Elemental (28 page)

No, Meir. No!

I threw myself to the ground and let the
torrents of despair rip through every last part of me. My heart
twisted in on itself. It squeezed and throbbed against my chest
until I couldn’t feel anything but the pain. I’d lost him again.
That had been Malik’s true betrayal: letting me hope.

As if bidden from the dead, a cackling sort
of chuckle I recognized all too well echoed around me. I peered out
from behind the curtain of my hair as terror clenched at me. I
brought a shaking hand up to clear away some of the strands.

“Who’s there?” My voice shook right along
with my hand.

“You know who.” Malik’s voice skittered
around me, sometimes close, sometimes far away.

“You’re dead.”

Malik laughed again. His maniacal cackling
poured into me, making all the blood in my veins freeze.

I screamed.

“Ella!” Something shook me and I thrust my
arms out to do what little I could to protect myself. “Ella,
stop!”

The darkness seeped away from my mind and
Cailen’s face loomed in front of mine. I gasped and wrapped my arms
around him, anchoring myself to this sense of reality.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

I dug my head into his chest and clenched my
jaw shut to stop my chattering teeth. I tasted blood and let my
tongue roam around my mouth, searching. A chunk of skin hung off
the inside of my cheek. I pressed my tongue hard against the hole,
reveling in the sting. The sting was real. The sting was good.

“What happened?”

I shook my head in answer.

Something fluttered behind Cailen, and too
soon the sting began to seep away. I pressed harder, desperate. I
dug my hands into Cailen’s shoulders and pressed tighter to him. I
couldn’t lose this hold. I couldn’t go back to the darkness.

Cailen leaned away with one arm still
wrapped around my waist. I whimpered and bit back the tears. Before
I knew it, the world had disappeared again.

I screamed.

A whirlpool of light swirled around me, in
and out. And I continued screaming.

Silver walls formed around us. Men and women
in silver uniforms froze. And even thought I knew we were back in
the Block, I was still screaming.

“Shh.” Cailen rubbed circles on my back and
pressed his cheek against my head. “You’re safe now.”

Cailen had said that to me before and he’d
been right then. Maybe he was right now. So I let my screams die
out even as I clung tighter to him. I couldn’t let go. I knew once
I did, I’d be lost again.

He lifted his head from mine and said to
someone behind me, “Take him to a room and get someone to keep an
eye on him.”

I looked up then, my curiosity warring with
my terror. Two soldiers in silver suits picked up Meir’s prostrate
form—which had been lying at Cailen’s side—and carried him past me.
Despite all the warnings in my head, I looked. Meir’s face was…
still intact. In fact, it looked flushed and healthy. No guts
trailed out of his torso. His chest rose and fell with steady
breaths. The only thing wrong with him was his left leg—it was gone
at the knee.

I shook my head to make some sense of
everything. Meir had been dead; I’d seen it. And not just dead, but
torn apart. This wasn’t Meir. It couldn’t be. The world started
spinning again and I knew that, if I didn’t lie down soon, I was
going to puke.

As if hearing my thoughts, Cailen picked me
up and carried me down the hall in the opposite direction from
Meir. I rested my head against his chest and took deep breaths.
When he placed me on the bed, I wrapped his shirt in my fists and
pulled him down with me.

“Please stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up around my
eyes as I remembered how I’d betrayed him even after all he’d done
for me.

“We all make mistakes, Ella.” His voice was
low and sad. He turned to his side and settled deeper beside me.
“So, what happened?”

“I killed them,” I whispered. For some
reason, I knew saying it louder would make it feel too real. “All
of them.”

“And Manoo?”

“I don’t know.” I turned my face away from
him.

He sighed. It was the kind of sigh I
imagined meant he didn’t know how to break something to me, but he
was going to, any-way. “The Mosandarians are here. And the Mamood
war ships are still surrounding the planet.” He put his finger on
my chin and forced me to look at him. “The war is still on.”

And just like that, a hole in my heart
ripped open. Everything I’d done had been pointless.

“But you did good. You did what you were
supposed to do.” He smiled and kissed me on the cheek. The current
of warmth pulsed through me from my face all the way down to my
toes.

This was real.
This
was my reality,
not the darkness.

I bit my lip and looked away. The darkness
couldn’t have been real. It
had
to have been a
hallucination. Didn’t it?

I looked back at Cailen and stared into his
bright, green eyes, wondering if they were real. Malik had done
nothing but lie to me, and Cailen—despite everything I’d accused
him of—had always told the truth. His eyes were real.

End of Book One

Keep reading for a sneak peek of:

Fae

the sequel to Elemental

Coming in 2013 from Spencer Hill Press

Chapter One:

Surprises

I fell on my bed, laughing.

“I’m being serious,” Cailen said, his eyes
wide with innocence. “I’m terrified of water.”

A new round of giggles burst from my mouth
and shook my whole body. I dove face-first for the pillow. It was
totally ridiculous.
Cailen
? The guy who’d entered into a
training program with hundreds of other students and came out as
one of only four survivors was afraid of something as benign as
water? I dove deeper into the soft, down folds to snuff out the
noise. When I turned to peek at him, I could tell by the sour
expression on his face that he was not amused.

I howled with laughter again.

My chest started to hurt and I needed to rub
at it just it so I could breathe. Several minutes and an achy
stomach later, I’d finally reined it in enough to look at him
again.

He sat across from me on the only chair in
my bedroom. He leaned the chair to its limits, pressing its back
against the wall, his arms across his chest. Not good.

