by M. Leighton
GRAVITY
By
M. Leighton
Love is irresistible. Gravity is undeniable.
Holy men have foretold their birth for thousands of years. Supernatural creatures have awaited it for thousands more. Now, in the presence of an eclipse, three souls mature for a single purpose—to fight. They must fight for their lives, for their freedom and for the liberation of everyone possessed of a second nature.
********
Peyton Giles’s world is turned upside down when she learns that everyone in her life and in her school is much more than they appear, she most of all. Peyton is the one person in all of time and history powerful enough to bring peace to the darkness and to the light. Not knowing that her powers could kill her, however, Peyton nearly loses her life only to have her brother’s best friend save it. Drawn to him in ways she can’t explain, Trace is the one person that she literally can’t live without. Her soul is tethered to her world through her connection to him. Without it, she will die.
For the most part, Trace Kramer had always steered clear of his best friend’s sister. Until now. He never would’ve expected that Peyton would hold his life and his future in her hands the way she’s always held his heart. But she does.
Peyton and Trace soon learn that love and fate aren’t easier than duty and destiny, at least not when you’re being hunted. Together, they are more powerful than any other creature on the planet—and more valuable—but apart, neither can survive to fight for freedom, for the only life they’ve ever known and for the lives of everyone they’ve ever met.
Their need for one another is undeniable. Their love for one another is irresistible. But can it endure all that they must suffer?
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2012, M. Leighton
Cover photo by Conrado www.shutterstock.com
http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CHAPTER ONE
I was standing with my back to the door, talking to Lacey Roberts, one of my closest friends, when I felt two big, warm hands wrap playfully around my throat from behind.
“Tell me where your brother is and I might let you live,” the deep voice whispered threateningly into my right ear. It sent a pleasant shower of cold chills dancing down my right arm.
I couldn’t stop the broad smile that I felt curving my lips. It was a knee-jerk reaction to Trace, my brother’s best friend and my most long-standing crush.
Rather than turning or pulling away, I enjoyed the contact with Trace for the briefest of moments before I answered. At that point, I simply turned in his grasp until I could meet his eyes.
As usual, I was a bit breathless when I looked at Trace’s face. It was glorious in its masculine perfection. At least the most glorious I’d ever seen. My knees actually went weak just looking at him.
I’d had his face memorized from the first day I’d seen him four years ago, but I was convinced it was more gorgeous now than ever. If that was even possible, that is.
Smooth, tan skin stretched over razor-sharp cheekbones and a square jaw. His nose was straight and slim, his lips an amazing blend of soft and firm, but it was his eyes that did the most damage to my composure. They were the color of warm honey, golden and completely captivating.
Forcing my eyes away so I could think, I rose up onto my tiptoes and looked over Trace’s shoulder—way up over Trace’s shoulder—to where I’d last seen Brady.
“He’s in the hall in front of his bedroom,” I answered breathily.
Without looking in that direction, Trace’s lips pulled up into a lopsided grin and he winked at me.
“What’s he doing back there, getting his bat so he can fight off your suitors?”
I rolled my eyes and snorted embarrassingly.
“Yep. That’s exactly what he’s doing. Didn’t you see the line out the door? They’re out en force tonight. And this bunch is particularly unruly,” I added glibly.
Trace chuckled, a sound that slid across my skin like the brush of velvet. I loved his laugh.
“He’s gonna have to stay on top of that,” he teased, his eyes twinkling devilishly. “Maybe I should go help out. You might need someone other than that weakling to defend your honor. Can’t have someone stealing my future wife right out from under my nose.”
I smiled, but said nothing, afraid to try and speak past my excitement-constricted throat. With the exception of a couple random guys that defied the rest of the pack, Trace was one of the few people who gave me the time of day. I tended to repel humans in general and guys specifically. Except for Trace. He was the consummate flirt and he teased me relentlessly, something I think he enjoyed even more because it pushed my brother’s buttons.
Slowly, without taking his eyes off mine, Trace removed his fingers from my around throat. Even after his skin had left mine, I felt the imprint of his fingers as if I’d been branded by them. Trace always had a very profound effect on me. Sometimes I wondered if he felt it, too. Not that it mattered. He was my brother’s best friend and I would always be the little sister, even though we were all the same age.
I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped my lips as I watched Trace turn without another word and go seek out Brady. Watching him retreat was both painful and thrilling. Painful because I always felt inordinately bereft when he left and thrilling because he was breathtaking even from behind.
Between his tan skin, amber eyes and longish wavy blond hair, Trace reminded me of a golden Adonis. He looked like someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, which he did, and his body reflected that.
Trace was well over six feet, but despite his size, he moved with the grace of a large cat. He was broad of shoulder, slim of hip, long of leg and, in my opinion, true perfection everywhere in between.
