Awaken

by Skye Malone

  Awaken Book One of the Awakened Fate series

  Copyright 2014 by Skye Malone Published by Wildflower Isle | P.O. Box 17804, Urbana, IL 61803

  www.wildflowerisle.com

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this text and any portions thereof in any manner whatsoever.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents appearing in this work are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 1-940617-07-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940617-07-7

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014936268

  Cover design by Karri Klawiter www.artbykarri.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Pronunciation Guide

  Prologue: Chloe

  Chapter One: Chloe

  Chapter Two: Zeke

  Chapter Three: Chloe

  Chapter Four: Zeke

  Chapter Five: Chloe

  Chapter Six: Zeke

  Chapter Seven: Chloe

  Chapter Eight: Zeke

  Chapter Nine: Chloe

  Chapter Ten: Zeke

  Chapter Eleven: Chloe

  Chapter Twelve: Zeke

  Chapter Thirteen: Chloe

  Chapter Fourteen: Zeke

  Chapter Fifteen: Chloe

  Chapter Sixteen: Zeke

  Chapter Seventeen: Chloe

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Blurb

  Pronunciation Guide

  Dehaian (deh-HYE-an)

  Ina (EE-na)

  Kirzan (KUR-zahn)

  Neiphiandine (ney-fee-AN-deen)

  Niall (nee-AHL)

  Nyciena (ny-SEE-en-uh)

  Ociras (oh-SHE-rahs)

  Reschiata (reh-she-AH-tuh)

  Ryaira (ry-AIR-uh)

  Sieranchine (see-EHR-an-cheen)

  Sylphaen (sil-FAY-en)

  Teariad (tee-AR-ee-ad)

  Yvaria (ih-VAR-ee-uh)

  Zekerian (zeh-KEHR-ee-en)

  Prologue

  Chloe

  Before we go any farther, I want to make one thing clear: I never intended to run away. I fully intended to go home. I was only taking a vacation.

  Even if it didn’t end up like that.

  You see, I’ve always been drawn to the ocean. It makes sense, I guess. Growing up in Reidsburg, Kansas, you’re about as far from saltwater as you can get without burying yourself underground, and maybe not even then. Figures that something exotic and distant like the sea would attract me.

  We all want what we don’t have.

  But ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of visiting the ocean. Living by the ocean. I’d stare at pictures of the sea in books, memorize the name of every fish I saw, and paint smudges of blue across my preschool art projects and call it the Pacific. My teachers thought it was cute, and my school friends thought I was a bit strange, but I didn’t care.

  I just knew what I loved.

  My parents, though. Oh, they hated it. You’d think someone close to them had drown or been lost at sea or whatever for the anger they showed toward the whole thing. The house was decorated with pictures of deserts, visits to the pool were strictly forbidden – the threat of disease and kids peeing in the water were usually the reasons for that one – and for all our ‘vacations’, we’d go to Branson, or Oklahoma City or, on one truly impressive trip, a corn museum in Illinois.

  A corn museum. Seriously, who visits that?

  Well, okay, an agricultural science professor does, I suppose. Which is what my dad is, by the way. But that’s beside the point.

  They would have rather died than let me travel anywhere near the sea. And when my best friend, Baylie, asked if I could come stay with her family at their beach house for two weeks when summer started, Mom and Dad very nearly had a coronary. It wasn’t about the fact her gorgeous stepbrother would be there – since, of course, his dad and stepmom were there too and I’d share a room with Baylie anyhow – or even the time I’d be spending away from them. It was just about the ocean. Solely the ocean. And as inexplicably insane as anyone could see they were being, my days of arguing, begging, and even bribery got me absolutely nowhere.

  But it was the best chance I was going to have, short of hanging around for a year till I graduated – way too long to wait, mind you – and then hoping they wouldn’t keep me from going to college out west with Baylie, just on the basis it was closer to water.

  Because they would. Did I mention they were ridiculous?

  So I took matters into my own hands. What else is a girl supposed to do when her best friend offers her a chance to spend two weeks doing something she’s always dreamed of? I would had to have been crazy to pass that up.

  And I may be many things, but crazy certainly isn’t one of them.

  So that’s how, after packing a small bag, sneaking out my bedroom window, and scaling down a rather loosely bolted drainpipe, I ended up in a car with Baylie and her golden Labrador, Daisy, adamantly not running away from home, but instead taking a ‘vacation’ of my very own.

  It turned out so differently than I ever could have imagined.

  Chapter One

  Chloe

  “Well, here we are,” Baylie announced, pulling the car to a stop. “What do you think?”

  I couldn’t take my eyes from the view beyond the car window. For the past few dozen miles, ever since we passed Ventura and the highway curved to meet the sea, I’d been staring. Crystalline water shone under the late afternoon sun, and white-crested waves rolled in to meet the sand. The triangular peaks of sailboats floated across the expanse, while some distance away, a tiny form sped through the air, parasailing beneath the cloudless sky.

  It might have seemed silly, but I felt like a kid on their first trip to Disneyland.

  “Chloe?” Baylie tried.

