mythology actually exist and I happen to be one of them. Partly anyway; my father may be an elf, but my mom is very much human, which makes me a Half-blood elf princess.
It all started when I discovered that I had the magical ability to heal people. One day, back in December, there was a terrible snow storm. On my way to work, I saw that Brian, a creepy co-worker of mine, was walking in the freezing cold with no coat on. I was just trying to be nice so I offered him a ride. Then right as we were getting ready to pull into the parking lot of the movie theater where we worked, I lost control of the car and he was thrown right through my windshield.
He split his head open and I thought he was dying. Panicking, I pressed my hands on the gash across his forehead, trying to stop the bleeding. Little did I know that my hands are like magical Band-Aids and just a single touch can heal. As soon as Brian realized what I had done, he rushed off to go inform the twisted Dark Elf king, Dugan, that I might be the prophesied one destined to break the curse placed on them by Sól, the Sun Goddess.
Dugan, who as it turns out is also my uncle, was desperate to discover the one that the prophecy refers to since it states that a Half-blood child of a sovereign one ‘can heal the Cursed’. And well, being the only known Healer, it seemed pretty obvious the prophecy referred to me.
Greyson St. Clair, who I had a giant crush on at the time, showed up just in time to whisk me away to Álfheimr, the kingdom of the Ljósálfar, also known as the Light Elves, and informed me of my parentage as well as other disturbing facts. There’s nothing more surreal than discovering that not only are you part elf, but that your father is the King of the Light Elves, you have magical abilities, the boy you’ve been crushing on was only around because he was sent (by aforementioned King) and has been watching you your entire life in order to protect you from evil Dark Elves. Oh, and also, said crush is 187-years-old. Learning all of that in one day? Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t have a mental breakdown.
Yeah, it’s been one heck of a year so far. Now it’s the beginning of April, and I have to run cheerleading try-outs this week, turn my college applications in before my mom realizes just how much I’ve been procrastinating, then of course there’s prom, followed by graduation in May. Throw in preparations for the inevitable war with the Dark Elves and is it really any wonder that I seem ‘different’?
My phone beeps indicating that I have a text message. I reach for it on my bedside table and see that it’s from my boyfriend, Jacoby Dahl.
Jacoby: Wanted to tell U Im enjoying brkfst @ the castle. Prob much tastier than the crap U R eatin.
I almost text him back letting him know I had another nightmare but he’d just appear in my room and then I’d definitely be late for school. I’ll just tell him when I see him. So instead of worrying my boyfriend I simply text back:
Me: You wish! Nothing is better than my chocolate-dipped chocolate chip granola bars
Jacoby: Autocorrect?
Me: I plead the 5th
He finds it amusing that I insist on using proper English while texting. I just can’t help it. I like to spell things correctly.
Jacoby: U should b better @ this than me. U were raised by humans smh C U later <3
I can’t help but smile at his exuberant display of text-savvy knowledge. Jacoby always has a way to distract me and make me feel better no matter what.
Though, I have to admit, his knowledge is pretty impressive for a guy who grew up in the Underworld being raised as the Dark Elf prince.
I’m not the only Half-blood child of a sovereign one. In Dugan’s attempts to get his hands on the one who was destined to break the curse, he hunted down Jacoby’s parents and murdered them. He then attempted to ensure the prophecy would be fulfilled by raising a Half-blood himself. Luckily, his plan didn’t work. In fact, I think it’s safe to say it completely backfired when Jacoby was the one who actually helped me escape the Underworld.
Now that my heart rate has slowed to a somewhat normal level, the sinking feeling you get like you know something bad is about to happen comes over me. I shake it off, assuming it’s just leftover anxiety from my dream.
I shower quickly and throw on a blue lace dress, white cardigan and my tan sandals. I tend to wear dresses more often now since spending so much time in Álfheimr where that is all that is in my closet. I guess I have sort of gotten used to them. I cannot, however, bring myself to wear heels. Flats are definitely the way to go. It’s not that I have a hard time walking in heels or at least not more than the average girl, they just are so freaking uncomfortable I can’t imagine anyone wanting to endure the pain all day. I pull my still damp hair around my shoulder and braid it.
When I bound downstairs to grab my breakfast I hear the morning news filtering in from the living room. Mom must’ve left it on because she’s already out in her studio. I locate the remote but before I can flip it off, something catches my attention.
“The FBI, Riley County Sheriff’s Office, and Kansas Highway Patrol are looking for eighteen-year-old Seth Lewis of Manhattan after he was reported missing last Monday morning,” the female newscaster reports. “If anyone has any information they are asked to call the following number.”
She rattles off the number but it doesn’t register in my brain—I’m too focused on the boy’s face—one that I know quite well. My best friend Hannah and Seth have been dating since last fall. She must be freaking out!
But, wait—he’s been missing for a week now. How did I not hear about this sooner? Why didn’t Hannah tell me? I wonder if he ran away? Maybe she knew that he ran away and that’s why she hadn’t mentioned anything, because she was keeping his secret. As strange as it seems, wh
enever there is a report of a missing person I always find myself hoping that they just ran away and that they weren’t abducted. Running away, at least, means that they made the choice to do so. But why would he do something like that? He’s eighteen, surely he would have no reason to run away from home? That just seems strange. I have to get to school to talk to her.
I grab my usual bar of chocolaty goodness from the pantry before walking out to my piece of junk car. Lately my car has been giving me some grief. I mean, it’s not exactly in the best condition and so I should’ve been expecting it to fall to pieces eventually. I was just hoping it would at least get me to school and back for the last few months. I’m seriously considering letting my step-dad, Paul, buy me a car for graduation after all.
Of course, if I got desperate, I could just transport myself there, but I try to avoid doing stuff like that. After all, I’m not supposed to tell anyone about the Light Elves or the fact that I possess certain abilities. I’m pretty sure vanishing from one place and appearing in another would be a dead giveaway that, as much as I wish it wasn’t so, I’m most definitely not your normal seventeen-almost-eighteen-year-old-girl.
Chapter Two
Jacoby and Grey are both waiting for me when I finally pull into the parking lot at school. Jacoby grins widely when he sees me, but Grey appears irritated which annoys me. It’s not like I want him to have to babysit me like this. Alberico insists that at least one of them needs to be near me at all times, not both of them. But Grey takes his job very seriously so he hasn’t slacked off on his babysitting duties even though Jacoby rarely leaves my side. Even when I’m home, he’s nearby keeping a look out for any suspicious behavior though I never actually see him for myself.
Dark Roses: Eight Paranormal Romance Novels Page 108