I felt something touch my lower lip and chin, and I jerked back, looking questioningly at Lacey as she dabbed at my face.
“What are you doing?”
“Just wiping off that imaginary drool, trying to preserve what little dignity you have left at his point,” she said matter-of-factly, not so much as a twitch of her lips to give away her teasing lightheartedness.
“That obvious?”
“Isn’t it always?”
I sighed again, this one born of exasperation, plain and simple. I could only hope that neither Trace nor my brother knew that I pined away for Trace on practically an hourly basis. No one need know that but Lacey and me.
As Trace made his way through the crush of party-goers, I began to feel a truly visceral discomfort with every step he took. A vaguely nauseous feeling roiled in my stomach and I found myself struggling to squelch the desire to follow him. It was as if he was pulling some part of me along with him, as though invisible strings bound us and were stretched painfully taut with the increase in distance.
I saw him stop and I slowly released the breath I hadn’t even been aware of holding, the discomfort subsiding for a moment. The upper half of Trace’s body swiveled as he turned back toward me, his eyes locking with mine across the living room. He looked as confused and alarmed as I felt, a realization that I found oddly comforting.
We stared at one another for several long, intense seconds before he turned to resume his trek to my brother. This time, it didn’t seem as pronounced, that feeling of being pulled along with him, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.
“What’s your deal?” Lacey asked from my left.
Tearing my eyes away from Trace’s receding form, I shook my head and glanced at my clearly concerned friend. Her jade green eyes were clouded with worry.
“Nothing. I think I’m just getting too hot. There are too many bodies crammed into this room.”
“You’re complaining about this incredible party? Oh, poor you, with the awesome brother who throws awesome parties.”
I had to grin. Lacey was so sarcastic. I loved that about her. She had a feistiness that seemed to start with the flashes of red in her auburn hair and end with the flashes of fire in her plucky personality. She also had a pretty significant crush on my brother. Although he was kind to her, I doubted that he gave her much thought otherwise. I just didn’t have the heart to tell Lacey that.
“I’m going outside for a minute. Hold my spot.”
Lacey gave me a look that said I was being ridiculous.
“It’s your house, dude. Every spot is your spot.”
I snorted again, making a mental note to work on better controlling my bodily noises. “Yeah, right. Like anyone but you sees it that way.”
Lacey and I grinned at each other before she nodded in reluctant agreement and turned to immerse herself in conversation with a girl she barely knew from school. Lacey was a balls-out kind of person and, while some people had no idea what to do with that, I did. I loved it and encouraged it as much as I could.
I made my way through the throng of tightly-pressed bodies, across the living room and past the kitchen to the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. Once outside, I walked to the railing and turned to lean back against it as I took a deep breath and inhaled the crisp, cleansing night air.
My mind began to clear, the bizarre incident with Trace seeming to fade by a million miles with every second that passed. I looked back into the living room, in at all the familiar faces of my schoolmates, and I let my mind drift.
To be such a small school, Breakstone Academy seemed to have all the major cliques and issues of a much larger institution. We had nerds, potheads, preppies, jocks and rednecks just like every other school in America. The thing I found most odd about our little pack, however, was the unifying force that was my brother. He and Trace seemed to bring all the diverse walks of life together in peace and harmony.
In my living room, I could identify at least one representative of every clique and social grouping that I knew of. They had all come together to attend my brother’s birthday party. Yes, it was my birthday party, too, but Trace and Brady were the focus of the entire event. There was just no arguing that point.
As I thought of Brady, I wondered at how different we were. People were drawn to Brady, in a way they never had been to me. He was my polar opposite in every way, including popularity and mass appeal. I got none of his looks, none of his talent, none of his personality and none of his charm. He was everything one could hope for in a brother, a friend, a football player, a boyfriend, a student, a son. And I was everything but. Before birth, he must’ve taken a long swim in the perfect end of the gene pool, whereas I didn’t even have directions on how to get there.
Although we were fraternal twins, we looked absolutely nothing alike. In fact, we didn’t even look distantly related. Brady was blessed with light brown hair, blue eyes and classic features—the typical Californian surfer dude. I, on the other hand, was anything but the typical Californian girl. Rather than the highly-coveted tall, tan, leggy build and blonde hair, I was cursed with a thin 5’4” frame, stick-straight inky black hair, the fairest skin on the planet and eyes so dark a blue, they appeared to be almost violet. Nondescript is what I called them.
I always joked about my looks. Brady, although always amused by my hyperbole, was always his sweet, supportive, loving self. He continually found something kind to say, some way to argue against my self-deprecation.
“I’m hideous!” I’d say. “Wednesday Addams hideous.”