  “Sorry,” I said, managing to pull my gaze away from the window long enough to give her a rueful grin. “It’s just…”

  I gestured helplessly at the water.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless.” Checking her makeup and her long blonde hair in the mirror, she wiped away a bit of smudged mascara beneath her sky-blue eyes and then pushed open the driver’s side door. “Just make sure to grab your bag whenever you’re done gawking, okay?”

  My face flushed in the way it always did when I was embarrassed, splotching my face and every other bit of skin bright pink, and I reached for the door handle, determinedly ignoring her grin. She was well aware I’d always wanted to come here. She’d just known me since we were both four years old, and therefore loved to exercise the best friend’s inalienable right to tease.

  I climbed out of the red car and then opened the rear door, trying to keep my eyes from straying back to the horizon beyond the beach house. Daisy jumped out, her tail wagging furiously in gratitude for finally being released from the back seat, while Baylie popped open the trunk and retrieved her suitcase, leaving the trunk lid up for me to claim my own bag once I was done with the dog.

  On the porch, the screen door slammed. “You made it,” Mr. Delaney called, grinning as he jogged down the stairs. Well-built and tall with dark brown hair and equally dark eyes, he strode toward us with an ease that made him seem twenty years younger than his middle-aged status. Taking Baylie’s bag, he swung it onto his shoulder and then squeezed her into a lopsided hug. “Perfect timing, too. Diane’s just making some snacks.”

  Baylie made an appreciative noise. Before we’d left Reidsburg, she’d regaled me with stories of Diane’s cooking. From the sound of it, even her snacks were bound to be competition for anything the fan
ciest restaurants back home could’ve offered.

  “Hey, Chloe,” he added to me.

  “Hi, Mr. Delaney. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Of course. More the merrier.”

  He smiled and motioned for us to follow him toward the house. My eyebrows rose as I registered the size of the place for the first time. Mr. Delaney was the owner of a lucrative software company, and it showed. Despite being only two stories high, his home was more mansion than anything. Mission architecture defined its appearance, though the off-white walls were interrupted by plentiful windows and skylights peppered the tile roof. Positioned on more than two acres of land with a private drive, the sprawling home backed up against bluffs overlooking the sea.

  The latter of which was instantly my favorite part, of course.

  Smells of bread and spices filled the air as we walked in the front door, adding to the promise of delicious food awaiting us. A ceiling of polished wood beams hung thirty feet high over the foyer, and a stairway to the right of the door led up to the rooms on the second floor. At the end of the hallway, broad windows made up the far wall of the house, through which bright sunlight poured.

  A cabinet door slammed, and then a woman popped her head around the corner at the end of the hall. “Hi there!” she called cheerily. Brushing her palms off on her sides, she hurried toward us and stuck her hand out to me. “I’m Diane – and please do call me Diane, okay? And he’s Peter. Like Baylie probably told you, we’re pretty informal here. I’m so glad you girls could make it!”

  Blinking, I shook her hand. I’d never met her, and only recognized her because of a picture Baylie had shown me on her cell a few days ago, but Diane was even more adorable in person than in her photo. With a brunette bob cut that bounced when she moved and a height of five foot two if she was lucky, she was like an energetic kid, excited by everything she saw.

  I could see why Baylie liked her stepbrothers’ stepmom so much.

  To me, Baylie’s family felt complicated, compared to my relatively straightforward status as a single child with one uncle somewhere in Minnesota. Baylie’s mom had died of cancer when Baylie was five and her dad had married Peter’s ex-wife, Sandra. Thus she had two stepbrothers out here in Santa Lucina, one of whom was three years older than us and the other who was our age. Diane wasn’t related to any of them, but had married Peter several years ago. Despite Peter and Sandra’s divorce, however, all the adults seemed to have ended up on good terms, which meant Baylie was welcomed like one of Peter’s kids by the Delaneys, and her own dad treated her stepbrothers likewise.

  It was just confusing for me to keep straight sometimes.

  Though, to be fair, my straightforward status wasn’t all that straightforward either. My one uncle in Minnesota? Yeah, he lived in a psychiatric hospital and last I’d heard, was convinced he was the reincarnation of Napoleon. Or maybe it was Henry the Eighth. But add that to my parents’ general insanity, and I had a pretty compelling reason to want to keep every trace of crazy from my life.

  “Would you put their bags in their room while I get these ladies settled?” Diane asked her husband.

  He nodded and then headed up to the second floor with our bags.

  “So neither of you have allergies, right?” Diane continued.

  We assured her we didn’t.

  “Great! So I’m just finishing up a few appetizers for us to have before the cookout tonight – hotdogs good with you? – and then I’m thinking stromboli for dinner tomorrow. Or maybe pizza. You girls like capicola and bresaola?”

  Trying to keep up, we assured her we did, though from the look Baylie gave me once Diane’s back was turned, I was fairly certain neither of us knew what she meant.

  “Excellent! The boys are picking up some at the market as we speak, so the meats should be very fresh. And I’ll mix up the rosemary crust from scratch – whole wheat flour too; trust me, you won’t go hungry here – so that should complement things nicely.”

