Sneak Peek: Longing and Lies

A twig snapped outside, startling me from my relentless thoughts about home, and I gasped.

Heart hammering, I sat rigidly on my bed, which was barely more than a thin layer of quilt batting stretched atop a couple empty crates. Cold morning light filtered in through the uninsulated cabin walls, and as I took a shaky breath, plumes of damp air appeared briefly in the shafts of light before floating back into shadow. My bones ached down to the marrow, my muscles so stiff I could barely suppress a groan as I carefully crawled onto the floor.

My cousin Elise and I were holed up inside her “safehouse”—a rotten skeleton of a shack positioned deep in the forest that was supposed to be, you know, safe. So, what or who would be creeping around outside?

A quick scan around the room proved Elise was nowhere to be found, but I knew it couldn't be her making the noise. For starters, she was extremely stealthy, and beyond that, she was an Earth Elemental. Nothing as trivial as a twig snapping would give her away. The earth wouldn't allow it.

I couldn’t shake the nauseous fear swimming in my gut.

Another twig cracked, and I scrambled on my hands and knees to the nearest wall, peering through one of the drafty slats between the logs. The lower half of two people came into view, striding carefully through the forest. Both sets of legs were long, strong, and clad in ripped-up, dirty denim jeans. Men. Neither of them left any footprints behind in the snow.

Shit.

My heart rate kicked into overdrive, and genuine panic ensued, forcing dread and anxiety to flood through me like a river. Heat and tightness shot across my chest, oxygen cascaded through my veins, and power burst out of my palms, filling the tiny cabin with millions of blustering snowflakes.

Shit, shit, shit.

The more I stressed, the more the snowflakes filled the room and gusted about, blowing through the cracks of the windowpanes and between the drafty logs, probably bursting out in ridiculous plumes of white that were basically like a neon sign pointing right at me.

Okay, Val, focus. What did Chase and Kale say to do when my emotions took control of my power? Picture a cold tundra? Yes, it was something like that. But that was specifically for my fire power. I needed something for my water power. Should I picture a hot desert?

As I imagined it, the whole room lit up in flames.

No, no, no.

I squeezed my fists and squelched the blaze, leaving streaks of hissing steam rising from the once-lit boards. I was a living, breathing target simply dying to be sought out. I hated it, this lack of control.

A tiny square door in the ceiling flung open, and half of Elise’s upper body dipped into view. She was practically upside down. “Are you trying to get us both killed?” she snarled in an angry whisper as she jabbed her hand out to me.

I reached for her, and we clasped hands. “No. I just—”

“Come on,” she interrupted, hefting me off the floor and pulling me into the narrow attic above. Holy shit, she was strong. She’d barely secured the latch when I heard the cabin door burst open below.

Listening closely, I could just barely hear their voices as they began talking to each other.

“Are you sure it was her?” the first guy asked.

“Had to have been. There were snowflakes everywhere, and then there were flames,” the second guy replied.

Elise took that moment to glare at me, while I held up my hands in defense.

“It was an accident,” I mouthed.

All I got in return was a mimed zipper across the lips. I pursed my lips, cocked my head, and widened my eyes in defiance. I didn’t particularly like her bossing me around. Even silently.

“I don’t see anything…” the first one muttered.

My heart pounded, and my hands began to shake. We were seconds away from being found, and then what? Capture? Torture? Death? I’d seen it all before, but that didn’t make the prospect of it any less repulsive.

“She has to be here,” the second guy said.

I could hear their footsteps creaking across the floorboards as they searched for me.

“There are only two rooms in this shack. She’s not in either of them,” the first guy reasoned.

“Maybe she ran out the back?”

“No, I already checked for footprints.”

“She’s a Water, though.”

Their footsteps drew closer, positioning them right beneath us. I held my breath and tried to become like a corpse while they continued talking quietly.

“An unskilled Water,” the first voice said. “She doesn’t know how to cover her tracks yet. She can barely control it at all.”

