CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1) (29 page)

"Oh, hell. You're going to ruin your dress." Giselle pulled on her arm, but in her dress and heels, she only managed to drag Kade a few feet. "A little help? I didn't mean to tell you. I sort of broke the rules. We've all been skirting around you for a while now, so..." She yanked on Kade again, not finishing her sentence, but Kade couldn't speak. Her brain stopped functioning. Her body was empty. Void of any feeling at all. Numb. "How you didn't recognize we were like you, I'll never know."

She knows what I am?
Not possible. As many times as Kade had wondered if there were others like her, she'd always been too afraid to give it more than a moment's thought. Her dad made sure of that.
So did her reflection in the mirror.
Who would ever want to be friends with something like her? Date something like her? The real her? No one.
Ever.

"What was I supposed to do?" Giselle continued yanking on Kade’s arm. "Let you blast Tiffany into the next state? She'd get a little pissed about that."

"A
little
pissed?”
Tiffany? She’s like me, too?

"Come on, get up. Don't make me drag you out of here on your butt."

Volare
? What the hell? "You said, we." Her words were barely above a whisper.

"What?" Giselle let go.

"We? You said we fly off the handle when we get upset. Who's we?"

Giselle squatted down, an odd look in her eyes. Kade remembered that look in her dad's eyes when she'd blasted Scott
Nelson off the sidewalk when she was five years old. “You're very special, Kadey. But no one can know” he’d said.

"I'm like you, Kade." Giselle gave an encouraging smile. "Lindsey, too. We're called Primeva. It's okay. You're not alone
anymore. You don't have to hide anymore. Not from us."

Primeva
? The children of the moon. The bad seeds of the Primordial race. Kade knew that. The ones with Devil's blood. The
same blood Dracon had running through his veins. Someone else had told her she was a Primeva.
When was that? That's not what I am, though
. A tear fell down her face. No one was like her.

"Aw, don't cry. You're messing up all my hard work." Giselle sprang to her feet and ripped out a few more paper towels. Giselle didn't
look
bad, Kadence thought. Not like a bad person. Had never even acted mean in any way that she'd noticed. "Here, let me fix
your
face before you look like a damn raccoon." She blotted Kade's eyes, her cheeks, and smiled. "There. Beautiful, still. Come on. We'll talk more later. I give Jake about one more minute before he busts the door down."

How can Giselle have Devil's blood? She can't be a bad seed. Not a monster like I am. Oh, god. Jake. Does he know about this?
It only made sense. I shocked him. No wonder he looked at me like I was crazy.
He knows.
She gave Giselle a curious glance, too afraid to voice her fears, as she pulled Kade to her feet and brushed off her dress.

"Oh, Jake won't think twice about coming in here. Trust me."

On shaky legs, Kade followed her out of the bathroom. Under the glaring shock of strobe lights, Jake leaned against the wall with
his arms over chest. Jaw set, posture stiff, he pushed away the
second he saw her, and his gaze swept over her dress, down to her shoes and back up to her face.

"What happened?" There was no warmth in his tone. Only anger and something else. Suspicion?

"Space Kadet here, forgot to eat dinner, so she got lightheaded and almost passed out," Giselle lied, and very well, Kade noticed. "Maybe you should feed your date."

Jake's features softened. "Are you okay? Why didn't you say anything?" His hand found her waist. "We can leave early. Go to dinner. I'm sure your dad won't mind," he rambled, and it seemed so odd. That his concern for her, someone who he'd met only a week ago, would be so worried. "There's cake." Jake motioned toward the banquet table. "Chips? Cookies? Sugar is always good to spike your blood. I'll make you a plate. Be right back."

"Is he always so..."

"Freaked?" Giselle grinned. "No. I've never seen this side of him before. Huh. Interesting."

"How so?"

"I don't know. Come on, Lindsey looks like she's ready to beat someone to death."

Kade glanced toward their table. Lindsey's expression was mutinous.

"We are
never
coming to another dance again." She glared at
Giselle. "
Ever.
"

"Oh, hush it. I had to put the fire out."

