by Elodie Colt
“Yes. All taken care of.”
“Did he resist?”
“No.”
Chris gave a mischievous smile. “Interesting. Cassie offered to tend to him multiple times, but he always refused. She even followed him to his room, but he wouldn’t let her touch him. Said he could take care of himself.” Chris gave me a wink, as if silently trying to communicate something.
I sighed. “What are you implying?”
“Me? Nothing,” he said casually. “Wanna hang out in the afternoon?” he addressed Lauren, skillfully changing the subject. “I’m free. We could continue your training with the crossbow if you like.”
A genuine smile crept over Lauren’s face, one I eyed carefully. There was something going on between them, I was sure of it. It was a good thing Chris had enlightened her about the Connection. Lauren needed to know what she was getting herself into.
“Alright, I better go,” I announced, standing up.
“Training?”
“Maybe some meditation. I think I’ve had enough action for one day.”
An hour of solitude was exactly what I needed. However, when I stepped out into the cemetery, I realized I was not alone.
Cole was leaning against a tree trunk, leisurely smoking a cigarette. If the disheveled hair, red-stained shirt, and blood-crusted chin were anything to go by, he hadn’t bothered to take a shower yet. Cole lifted his head and smiled when he saw me, the skin around the cut on his lip stretching.
“Shouldn’t there be more guards stationed here by now?” I asked, scanning the area for any people.
“I told them to take a break.”
“Hmm. You look like hell,” I exclaimed with pouted lips, not bothering to soften my harsh voice, but Cole didn’t seem to be too sensitive about it. He chuckled and took another deep pull from his cigarette, slowly puffing out the smoke.
“You look as gorgeous as always,” he said in his usual playful tone, eyes roaming over my curves. I huffed, obscuring the view by crossing my arms.
“Stop that. You’re wasting your time,” I quickly declared.
Cole was handsome, there was no denying it. On deeper observation, Cole and Dylan were very much alike, yet at the same time the complete opposite. They shared the same height and muscular build, although Dylan was a little bulkier around the shoulders and the chest. Both wore their hair short, but whereas Dylan’s was a dirty blond, Cole’s was a deep chocolate brown. Dylan was always neatly shaven, whereas Cole wore a three-day-old stubble.
However, their biggest difference was their attitude. Dylan was stoic, observant, composed, honest. Cole was the exact opposite, being more playful and arrogant with a big mouth. A man who liked to manipulate and therefore, the more dangerous kind.
Another chuckle escaped him. “Oh, I know that, gorgeous. You already belong to somebody else. I wouldn’t dare interfere.” The coy smile on his lips told me he was up to do exactly that.
His comment only annoyed me further, but I wouldn’t take the hook. “I don’t see how that should be any of your business,” I snapped. I was so not discussing my love life with this guy I barely knew. “Why do you always provoke Dylan? Didn’t you do enough damage already?”
“Damage?” he repeated, voice rising in disbelief. “Oh, now I understand,” he muttered, his smile losing some of its playfulness. “Dylan told you the story.”
“You mean the one where you smuggled the self-made weapon under his cushion to put the blame on him? Yeah, he may have mentioned it,” I added with sarcasm.
He chuckled again. I swore if he chuckled one more time, I’d slap it off his face. “That was never my intention. I wanted to get us both out, but I made a mistake. The guards became dubious about me. I couldn’t let them catch me, so I made them focus on Dylan, instead.” Cole shook his head, deeply lost in memories. “I would have gotten us both out of there, but Dylan refused.”
I wasn’t surprised. A man turning himself in wouldn’t break out later. It would somehow miss the point. Surely, Cole knew Dylan had volunteered to go to jail.
“It took me two years to forge a plan, but it wouldn’t work without his help. I wouldn’t have gotten past that many guards on my own.”
“So, you have a grudge against him because he didn’t want to play with the law for your sake?” Cole stayed silent. “Did you ever think maybe you deserved to be in jail for what you did?”