I might’ve been offended if they weren’t completely spot-on with their assessment of my abysmal skills. Beyond that, though, I was beginning to think the tone and timbre of the voices sounded…familiar. My muscles relaxed, and my breaths evened out, a reaction I couldn’t quite understand. I strained my ears even harder to get a better listen.

“Valerie?” the second voice called from the room below. “Are you here?”

The raw, hopefulness scratching from his mouth and clinging to my name made my heart ache. I knew that voice. And the other one. Chase and Jay.

I shot an optimistic look at Elise, but she shook her head, drawing my attention toward a small circular vent in the roof. Soundlessly, she began removing the slats.

As if we’re going to fit through there.

When she was finished, she pointed to the now-unobstructed vent and waved me over. This was our way out. That was her plan.

But I couldn’t just leave Chase and Jay behind. Chase was one of my boyfriends, and Jay was my friend. They wouldn’t hurt me or ruin Elise’s plans—whatever they were. I needed to go to them.

I reached for the latch of the attic door, but before I could touch the metal handle, Elise was behind me, squeezing my torso with her left arm and barring my mouth with her right hand.

“Don’t even think about it!” she hissed in my ear. “We need to stay hidden if we want to stay alive.”

I tried to protest through her locked-tight fingers, and somehow, my muffled argument seemed to make sense to her.

“I don’t care if you think they’re your friends,” she said. “With Nicholai in the picture now, and peoples’ lives at stake, we can't trust anyone.”      

But we could trust them. I knew we could. I tried to wriggle free of her hold, but she was strong as hell for a woman of our size. All that secret spy training, no doubt.

With no other options, I let out a stifled scream and started kicking the rafters.

“Are you insane?” Elise squeaked, a look of horror painted across her pallid face.

I almost laughed. Likely, yes.

My foot smashed through a rotten board and suddenly both my legs were dangling from the ceiling. One of the guys grabbed a hold of me, guiding me down into their awaiting arms. Warm. Safe. Hopeful. Chase.

Whole-body warmth overcame me as I gazed into his electric blue eyes, his strong arms clutching me tightly like he’d never let me go again. But then Elise dropped down and landed in a crouch, kicking both our legs out from under us and sending us crashing to the floor. Chase did his best to take the brunt of the fall, but still my lungs ached like they’d been smashed with a hammer.

Elise aimed a punch at Jay’s face, which he ducked and deflected. She growled, swooping down to knock his legs out, but he hopped over her kick like a jump rope.

Damn. If his skills were on par with Elise’s, then he was good.

Chase helped me onto my feet just in time to catch a jab to the face.

“Elise, stop it,” I shouted, but she was in mission-mode with only one objective—keeping me away from anything and everything she considered a threat. She yanked the back of my shirt and wrapped an arm around my waist, dragging me to her side as she brandished a knife between us and them.

“Who sent you?” she growled through gritted teeth.

“Calm down,” I gritted out as I unsuccessfully pried at her arm, doing my best to shake her off without accidentally getting stabbed. “They’re my friends.”

“Enough.” She steadied the blade and my body at the same time. “Who are you, and how did you find us?”

“Better question,” Chase growled, glaring at the knife in her hand. “Who the hell are you, and why did you kidnap my girlfriend?”

She threw the knife at Chase’s leg, and it immediately sank into his thigh as my heart leapt into my throat. As he shouted and doubled over, clutching the wound, she flung another knife straight at Jay, sinking it into the muscle below his collarbone and shoulder. He grunted, glared down at the hilt, and snarled a bit, but he never screamed or said a word.

My brows rose as bewilderment momentarily stalled my panic. He was in pain—I saw the slight grimace—but he was tolerating it incredibly well. Unbelievably so.

“Answers. Now,” Elise demanded. “And if you don’t talk, I swear to the gods, I’ll cut out your tongues and gag you with them.”