Kade couldn't take her eyes off of Lindsey. She was one of them, too. A Primeva. Could they move like Kade could? As fast as she could? Did they look like she did? Like a monster? It was hard to picture. And what about the Shadows?

"Feel better?" Lindsey asked.

Kade nodded, lying. She didn't feel better, she felt off. Kade knew who the Primeva were. Dracon had told her, but something
else was tugging at her thoughts. In the recesses of her brain. A memory of something she couldn't quite place.

“Good. Because lover boy is walking this way." Lindsey
smirked. "And I, for one, would rather not have to put you down like a rabid dog in front of the entire school if you pull another stunt like the one
you did a few minutes ago." Her dark brows lifted as one line. "Got
me?"

Kade nodded, unable to move under her stare, but she could
feel him.
The palpable heat bubbling up from inside her, radiating like heat through the gym. The quiver on the air. It made her hair stand up and tingle the back of her neck. Made her shiver with yearning. With want.

Cole.

THE CHAIR BESIDE KADE
pulled away from the table, and Cole sat down, his black dress pants brushing against her bare leg. The scent of clean laundry and fire swirled in the air. She took it in like a drug, relishing in the way it made her head spin. She was like an addict who needed a fix.

"Ladies, you look lovely this evening." His gaze shifted toward Kade. "Sparrow." He inclined his head in a gentlemanly way.

She let out a gasp and touched his bottom lip without even realizing it. "What happened?" His mouth was swollen. A cut trailed from his jaw to the corner of his lip. His cheekbone was bruised, and his face was pale.

"It's nothing." He smiled, but pain was present in his gaze. "You look...beautiful."

Kade's face flushed and she lowered her hand, a rush of energy flooding through her, hot and fast. Memories or dreams, she wasn't
sure which, streaked through her thoughts. "So do you." She'd missed hearing him call her Sparrow. Seeing his face. Missed the
way he
always gazed at her like she was something desirable, not the
monster she truly was.

A slight flush touched Cole's cheeks. "Yeah, well, some of us
don't need to try."

His black suit fit his body in all the right places, and the very top button of his shirt was undone, his tie knot slightly loose and off center, showing a hint of skin on his neck. Kade wondered if Tiffany had undone it. The thought made her blood boil, and her energy spiked again, too hard and too fast. Her hands went to the edge of her chair with an iron grip.

"Did you lose your date?" Lindsey asked in a bored tone.

Cole either didn't hear her, or chose to ignore her, because his stare remained locked on Kade's. "Are you okay?"

She nodded without speaking, concentrating on keeping herself still. All her life Kade had hoped to meet someone like him. Someone who would understand. Who she wouldn't have to hide from, and she
hoped
, even though she never admitted it to herself, that Cole
was that person. That he knew.
Understood
. But staring at him gazing at her, a sinking feeling took over her emotions, and she wanted to look away. To hide what she was. He would never want something
like her.

"How's the head?" His hand lifted a fraction off the table as if he wanted to touch her, but he laid it back down. "Have you been watching your feet while I've been gone? No more falls?"

"It's only been a day," she said without breath.

"Felt like forever." His gaze traveled over her bare shoulders, following her collarbone, and up to her face. Heat flushed her skin and the air around them moved. "You're blushing, Sparrow."

Her lips parted, and his gaze lowered to her mouth. He bit the edge of his bottom lip, and the action set her on fire.
You can't want me. You won't after you know what I am.

"So, Jake, huh?" Cole leaned close enough to kiss her, and it was all she could do not to breach the distance between them and press her lips against his. "Does he make your body heat up like I do?"

Her breaths increased, heart pounding, and she could no longer contain the energy. The chair trembled underneath her, the metal legs making a faint rattling against the gym floor. Without her crystal to calm her down, she was going to blow.

"Sparrow?" Cole glanced at her hands, gripped around the edges of the plastic chair like a life raft. The beads of sweat forming near her temples, over her forehead. He shifted toward Giselle and Lindsey with a furious stare. "When did this start?" The question sounded like an order. A command. The same tone of voice he'd used on the sidewalk outside of Crystalline when he'd told Giselle to take Kade home.