Something flashed behind Cole’s eyes, and I stepped back, startled. For a second, I feared the Bluster would take him, but it vanished quickly. We stared at each other in silence for a long moment, and I was already about to leave, knowing I couldn’t meditate with Cole’s eyes on me, but then he spoke again.
“I deserved it, but I wanted my freedom back. It was not the life I was ready to be condemned to live. I’m not as noble as Dylan is,” he muttered, his voice impassive like a man who believed himself to be already dead.
I blinked at hearing the hurt in his tone. “Are you jealous of him?”
Cole clicked his tongue. “He has everything he wants. A home. A family.” His eyes slowly drifted to me. “A gorgeous woman… What else could he wish for?”
I shook my head. His words warmed me, but I wouldn’t let his compliments weaken me. “Do you even know about Dylan’s past? What he had to endure? What he had to go through to get to where he is now?”
Cole remained silent, apparently not having an answer. They’d shared a cell for years. There was no way Cole didn’t know about every tiny detail concerning Dylan and his life before prison. However, he didn’t have a clue about what happened after Dylan regained his freedom.
“He wasn’t the same anymore when he came back. And did you know what happened then?” I asked rhetorically but waited for Cole to look at me before continuing. “His second brother died,” I revealed, assuming he already knew about the death of the oldest brother, Jackson.
Cole looked at me in shock. “Ricky?”
My teeth tortured my lips whenever the name fell. “Yes, the one. Dorian killed him. Killed him because of me, and I wasn’t even part of the Roes in the compound back then.”
Cole narrowed his eyes and pushed away from where he was standing, slightly wobbling on his wounded leg. “What do you mean?”
“Ricky jumped in front of me to save me and got shot. He didn’t survive.” I waited a few seconds to let it sink in. “How do you think Dylan felt that day? And how do you think he felt when he was told I was the cause? Wanna still switch places with him?”
Cole eyed me intensely, stepping close enough for me to feel uncomfortable, but I stood my ground. I wouldn’t let him intimidate me.
“That’s the wrong question to ask someone like me because the answer is yes, I would if it meant having a place where I belong and a woman like you by my side. Dylan’s a lucky guy, and I’m sure he knows that.”
That was not the answer I was prepared for, and then Cole did something even more unexpected—he gave me a tiny kiss on the forehead that felt oddly comforting before he headed back to the underground.
Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to clear my mind. This day was an emotional rollercoaster. I felt strangely restless all of a sudden and too worked up for doing some meditation, so I outstretched my hand and played with a branch on the ground.
The hole Dylan had created for Lauren to aim at with the crossbow was still visible on the tree trunk. Reaching inside my center, I collected a few strands of my power, flipped them in the right direction, and shot my hand forward. The branch flew high but missed its target. It smashed against another tree and broke in two, the halves clattering to the ground. Well, I was definitely worse at aiming than Lauren. I needed to work on that, or my ability wouldn’t be of much use, and I’d end up hitting the wrong target.
I repeated the move with a shard of a broken pot lying abandoned in the grass—probably once decoration for one of the graves. Honing in on my power was harder this time. The particles seemed to vibrate in my center, as if an invisible power set th
em in motion, something that used to occur in my first lessons with Lisa but had ebbed off over time. It made me fidgety and shattered my concentration. Strange.
The porcelain shard shot through the air and vanished somewhere in the woods. I frowned. That shot was even worse than the last. Was I that bad at aiming?
I prepared to try again but all of a sudden, a terrible fit of dizziness washed over me, forcing me to bend over and prop my hands on my knees. What the hell was wrong? Maybe I’d overdone it today and just needed a few hours’ rest. Dylan wasn’t fit to train me anyway—one afternoon off sounded like a brilliant idea.
Heading back to the compound, I took careful steps in case the dizziness returned. I made it safely to my room and moaned in relief at my inviting bed.
Another wave of dizziness overcame me, and I steadied myself on the bedside table to maintain my orientation. Clumsily, I peeled out of my clothes, leaving me in a pair of shorts and a tank top.
