Steel for 5 (Mags & Nats Book 3)
Page 39
Tol winced. He had started noticing; he just hadn’t known what to do about it. The few hours he stole with Nira were an escape and an excuse…. An escape from the inevitable shackles that would be his future. An excuse not to be alone in his bed with only his thoughts of said future.
“Okay, I’ll stay away from Nira, Mum.”
“Good lad.” Gerth pinched Tol’s cheek, and Tol swatted at him.
Gerth gave him a light punch in his prosthetic arm. There was thunk as Gerth’s living flesh hit the carbon-fiber.
“Ow.” Gerth clutched his fist.
“Idiot.” Tol grinned.
CHAPTER 3
ADDY
Addy bolted awake. There was a light sheen of sweat on her brow, and the hairs on the back of her neck were prickling.
“You okay?” Livy’s sleepy whisper came from across the room.
“Fine,” Addy whispered back. “Go back to bed.”
“You have that dream again?”
That dream.
“No.”
And she hadn’t…at least, not tonight. Something else had woken her.
Livy fell back asleep almost immediately, but Addy’s pulse was still racing. She sat up in bed and listened. When she heard nothing except for Livy’s steady breathing, she tip-toed to the door and cracked it open. She heard the sound of the TV floating up from downstairs, but that wasn’t unusual. Her parents often fell asleep on the couch before shutting it off.
She rubbed her forehead. Maybe she’d been having some other dream she couldn’t remember, and that was the reason she’d woken up.
A window shattered downstairs. Her mom screamed.
Addy was already moving toward the stairs as Livy scrambled out of bed.
Stacy and Rosie’s door cracked open, and their heads poked out. “What’s going on?” Stacy asked, her eyes as round as saucers.
“Get Lucy and lock yourselves in your bedroom,” Addy told them as she headed for the stairs on silent feet.
“Wait,” Livy said, yanking on her bathrobe. “Should we—”
“You stay up here with the others,” Addy whispered. She gave her twin’s hand a squeeze.
Livy’s face was white as a sheet, but she shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”
Addy crept down the rest of the stairs, avoiding the ones that creaked. She kept to the shadows along the wall as she inched toward the living room, motioning for Livy to stay behind her.
“Where’s the money?” an unfamiliar male voice demanded.
At the sound of her father’s voice and her mother’s crying, Addy abandoned all pretenses at stealth. She ran for them.
“Kitchen,” her dad was saying. “Cookie jar in the shape of a c-cat.”
“Don’t move,” the thief replied. “Unless you want to see your wife’s blood all over the floor.”
Addy burst into the living room with Livy on her heels. Her father was trying to inch toward the mantle where he kept his unloaded rifle. Her mother was sitting on the couch, her shoulders shaking from her sobs. The thief was in the kitchen. Livy went straight for their mother. The two of them wrapped their arms around each other, like they were each trying to protect the other.
Addy stood in the center of the room, not knowing what she should do.
“P-please,” their mom begged. “Just take the money and leave.”
There was the sound of shattering pottery. They all jumped.
The thief threw open the swinging door between the two rooms and stalked back to them. He was a few inches shorter than Addy. He wore overalls and boots, but that described most of the men in their town. He looked like he was in his twenties or thirties, but the beard made it hard to tell.
Addy took in the thief’s appearance in an instant. It was the knife in his right hand—not the drawstring bag that held her family’s savings clutched in his left—that drew her attention. The blade was long and sharp. It was the kind of blade someone carried around when they meant business.
“Where’s the rest?” the thief demanded, holding up the cloth bag.
“That’s all there is,” her dad replied.
“Liar!”
The thief took hold of the collar of her mom’s bathrobe and hauled her to her feet. Livy screamed and reached for her. At the same moment, the box of bullets her father had been trying to free from behind Great Aunt Mary’s urn fell to the ground. The bullets spilled out, dropping like hail on the wood floor.
“Big mistake, buddy,” the thief growled.
Livy screamed again as she reached a hand out to their father. Before she could rise to her feet, Livy slumped onto the couch. Her whole body convulsed in a seizure. It was a bad one…Addy could tell. But she kept her focus on the thief, who had stopped in the middle of the room. He was looking from Addy’s father to Livy. Addy couldn’t tell what he was planning to do when he raised the knife in his hand.
The ground beneath Addy’s feet trembled. She lurched, losing her footing, and then stared around at the others.
“Was that an earthquake?” Addy gasped.
Everyone looked at her. Her mom gave her a slight, nervous shake of her head.
“Are all of you crazy?” the thief demanded.
Had Addy really been the only one to feel that? How could that even be possible?