“Okay, okay,” Chase muttered through gritted teeth, releasing his leg to hold up his blood-soaked hands in surrender. He elbowed Jay in the ribs. Grudgingly, Jay also lifted his hands into the air, completely unbothered by the knife still wedged near his shoulder. “I’m Chase. He’s Jay. We promised to keep Val safe, so—”

“Last names,” she demanded. “And promised who?”

“Our names are Chase Theron and Jay Walsh,” Chase said. “And we promised Holden Michaels we’d keep Val safe. He put us in charge of protecting her once the war broke out.”

Holden. Just hearing his name made my heart ache. I missed him so much. I silently begged the gods for him to still be alive.

My cousin scoffed. “Clearly, you did a fantastic job.”

Chase snarled. “Yeah, well if some karate-chopping barbie hadn’t swooped in and stolen her—”

“You mean saved her?” Elise corrected.

“Anyway,” Jay bellowed, hands still in the air, deep voice booming as he tried to be heard over their arguing. “Now that we’re here, we fully intend to keep our promise—to make sure Val stays safe. Even from you.” He paused for a moment, the knife still jutting awkwardly from his upper chest. When Elise didn’t immediately reply, he continued. “Who are you, anyway?”

“No, my questions are getting answered first,” Elise threatened. “How did you find us? I’ve been covering our tracks, so don’t bother lying.”

Chase stared at the floorboards in obvious pain while Jay merely glared at Elise. Both remained silent. For a moment, even I started to worry. Why wasn’t he explaining himself? Was I wrong in assuming we could trust them?

Eventually, Jay let out a resigned sigh. “I can sense direction where water is concerned. Even if it’s lying on the ground or floating in the air.”

My mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

Jay’s lips curled as he took in my expression. “You can, too, you know. You just need a little coaching and a lot of practice.”

Elise tightened her grip on my abdomen. “She needs training, but not from you. That water technique? It’s not well known, and it’s certainly not taught to normal Elementals. So why do you know it?”

Jay’s features hardened once more. “I don’t know.”

“Sure, you don’t.”

I was reminded of a conversation I’d had with Cade. He told me he didn’t trust Chase or Jay. It also made me think of what Elise said just the other day: Those boys are stronger than you think. 

What was I missing here?

“Do you have some sort of intel on them?” I asked Elise, questioning my relationship with the guys for the second time today.

“These two?” she asked, raising a brow at me. “Not yet.”

“But you mentioned something about the guys being stronger than I thought.”

“Yeah, but I meant the other two. The leaders’ sons.” A thought seemed to hit her then as her eyes lit up. She reared her head and darted her attention over to Chase and Jay. “Gods, are these guys all your boyfriends?”

“No!” I squealed, just as Chase pointed to Jay with a grimace and said, “Not him.” He still clutched his bleeding leg, and I would have gone to him were it not for Elise’s grip tightening around me in warning.

My cheeks burned with the heat of the sun, but I stamped it out like it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. I refused to be ashamed of them or myself or the beauty and complexity of our relationship. What I had with Holden, Cade, and Chase was…everything. And my connection with Jay, Xavier, and Kale—while currently platonic—was just as important. People could condemn me if they wanted, but I would never stop caring for the six of them.

“Okay, so I do have more than the normal number of boyfriends. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No judgement here,” Elise said, catching me off guard. I didn’t really know anything about her personal life, but I was expecting a scathing remark. “I just wish I’d known that when I was doing my research.” She likely would have had three-inch thick files on each of them.

“Alright, it’s our turn for questions,” Jay interjected, dislodging Elise’s knife and pointing the bloody tip at her. “Who the fuck are you?”

She shot me a warning glare before answering. “My name is Elise, and that’s all you need to know.”

Right. No mentioning the Shadow Sect or Aunt Marge. Got it.

“Well, you seem to have Val’s best interests at heart,” Chase admitted. He removed the knife from his thigh with a high-pitched whine, his face paling and taking on a clammy sheen. He swallowed hard. “And you look like her. Are you two related?”