An awful lightheadedness overwhelmed me again, and I stumbled to the mirror to have a look at my face. My skin was pale, and a sheen of sweat coated my hairline. Was I getting ill? I’d never been ill before, and Roes were permanently healthy, right? It must have been my ability. Conquering that stupid wall had cost me too much energy.
I lifted my hand and reached out to the back of my head to remove my hair clip, just as an unbearable pain sliced through my forehead, forcing my muscles to cramp. The pain was agonizing, as if someone was poking my brain with a needle. At the same time, my lungs constricted, and the sudden feeling of drowning made me clutch at my throat frantically in an attempt to inhale oxygen.
Something Lisa had told me some time ago came to my mind, about the symptoms I would feel when it started.
“Awakening…” I croaked in horror, but before I could scream for Dylan to get me out of here, I toppled over and smacked my head on the mirror. It intensified the pain tenfold, and the last sound I heard was glass splintering before I lost consciousness.
To be continued in “A Flare of Sorrow” - Book 3
A Flare Of Sorrow - Book#3
Sneak-Peek into Chapter 1
Note: This is an unedited and not proofread excerpt
A dull thump and something that sounded like glass breaking startled me awake. I blinked, confused for a moment. Had I imagined that noise?
For a moment, I didn’t dare to move or breathe, straining my ears to make out any sound, but other than the soft humming of the indirect lighting behind the headboard and a few distinct battle cries from the training halls, everything remained silent. Maybe the noise had just been conjured by the remnants of a dream already sinking into oblivion.
I let my head fall back against the cushions, regretting it the instant pain shot through my skull. My fight with Cole a few hours ago had left a few nasty bruises and cuts. The reminder made my mind immediately drift off to Haylie, and how she’d tended to me in the bathroom later. So caring, so determined, so gentle.
Usually, I felt uncomfortable with someone else taking care of me, but with Haylie it was different. It had been my excuse to be near her. Her face so close to mine, her eyes focused on each of my body parts, her hands traveling over my skin like a lover’s caress.
And then she’d touched my abs, and I got a glimpse of the longing in her eyes while her hands traced the ripples of my muscles. In that moment, I’d wanted nothing more than to lock the door from the inside, back her up against the wall, and take her like I wanted to for what felt like a small forever. My resistance had crumbled enough so that I’d had to touch her, had to caress the radiant skin up to her face until resting against these alluring lips of hers.
And that kiss... I swear, I’d never tasted lips so soft, lips so sweet. I could have kissed her for hours if it hadn’t been for her phone interrupting us abruptly before I’d even had the chance to devour her fully. I briefly wondered when she’d had sex the last time, but just thinking about another man touching her like this made me want to tear my bedsheets into pieces.
Seriously, my control whenever she was around was next to nonexisting. For some reason, we kept getting caught in steamy moments, and it was so damn excruciating. Next time, there would be no stopping the beast inside me that craved nothing more than to be unleashed and get a taste of her.
It would change everything, of course, but I knew with all my heart that I wasn’t strong enough to keep pretending I wasn’t yearning for more. I was a Fighter, one of the strongest of my race, but whenever it came to Haylie Bryceland—the only Natural that didn’t die under my protection—I was stripped of all my strength, leaving me weak, powerless, and completely at her mercy.
Frustrated, I yanked the blankets away. As soon as I was up, my hand shot forward with the sudden need to steady myself.
Whoa.
My head was spinning so awfully, I fell back onto the bed like a dead weight. What the hell? Probably a concussion caused by the clout I’d received from Cole.
With effort, I tried to get up again, but somehow, the task was harder than usual. Strangely, I felt twice as heavy, as if elastic bands were tying me to the bedposts, immobilizing me.
Stumbling into the bathroom in a slightly drunken state, I splashed cold water onto my face in an attempt to clear my head. It wasn’t working. Maybe an energy drink or two might give me the caffeine boost I needed. On my way to the main quarters, the dizzying feeling slowly vanished until it evaporated completely. Weird.