She hadn’t imagined the floor shaking, had she?
When she looked up, Addy saw a faint golden light. It seemed to come from nowhere, and it was getting brighter.
Again, she looked around at the others, waiting for the same confusion and shock she felt to come over their features. It didn’t happen. Her mom was still looking at Livy, while her dad and the thief were staring at each other. No one else had noticed the golden light.
In fact, everyone else was frozen in the same spot they had been in right after the room started to shake. It was like someone had stopped time but had forgotten to include Addy. Aside from Livy, whose body was still wracked by tremors, no one else was moving.
The room erupted in golden light. Addy looked down. She gasped when she saw that she was glowing…she was the source of the golden light.
And then, before Addy could even try to process what was going on, time unfroze.
Addy forgot about the shaking ground and golden light as the thief looked from Livy, who was still shuddering and mumbling incoherently, to the bullets on the ground. Addy took advantage of his momentary indecision. She threw herself at the thief.
The man went flying. His hands were tangled in her shirt, and he dragged her with him as he hit the swinging door that separated the living room from the kitchen. Addy and the thief stumbled into the dark kitchen. Golden light flared around her. It was like a lightbulb had been turned on inside her body, and now her skin was radiating light.
Before she had a chance to consider it further, the thief slashed at her with his knife. When he missed, he threw a wild punch, which she ducked. Addy had never been in a fight in her life. She hadn’t even done karate as a little kid. And yet, her body seemed to know what to do before her mind registered what was happening. The thief swung his knife again. Again, she dodged it.
Addy wasn’t scared. She was angry. Her anger at the thief grew until it was a roaring, pulsing thing inside her. She gave herself up to whatever instinct was driving her movements.
When the thief slashed at her again, Addy grabbed his wrist in one of her hands. They struggled for only a moment before she pushed him off balance. He stumbled back into the table.
She used her height advantage and backhanded the man’s face so hard his spine cracked against one of the heavy wooden chairs. The knife went skittering across the floor and disappeared beneath the refrigerator.
Wow. She had no idea where all this power…all this rage…was coming from. It was exhilarating. It was freeing. It was like nothing she’d experienced in her eighteen years of life. The golden light inside her blazed, like it knew what she had just done and approved.
The thief writhed as he tried to regain
his breath. Addy kneed him in the groin, and he collapsed on the floor. There was a pair of her mother’s small gardening shears on the counter beside her. She grasped the shears and kneeled over the thief.
“Please,” the thief gasped as Addy loomed over him. “I’ll never come back.”
There was real fear in his eyes. The bag of money had fallen out of his grip, and he made no move to reach for it. Addy felt the broken porcelain of the cookie jar cut into her knees.
The golden light surrounding Addy blazed brighter. Rage, so blinding the man’s face flickered in and out of focus, took hold of Addy. She didn’t fight it. She welcomed it.
“Please let me go,” the thief begged.
Addy lifted the garden shears over her head. “I don’t think so.”
She let out a scream as she drove the shears into his chest.
Continue reading….
The Prince’s Chosen
StephanieFazio.com
Acknowledgements
I am so grateful to all of the people who helped bring this book together.
To Andrew Brodsky, Keith Tarrier, and Ellen Schaeffer. Thank you for being part of the team that made this series so much more than it would have been without you. You all are so talented at what you do!
To my amazing ARC team. Thank you so much for your time, encouragement, and advice.
To the friends and family who have been there with me every step of the way.
To my fantastic readers, who are the inspiration behind these books.
To all the incredible musicians who got me through this book…one song at a time. Two Steps from Hell, Tones and I, and Walter Bergmann…I owe you much.
To my amazing husband, Andrew Brodsky, for being my biggest champion.
About the Author
Stephanie Fazio is a fantasy author. She grew up in Syracuse, New York, and prior to writing full time, she worked in the fields of journalism, secondary education, and higher education. She has an undergraduate degree in English from Colgate University and a Master’s degree in Reading, Writing, and Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. Stephanie lives in Austin with her husband and crazy rescue dog. When she isn’t writing, she’s getting lost in parks, hosting taco nights, or ironically and miserably losing word games, but having fun while she does it.
Connect with Stephanie Fazio
Visit her Website: https://www.stephaniefazio.com
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Discover other books by Stephanie Fazio
The Fount Series
The Prince’s Chosen
The Forsaken’s Choice
The Chosen Union
Opal Contagion Series
Opal Smoke
Opal Slayer
Opal Storm
Bisecter Series
Bisecter
Halve Human
Dusker Dark
Captain Harkibel
Mags & Nats Series
The Nat Makes 7
Mag Subject 6
Steel for 5