“No, you’re not. Stop saying that! You’re beautiful, P. Just because you don’t look like all the other Barbies around here doesn’t mean you’re any less pretty than they are. One day you’ll find someone who sees what I see. Just hang in there.”
See? What a guy! Obviously, I didn’t get his way with words either.
Shaking myself back to the present, I saw Brady making his way into the packed living room. He stopped to flirt with a couple of pretty cheerleaders. He flashed his perfect teeth in a smile that would make even grandmothers stop in their tracks. The cheerleaders practically swooned.
As if looking for me, he glanced up at just that moment, his eyes meeting mine through the glass, and he winked one sparkling blue eye. I couldn’t help but grin. He knew what effect he was having on those two girls. He was an incorrigible cad!
Only he wasn’t.
Brady was actually a really nice guy. While he was admittedly enjoying the thrall of the two hot girls, he never let adulation change or affect him in any way. He was always the gentleman, always considerate of others’ feelings, never conceited or arrogant. Yep, Brady was just a great guy. Perfect, some would say. For me, though, I could only agree with that assessment if Trace was taken out of the running. He was the one person who I thought exceeded my brother’s perfection. Funny, smart, considerate, kind to a fault, flirtatious, complimentary, and handsome to the Nth degree—yep, Trace was truly perfect.
As my thoughts drifted once more in his direction, the sigh in my chest died on my lips when I saw him appear behind Brady. I found it odd how often that happened. I’d be thinking about Trace and, as if my wayward thoughts had somehow summoned him, he would appear, usually coming to sit with my brother at lunch, tracking him down at his locker, or stopping by to hang out with him at our house.
My stomach flipped over when his eyes rose above my brother’s head and met mine across the distance. He held my gaze briefly before he looked quickly away.
Feeling a bit wounded for some reason, I turned my back on the house, facing the woods that hugged the deck on three sides. I stood staring blankly out into the night for what seemed like an eternity before I heard the cuckoo clock chime, the unique sound just barely discernible over the loud music that drifted through the kitchen’s open window. Twelve cuckoos. It was midnight, officially the eighteenth anniversary of my birth. And Trace’s. And Brady’s. How crazy was it that we three shared the same birthday?
At that very moment, something drew my eye heavenward, just in time to see the clouds part to reveal the silvery globe of the moon. I was admiring the simple beauty of the scene when a voice whispered near my right ear, startling me.
I couldn’t make out the words and when I whirled around, I saw that no one was near. As I had been only seconds before, I was alone on the deck.
I heard the voice again, this time able to distinguish that it wasn’t a single voice, but a collection of voices. All were speaking the same words. All were speaking simultaneously. All were unfamiliar.
A rash of cold chills spread down my arms and raised the hairs at the back of my neck. I turned 360 degrees, looking frantically about for bodies to go along with the voices. I scanned the shadows of the trees, the dips and hollows of the lawn, even the dark corners of the deck, but I spotted no one. I was totally and completely alone.
Suddenly, the indecipherable whispers seemed to erupt from the air all around me, pummeling me from every direction. Voices I’d never heard, words I couldn�
�t understand, males and females I didn’t know. Fear crept up from the pit of my stomach and lodged like a stone in my throat.
As my eyes continued to scan the landscape around me, I saw the ethereal glow of the full moon begin to dissipate, degree by slow degree. Looking back up into the night sky, I saw the bright globe fade into a thin sliver as the earth passed between it and the sun, darkening the shiny ball until it was eclipsed completely.
The whispers grew louder, more frantic, even less intelligible and I thought for a second to run inside, to escape, but I felt as though I should stay. For some reason, I felt like something was happening to me, something that transcended every other moment and event in my life. So I stood on the back deck, staring up at the dark moon, listening to voices I couldn’t understand, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
Suddenly, a nearly-painful blast of heat hit me between the shoulder blades. It felt as though it melted through my skin and bone and tissue and exploded inside my chest where it burned like a hot, heavy ball of fire. It pulsed there, seeming to radiate into my stomach and then out into my extremities, throbbing at the ends of my fingers and toes.
Breathless and confused, I turned around, not really expecting to see that anything tangible was causing the intense warmth.
But I was wrong.
Standing directly behind me, staring at me as though I’d grown a second head, was Trace. His brow was creased and he wore a confused expression I knew mirrored my own. His lips parted a tiny bit, as if he thought to speak, but then he changed his mind. His eyes left mine for a moment, flickering down to his hands, hands that he raised to eye level. He turned them over to stare in wonder at the palms. He flexed his fingers, shook them gingerly, and then let them fall limply to his sides again.
I felt a painful yearning spring to life deep inside me as I stood watching him. It clawed savagely at the inside wall of my chest, as if it were a wild animal trapped within me, desperate to get out and satisfy its hunger. And then it found freedom, bursting forth from me in a physical presence that I felt as much as I saw.