Just as I was about to open the door to the control room, distinct laughter and familiar voices reached my ears. Hand hovering over the door handle, I slightly angled around the corner to see Cassie chatting idly with Phil. From the looks of it, they appeared to laugh at a joke.
The scene displaying in front of me caused my eyebrows to shoot to my hairline. What the hell was that about? Most of the time, Cassie dismissed Phil with nothing more than a glare or an annoyed scoff, which was also why I’d been quite surprised that night at Hell’s Trial Cassie had accepted Phil’s invitation to dance. However, seeing them now, they looked like best friends, with Cassie even clapping on Phil’s shoulder. When had I missed that? And when…
No fucking way.
Cassie was pregnant—a fact I still couldn’t wrap my head around. Could Phil be the one who’d knocked her up? No, it was too surreal to even consider this a possibility. Why would she sleep with Phil who was barely an adult and, to be honest, in no way a match for her? It would go completely against Cassie’s nature. No pun intended… I’d need to check the recordings again later to see if there was something going on between them.
I entered the control room with a frown on my face, not surprised to see Jimmy sitting behind his office desk, typing idly on a calculator. I decided to have a chat with him.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute in private?” Jimmy nodded, rising from his chair, and we went to the next Catcher-proof room. “Did you talk to Cassie lately?” I asked him when he closed the door behind us.
Jimmy sighed as if I’d started a topic he wasn’t keen on talking about. Well, that made two of us. “Yes.”
“Did she tell you about… what’s going on with her?” I tested carefully in case Cassie hadn’t told Jimmy. I’d promised to keep her secret for now, but I felt it was time for Jimmy to know at least.
“You mean that she’s pregnant?”
I exhaled audibly, relieved I didn’t need to be the messager. “So, she told you.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“What do you think of it?”
Jimmy laughed, rubbing a hand over his black, curly hair. “Don’t know what you want me to say. I couldn’t believe my own ears when she told me.”
“Did she tell you who the father was?”
“No. She sidestepped that question very professionally.” No surprise. “Did she tell you?”
“No, but I suspect it was someone from the inside. I went through the recordings and couldn’t find any proof that Cassie left the compound for the last few months.”
“Seriously?” I exclaimed, my ego clearly hurt. “You thought I got her pregnant?”
“You two had a thing for a long time.”
“I told you I ended things with her. I would never be so stupid as to—”
“Okay, okay!” Jimmy held up his hands in surrender. “Message received. Well, I suppose we’ll need to wait until she tells us. I think we can be assured now that she’s not the traitor in our circle.” I agreed. Her alibi was bulletproof. So, who was the one working with the Hunters behind our backs, I wondered? “Is there anything else? I’ve got an urgent call in a few.”
I shook my head. “No, go ahead.”
Following Jimmy back to the control room, I plopped down in my office chair, snorting when I saw Jimmy had loaded my desk with stacks of paper of the newest guidelines of Pedagogical Education For Students. Really, they could stick this shit up their asses. Grabbing the stack, I crammed it into the next garbage can without a second glance.
“What are you doing here? You were supposed to take the day off,” Chris complained in my direction upon entering.
“I have a few bruises, not the flu,” I retorted.
Chris chuckled. “I offered to take over your surveillance duty, and you decline? Who are you and what did you do to Dylan Dwight?”
“Very funny,” I muttered and updated the camera status on the screens. I let my eyes swerve over the screens monitoring the training halls, as usual hoping to spot Haylie, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Ah, I know exactly what this is about,” Chris drawled, bending over my table. “You’re stalking a certain dark-haired beauty.”
“Am not.”
“Sure.”
Before I could come up with a lie on my part, Cole walked in. He sported a split lip and a set of nasty bruises peeked through from under the hem of his shirt. One eye was slightly swollen. I smirked. Yes, the view satisfied me greatly, knowing I was the one who’d beaten him blue and purple.