With a giggly sigh, I sat up to face him. It
took a few breaths, but I managed to put on a straight face.

“Are you done?”

I had to think about that. And since I could
feel Cailen’s irritation rolling off him in waves, I decided to
say, “Yes.” It was easy to forget sometimes that Cailen wasn’t used
to being mocked. When I did remember, though, the guilt poured
through me. In Auru, he was someone important. But he wasn’t in
Auru and that was because of me. “I’m sorry.”

He tipped the front legs back onto the floor
and leaned forward with a smile. Forgiveness always came so easily
with him. “It’s your turn.”

Ever since I’d returned to Soltak over three
weeks ago, there’d been nothing to do but wait for the inevitable
ground battle between the Soltakians—and their allies, the
Mosandarians—and the Mamood. Entertainment was hard to find amongst
the miles of military-controlled corridors that made up the
underground Soltakian bunker. They called it The Block for a
reason—flat, bland, and nondescript. And it wasn’t like we could
leave. I was firm on that point. There was no way I could leave the
Soltakians alone to face a battle I’d created.

I’d already proven I had no problem getting
blood on my hands.

So Cailen had suggested we try a truth game,
played by trillions of people across the galaxy, to pass the time.
Between dwelling on the impending doom, wandering around aimlessly,
or finding out more about Cailen, the choice pretty much made
itself.

Plus, Cailen and I agreed we needed time
together. It still bothered me that I didn’t know whether our
feelings for each other were genuine or contrived. I figured that,
as long as we tried to get to know each other, some day it might
not matter if they turned out to be either, neither, or both.

The drilium bond wasn’t ever going to go
away. I could feel it now, buzzing through my veins, drawing me to
Cailen. The want I had for him was unbearable sometimes, but I
didn’t give in and touch him. I wasn’t ready for that yet. Not
until I knew I
really
loved him.

I scrunched my nose and rubbed my eyebrow.
What truth did I have to tell that he didn’t already know?
Ninety-eight percent of my life was lost in the oblivion of my
failed memory. The rest I’d spent with him.

Well, there was that one secret. I shuddered
as goose bumps prickled across my skin. That was one particular
secret I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. No one could know about my
hallucination. Besides, I’d only had the one. Malik’s ghost must
have decided I wasn’t worth haunting.

“My favorite color is green,” I finally
said. A blush spread across my cheeks when I remembered just why my
favorite color was that particular shade. Looking into Cailen’s
green eyes, I thought back to the years I’d spent in
Sho’ful
thinking about them. They were the only things that’d stuck with
me. Everything else was gone.

He half-smiled with a knowing look. “Is that
why you’ve worn that dress three times this week?”

I looked down and stroked the silky folds of
my green Auri dress. A smile crept onto my lips as I realized
Cailen not only noticed, but remembered. “I don’t have to answer
that. It’s your turn,” I said as I peered at him through the
strands of my hair.

He leaned back again and looked up at the
silvery ceiling for a few seconds. Weariness and impatience
prickled from him to me. “I’m tired of being trapped in here. How
about we go up top?”

“You know it’s dangerous outside.”

He chuckled. There was no humor in it,
though. “Yes. Dangerous.”

There were several long, uncomfortable
minutes of silence before I’d decided our game had come to an end
and stood up to put on my cloak. “Will we get into trouble if we
leave?”

He tore his gaze away from the ceiling and
smiled a wolfish grin. “I really don’t care.” And before I could
react, he jumped out of his chair and grabbed my wrist.

Acknowledgments

One would think that after writing a whole
novel and going through all the edits, revisions, and headaches,
writing a list of thank yous to acknowledge all those who’d helped
me along the way would be easy.

But one would be wrong.

And since a picture speaks a thousand words,
I’d thought about asking my publisher if I could start a new trend
and provide a cartoon that adequately expressed the warm feelings I
have for everyone. But then I remembered my skill at drawing ends
at stick figures.

So writing it is.

First of all, I have to thank my parents. If
you hadn’t named me after a famous poet, I probably never would
have connected the dots between the magical, beautiful words I
loved to devour and the people who wrote them. It’s probably a safe
bet to assume I would have gone through the first few,
impressionable years of my life thinking the words in books
appeared out of thin air and that spark I’d first felt to write
when I’d also first learned to read would never have occurred. So
thank you. And thank you for also encouraging me in my craft, for
never letting me settle for “good enough.”

And thank you to my husband. Sometimes I
wondered why I ever bothered to let you read my writing in the
first place, but I’m glad I did. You taught me that I was looking
for praise more than honest opinions. And boy did I make sure
everything was perfect before I let you read anything again. That
kind of support is invaluable and it prepared me for the real world
of writing and publishing more than anything else could have.

I will never dare to put fluorescent lights
on a spaceship again. Honestly, the idea does make me shudder
now.

To my two little boys, thank you for being
the most patient, forgiving, and quiet little children I ever could
have hoped for.

To my high school English teacher, Mr.
Russo, I thank you for pretending I actually had skill. Looking
back now at what I wrote, I wonder how you didn’t cringe. Oh, the
adverbs. Those fickle little friends. But how I did love them. And
the encouragement you gave me—despite the fact it probably wasn’t
warranted—pushed me forward in my pursuit of my dream. It was
during my time in your class that I realized not only did I want to
write, I wanted to do it for a living.

Also, thank you for showing me that writing
didn’t have to be all serious. I think I’d forgotten that fact by
the time I hit my teens. I’ll never forget our class iced tea and
lemonade parties. Shadoobie, my friend. Shattered. Shattered.