"A little while ago. Just as you walked in the gym," Giselle answered like a student might to a teacher. "I tried to shut it down,
but—"

Cole glanced back at Kade. "It's okay," he said in a gentle voice and touched her cheek with his thumb. "You're okay."

That was all it took. She
knew
that voice. That sweet, lulling tone. A thousand memories came flooding at her as if a dam had broken loose. Cole holding her hand at the Kinship while she lay in a strange bed. Cole telling her he wouldn't leave her. Cole explaining to her that he was Primori in the woods outside of her house when he protected her from Dracon. Cole kissing her, a tiny kiss, his lips barely brushing hers, but it was still a kiss.

He was a Primori. The memory turned over in her head. One of Celestial Children. The godly ones. He'd told her that. Whispered it to her. The memory, knowing it was a memory, made tears well up in her eyes.

Cole reached for her hands, unlatching her stone grip, and turned her chair with her sitting in it to face him. Their knees touched. "You remember." His voice hitched. "I can see it in your eyes."

Kade nodded, and lost it. Tears streaked down her face.

"It's okay." He wiped her cheeks. "Don't cry. We're just going to stand up and walk out of here. Easy. No one will even notice. You can hold my hand if you want. Squeeze it as tight as you want." He gave her a sweet grin.

She wanted desperately to do that. To hold his hand the same way she'd held it in the Kinship. She wanted him to put his arms around her, to kiss her like he had in his Jeep in front of her house. More tears fell as the memories continued. No one had ever talked to her the way he had. In a caring, empathetic way. The same way he'd spoken to her when the doctor had drawn her blood and pricked her finger. Telling her stories to make her laugh so she wouldn't think about the pain. Drawing circles on her face with his finger, down her cheeks, over her temples.

Cole wiped the tears away again, holding her jaw in his hand. "I've got you." He stared into her eyes. "I promise." He turned toward Lindsey and Giselle. "Cover me."

"Cole, we can't—" Lindsey began, suddenly fully alert. "You can't—"

"Cover. Me." He shoved one of the chairs out of the way with his foot, steering Kade through the crowd. "See, you're okay," he said. "Just breathe. Sometimes our energy surges up and makes it hard to control. It's totally normal for fledglings."

Kade remembered that Cole was the Brotherhood's Alpha, the
one who looked out for the younger kids who were just learning what they were. She could understand why. He was good at it.
Blindly, she
reached for his hand, the one that wasn't around her waist, and the warmth of his fingers thread through her own. Her pulse both raced and slowed and she had no idea how that was even possible. They stepped into the hall and cold air rushed over Kade, causing her to tremble.

"Go get her coat," Cole said over his shoulder. "Without being
seen."

Giselle made an angry noise, but she didn't argue. Kade heard the double gym door swing shut behind them. She wanted to sit
down, or fall down, all her weight was hovering somewhere near her knees. Cole steered them into an empty classroom and walked back into the hallway, meeting Giselle as she came back with Kade’s things. "Tell Jake she got sick or something, and her dad picked her
up."

“Cole, we can't just—" Giselle started.

"You can, and you will, or you can take Kadence's possible exposure under your watch up with Warden Caelius."

Kade wanted to apologize to Giselle for walking off with Cole, but for the moment she thought being with him was the safest place for her to be. Giselle gave her a quick hug before heading back to Lindsey.

Cole held her coat and purse. He slipped the coat over her chill-
bumped arms and buttoned it up to her chin like she was five years
old.

"I wasn't imagining it all." Kade still thought she might fall.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. The Warden cleared your memory. There are rules we have to follow." He handed over her purse.

She gazed at him, and the past few days rushed at her too fast, so unbelievable, that she stumbled. Cole swooped underneath her.

"Whoa. Careful. I'll take you home. Sometimes, when we get really upset, our energy burns too fast and drains us. You'll get better at conserving it when you're trained."

"Trained?" Her legs were wobbly and the high heels weren't helping. She thought of the newborn calf look she'd had getting out of Jake's car. Somehow, leaning against Cole as if she'd drunk too much and couldn't stay upright, was worse than that.