“She’s my cousin,” I answered. No point in trying to hide it.

Elise sighed. “All they needed to know was my name, Val.”

“Yeah, but we really do look alike,” I reasoned. “Don’t insult their intelligence by trying to deny it.”

She merely shrugged. “What intelligence?”

Jay let out a low growl in response, and Chase reached out his bloodied hand to me. “Come on, beautiful. We can take you home.”

Home. Was there anything left of it? Anyone?

I started to reach out in return but paused. “Holden? Cade?” Their names came out cracked and bleeding on my lips. “Everyone else? Are they okay?”

“We don’t know, Val,” Jay said softly. “We left as soon as we realized you were gone.”

“We didn’t even know if you were alive until ten minutes ago,” Chase admitted, running a hand through his dark blond hair. “But thank the gods we found you.” He sounded so genuinely relieved that it helped loosen the knot in my stomach just a little.

I offered them a small smile. “I’m glad you found me, too. I just wish we knew if everyone else was safe."

Chase nodded, then he focused his queasy attention on the blood gushing from his leg. He lit a fire in his palm, allowing his fingers to dance in the flame. He took a few deep breaths, grimaced, then jabbed a couple burning hot digits into his leg to cauterize the wound. At first, I thought he might succumb to a fit of agonized groans, but then I remembered he was a Fire Elemental. The fire wouldn’t—couldn’t—hurt him. It would heal the brutal wound, soothing and mending his torn flesh until the pain was merely a distant memory.

“Do me, too.” Jay jerked his body sideways, giving Chase access to his gushing lesion.

He, on the other hand, was a Water. Being stabbed with fiery fingers would no doubt hurt like hell.

Chase swallowed, still breathing hard, but did as Jay asked. Blood and flesh sizzled, but shock overcame me as the stoic Water Elemental didn’t so much as flinch in response.

What. The. Fuck? Either he couldn’t feel pain at all, or he knew it intimately.

Chase removed his fingers as soon as he could, wiping them on his already dirty jeans. “Let’s just get the hell out of this shithole and go home. They might need us back there, and we’re wasting time.”

He was right. Why had I allowed Elise to drag me out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway? To hide? To stay safe while my friends and family were risking their lives? I was being a coward. And I refused to stay that way.

I made to follow them out the door—Jay leading and Chase limping slightly behind him—but Elise stepped in my way. “You can’t go back yet, Val. You’re not ready.”

“Ready for what?” I half-shouted, exasperation exploding through me. She hadn’t told me anything. She just grabbed me and led me away, refusing to share details.

“Anything!” she shouted back.

I stared at her, and somehow managed to perceive a touch of loving warmth burning beneath her heated exterior. She cared. She wanted this time to help me. To prepare me for something…

“Val, think of Holden and Cade,” Chase pleaded. “Think of me. We need you.”

And the truth was I needed them, too.

“Move, Elise.” I tried to skirt around her, but she sidestepped back into my way.

“No.”

I narrowed my eyes, studying her harder than I ever had. “What’s your angle? Why are you so hellbent on keeping me out here?”

“No angle,” she assured me. “You’ve just been living under a rock your entire life. You know almost nothing about being an Elemental, and you certainly don’t have the stamina or skills necessary to win a fight.” She moved a half step closer to me and lowered her voice. “Val, our grandfather is a tyrant. If you’re going to willingly subject yourself to him again, then I need to know you can survive.”

“Survive?” I swallowed hard. “What makes you think he’s that bad?”

He’d saved my life and killed my tormentors. Despite what everyone seemed to think, I had yet to see anything truly evil about him. Sure. There was the war at Riverside. But he hadn't started that. He was just defending himself from their attack. I know it looked bad in the eyes of others, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Elise stared at me, long and hard. “Don’t tell me he’s already gotten to you.”

I sighed. “It’s complicated.”

“It isn’t, though. He’s evil,” Elise stressed. Then realization lit up her eyes, brightening the turquoise color. She cocked her head at me in astonishment. “You seriously still haven’t read the book?”