  She kept talking as we walked into the spacious kitchen. A sunken living room extended off to the left, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and a fireplace, while a dinner table waited in a glass-walled dining room beyond the kitchen island. A concrete patio with a gazebo and a fire pit took up part of the backyard, while closer to the bluffs overlooking the sea, the wood railing of a stairway led down toward the beach below.

  The sound of the front door closing interrupted Diane, and I turned to see Maddox coming down the hall with his younger brother, Noah, several steps behind.

  I swallowed. I’d only seen Noah a few times over the years, with the most recent being Christmas when he’d come to visit his mom. I think I’d managed three words. And right now, with his skin tanned golden and his deep green eyes looking amazing beneath the sandy flop of his sun-streaked hair, three words would have been hard to come by.

  “Oh hey,” Maddox said to us as he came into the room, a paper bag of groceries in his arms. Dark as his brother was light, Maddox took after their father, while Noah had his mother’s hair and eyes – though with their height and muscles, they both looked like crosses between surfers and bodybuilders. Maddox set down the bag. “When’d you all get in?”

  “Just a few minutes ago,” Baylie said, grinning as Maddox came over and gave her a hug. “You guys went shopping?”

  “Eh, well, you know. Gotta help out occasionally.” He smiled at me as Noah gave Baylie a hug as well. “Hey Chloe.”

  “Hey,” Noah added to me, twitching his chin in greeting.

  “Hi.”

  Feeling something of an idiot, I looked back to the view beyond the windows, hoping the glare hid any treasonous blushing my face might have decided to do. It was stupid. There were plenty of decent-looking guys that I saw every day back home. Of course, they were local boys and most of them knew me as that girl with the weird parents – which, obviously, wasn’t particularly appealing.

  And besides, Noah went way beyond decent-looking, straight on to hot.

  I could feel my face getting red. Taking a deep breath, I focused on watching the water rolling in.

  “So you boys want to get the grill started up?” Diane suggested.

  “Sure,” Maddox said. From the corner of my eye, I saw him head for the patio door, and Noah followed.

  Air escaped me and when I looked back toward the kitchen, I found Baylie watching me curiously.

  I pushed a smile onto my face. “Want to get unpacked?”

  “Alright,” Baylie said.

  She headed for the stairs, motioning me to follow.

  “You okay?” she asked as we left the kitchen.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She didn’t look convinced. And I didn’t really want to explain.

  “So what one are we in?” I asked as we reached the second floor. I glanced at the doorways lining the hall, trying to cover for the awkward moment.

  Baylie led the way to a large bedroom at the end of the long hall. White carpet covered the floor, the same as in the hallway, but the walls here were pale blue. Sheer curtains hung over the window that faced out onto the backyard and the ocean, and two queen-sized beds flanked it. A woven chair stuffed with pillows sat to one side of the room, while a dresser stood nearby, fashionably flaked and vintage-looking paint covering it. Starfish and seahorses were nestled in corners of the ceiling, as were fishermen’s nets, while twin skylights let the sun shine down on each of the beds.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Diane loves decorating almost as much as cooking,” Baylie replied with a grin.

  I felt like repeating myself, and settled for nodding appreciatively. We headed for our bags, which had been set on the beds. Unzipping my backpack, I hesitated over the contents, and then drew out a sundress. A couple days in a bag hadn’t done it any favors, and I glanced toward the rest of my meager wardrobe, trying to recall if I’d stuffed anything else appropriate in there.

  My gaze caught on the window. Through the glass, I could see Noah and his brother getting the g
rill prepared.

  Baylie cleared her throat. I flinched.

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  I glared.

  “What? Noah’s pretty cute.”

  There was something weird in her voice. My brow furrowed.

  Baylie grimaced. Casting a glance back to the open door, she sighed. “It’s just… Look, Noah’s great. Really. But lately…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s not like he used to be. He’s… quieter.”

  I gave her a skeptical look. I couldn’t understand how that was a bad thing. At least, not to the degree that she seemed worried about it. “Quieter?”

  Appearing uncomfortable, Baylie shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”

  Her expression belying her words, she went back to pulling clothes from her bag.

  I looked to the window. By the grill, Maddox said something, and Noah nodded, his eyes on the horizon. And then he turned, glancing directly at the window behind which I stood.

  Alarmed, I stepped back, and then scowled at myself for being so excitable. There wasn’t anything odd about what he’d just done. He’d just happened to look up at where I was standing, right when I happened to look down at him.

  Which surely was a coincidence.

  My goose bumps didn’t want to listen. Still scowling, I took the dress and headed away from the window, determined not to let a silly reaction to what had obviously been a fluke moment ruin my evening.

  ~~~~~

  “So I told him ‘Only if you take the lobster back too!’”

  Everyone laughed, though Noah and Maddox couldn’t quite hide an expression like they’d both heard their dad’s joke before. Flames crackled in the fire pit in front of us, and the empty plates from dinner still lay to the side of our deck chairs.