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Chapter One
I shot up in bed, my skin slick with sweat, feeling like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. It wasn’t like I was being electrocuted, exactly. It was more like a battery that had been overcharged, and was still plugged in, trying to squeeze a little more juice into overstuffed cells.
I held up a hand, turning it this way and that, expecting to see signs of the frenzied energy churning inside. My body was sizzling with almost too much life, but my flesh looked the same. I looked in the mirror, but nothing jumped out at me there either. How could I still look the same, and yet every part of me felt so different? Like I was packed full of power about to explode?
It was probably better it wasn’t obvious. As long as I had it, nothing else mattered. I had a mission to accomplish, a wrong to avenge, and I’d need every advantage I could get. Herrick would pay for using my grandmother. It was the only thing getting me out of bed in the morning. I couldn’t afford to think about whatI’ddone to my grandmother. I didn’t have time to mourn her loss. The only thing I could afford to dwell on was how I’d kill Herrick.
I got ready for the day, trying to focus on what was to come, what had to be done, and not what had already passed. I dressed while envisioning his blood on my hands. I brushed my teeth imagining the taste of victory. I walked from my room pretending I was walking to meet him on the battlefield.
By the time I made it to breakfast in the smaller dining room of this massive fortress, I’d already worked up an appetite. Now I just had to figure out how to rally the troops to my cause.
Kaden walked into the room with smooth, panther-like movements several minutes later. He looked my way. The slightest tip of his head was his only acknowledgement, and even that seemed stiff. He was clearly still bent out of shape over my decision to complete the transition without informing him first. Well, it was done. He could ignore me all he wanted. Actually, it was better if he acted this way. Maybe it would help me learn to ignore him in return.
Nothing else about him made it easy, that was for sure. Certainly not the lines of his body or the angles of his face, that seemed to be even more strikingly handsome these last couple of days.
He fixed himself a plate and then sat at the table, all without managing to utter a word. He opened up his newspaper and began to read.
I stared at him and cleared my throat. He didn’t even glance my way as he continued to read. There was ignoring me and then there wasthis. It was unacceptable. It was completely over the line.
I cleared my throat—aggressively. If I was any more aggressive, I’d give myself a sore throat.
He finally acknowledged me with a raised brow, but then went back to reading.
The bastard was not only giving me the silent treatment, but withholding the crosswordagain. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t get a copy of the paper on my own. No, this was about principles, and his sucked. I wanted to rip the thing out of his hands, shred it, and then stomp on it. The man had a way of making me want to revert to a five-year-old. I wanted my puzzle, dammit.
“You’re kidding, right? We’re back to this?” Forget about recruiting him for my revenge plans. I couldn’t even get a greeting or a scrap of paper that he’d toss by the end of the day.
He turned to me, paused for a second before grinning and nodding.
“You’re going to make me get an entire paper, just so you can have the satisfaction of not handing me a single sheet you don’t bother with anyway? That’s what you’re implying?” My hands were fisted on my utensils, and he was lucky I wasn’t trying to carve him up with my butter knife.
His brows rose as he continued to look at the paper in his hand. “It does appear that way.”
He took a sip of coffee and grimaced at the taste. He hated it. Good. I might not have the paper, but I was petty enough to embrace his unhappiness over the blandness of the brew.
“Fantastic coffee, isn’t it?” I grinned assmugly as he had.
“It’ll do.” He continued to read.
If he wanted to behave this way, then I could too. I shook my head and went back to eating, telling myself to ignore him.
Except that wasn’t going to work for me, because it never did. He was one of those people who were impossible to ignore. If one person’s hair was black, his was inky black. Some people had blue eyes, but his were the color of a glacier in the arctic. He was extra everything, without even trying, and that wasn’t an easy thing to look away from.
Somehow it had been even worse the last couple of days. I’d awoken today and sensed his presence nearby in a way that I’d never felt before. When he’d walked toward the room, I’d seemed to sense he was coming.
Cookie, Dice, and Connor walked into the room, chatting away, smiling and happily unaware that they’d stumbled onto the battlefield. The guys were laughing over something Cookie had said as they filled their plates. I didn’t know what the joke was because my hearing had short-circuited, my rage blowing fuses in my brain.
All I could see was Kaden. All I could focus on was my fury. “I need you to explain what I did that’s making you act likethis. What was so wrong about it? Almost Kradix or full Kradix, so what?”
There. It was done. Now he could lecture me for an hour if he wanted to, but I’d get some answers. Something was definitely extreme about his reactions, and I wasn’t playing theGuess what you messed up this time?game.
There was a gasp from the side of the room, and three shocked faces were looking on.
“We’re having a bit of a disagreement.” I didn’t particularly care what they heard. I wasn’t the one acting like an ass.
Kaden finally put down his paper. If I wasn’t near to erupting myself, I might’ve been concerned about the heat in his eyes.
“Why bother talking about it now?” he said. “Why talk about anything? You go ahead and make unilateral decisions anyway.”