I knew she was referring to the one Aunt Marge had given me. Carving Earth: A History of Influence.

I sighed. “It’s not like I’ve had a lot of free time to twiddle my thumbs, okay?”

Elise pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is what I’m talking about. You’re so grossly underprepared for all of this. If you had it your way, you’d rush back there, and you’d be dead in a minute. You have to be smarter than that, Valerie.” She reached out and gently squeezed my shoulder. “You have to train and prepare. You have to know the facts and the history. You need to stay at the safehouse until you’re ready.”

As much as I hated to admit it, there was a part of me that knew she was right. I was underprepared. There was so much I didn’t know or understand. And I was pretty terrible at manipulating my powers.

“No one can do it but you, Val,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to rely on these two, or your other boyfriends, or even me. I need to know you can take care of your own shit.”

A touching sentiment, truly. But the only thing that mattered to me right then was making sure Holden and Cade were safe. Even Kale and Xavier. The rest of our friends. Our community. Our world. I could train after that.

“You’re right,” I admitted, eliciting a relieved sigh from my cousin. “But I need to make sure my loved ones and friends are safe first.”

Elise scoffed in disappointment, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. And I meant it.

“No, I’m sorry.” She turned to me, and her expression was full of remorse. “But I will not let you leave.”

Jay’s hand was balled into a fist and flying before Elise even finished her sentence, but she was ready. She blocked him and twisted his arm behind his back.

“And you,” she said, sneering at Jay in her grasp, “what would your precious leader think of this, hmm? Rushing right back into the war after he gave you strict orders to keep her safe. What would he say?”

Jay spun around and headbutted her, breaking free of her hold. He stayed silent, trying to murder her with his steely glare.

Chase heaved a sigh. “He’d tell us to eat a dick, Jay, and you know it.”

Jay rumbled in frustration, wrenching himself away from her before pacing the tiny room like a caged lion. Clearly, he was torn. “We don’t have to stay here,” he eventually decided, turning toward Chase. “We can hide out somewhere else until it’s safe.”

Chase’s lips thinned. “Bro, as much as I hate to admit it, Val could really use her cousin’s help.”

“Are you kidding me right now? I do not trust—”

“We lost Val once. What if we lose her again?” Chase asked, digging his fingers into the material of Jay’s shirt and shaking him.

Jay winced slightly, a rare show of vulnerability. He might’ve been able to vacuum-seal his feelings and reactions when he was concentrating, but when momentarily caught off guard… Okay, he was still pretty good at suppressing them, but there was at least evidence of his humanity. Elementality? Whatever.

“She needs to know how to defend herself,” Chase said. They glared at each other for a moment before he continued. “I know you don’t trust the cousin—hell, I don’t either—but she clearly knows what she’s doing. If we want to give Val the best fighting chance, then we need to stay and let the ninja train her.”

“We can train her,” Jay said, seething.

“We can help,” Chase countered. Their gazes were hard and unrelenting. “If you’re truly loyal to Holden—like we both swore we were—then you’ll follow his orders and keep our girl safe.”

Jay heaved a hefty sigh and slowly began cooling off. “Val doesn’t stay unless we stay.”

“Fine,” Elise snapped, her expression screwed up in disgust. She definitely hated the thought of having them around, but she clearly wanted me to train even more.

“Thanks for asking me my opinion on the matter,” I grumbled.

“Do you want them to stay or not?”

Of course I did.

With an ugly scowl of defeat, I stomped into the other room of the safehouse and slammed the door behind me, locking it. The lock wouldn’t hold for long, or at all. Not that it mattered when anyone could easily kick a hole through the rotten wood.

I flopped onto the hard bed of crates and rolled over to stare at the rough-hewn wall. I had no idea how long they’d let me wallow in solitude, but for this one private moment, I curled up beneath the threadbare sheet and allowed myself to cry.

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