A Little Teaser Before Vacation - Lilliana

Happy-almost-Friday, Angels! For the next ten days I'm going to be on a beach somewhere with little to no contact with the outside world - sorry to rub that in ;) - so what kind of an author would I be if I didn't leave a little something to hold you over until October 1st? We're literally 16 days away from the release of Lilliana! *squeals*

Enjoy!

xoxo

SJ

Excerpt from Lilliana,

Novella to the Captivated Series

Summary:

The last living LaRoux sister is pissed and out for revenge. In "Lilliana," the second and final novella to the Captivated Series, follow the brazen, immortal dark conjurer as she sets out on a quest to make her sisters' killers pay.

Recommended for readers 16 and up due to mature content.


Links to Pre-order:

AMAZON | BARNES AND NOBLE | APPLE | KOBO | SMASHWORDS

CHAPTER SIX

___________________

Patience

When Kat snuck back to her room, I took the opportunity to slip out behind her and make my way through the unlit halls to the Principal’s office. Luckily I’d already passed it when I’d followed Ronnie around earlier, so I knew where it was. I needed to know more about these cameras – when they would be installed. What kind of cameras they were. But of course his door was locked, so I’d have to wait and come back again during the day.

My next order of business? The woods. Kat seemed to think Gabriel was still out there with his hybrid buddies, and though the woods (the place my sister was killed) was the last place I wanted to be, I needed to know more about Pretty Boy and the others.

On my way to one of the nearest exits, I realized I was passing through another dorm wing. Part of me wanted to try snooping around to see if I recognized any of the kids inside the rooms, but I refrained because I didn’t want to open a door and risk one of them being awake. The last thing I needed was a screaming kid. I’d already almost gotten caught two times today and I didn’t want to push my luck.

Speaking of getting caught, when I made it to the door with a big red EXIT sign above it, I realized I hadn’t considered that they might have alarms on these things.

Fantastic.

I didn’t see any type of sticker or sign suggesting that an alarm would sound, but did I really want to find out?

Way to think this out, genius.

This was when having Daemon around would have helped. Maybe he would have thought to keep something propped open. Or maybe he would have known how not to trip an alarm. Me? I was useless on the subject. It didn’t involve men or borrowing appearances or manipulating emotions. And of course, I’d left the marbles back at the hotel, so I couldn’t just smash one and ask Daemon what to do. A frustrated laugh worked its way out, and I’d be lying if I said my former confidence hadn’t deflated a little.

I looked down below my feet. I’m your one hope for revenge, sisters. Me. I’ll go ahead and apologize for the disappointment.

* * *

The only thing I could think to do was slump against a wall and wait until morning, and though I was in desperate need of a glass of wine and a bed, I’d have to settle for nothing and a tiled floor… courtesy of my own stupidity.

An hour or so had passed, and I was now lying against the floor with my head nestled into the crook of my arm, my white-blonde hair splaying across the checkerboard tile. This was the only position that didn’t cause my butt to go numb, but it was far from comfortable. At least I wasn’t at risk of falling asleep, not that my brain would have let me anyway. This was the first time I’d been alone, really alone with my thoughts since my sisters had passed, and as I laid there against the cold floor in this dark hallway, just a good walk away from the woods where Iris died, I couldn’t help but think about our childhood. Our bond. Our deceased parents. Our once promising future. It wasn’t supposed to be this way – me lying lonely in the hallway of a school where my sister’s killers lived. My immortal sisters and I should have been on a remote beach somewhere, sipping margaritas and laughing about how Trueblood never would have stood a chance at finding us.

 A door creaked open somewhere in the darkness, interrupting my pity party, and I stiffened, momentarily forgetting that whoever it was couldn’t see me because of the invisibility spell.

The silhouette of a teenage boy slipped from one of the dorm rooms, paused to scan the hallways. Something about the set of his shoulders, his athletic build, his light hair, made my insides clench.

Levi?

Speaking of my sister’s killer….

When he assumed he was alone, he hurried down the hallway and around a corner, and I sprang to my feet and ran after him. Where the hell was he going in the middle of the night?

I followed him down hallway after hallway (this school really was absurdly big), and just when I thought he was probably playing some kind of outsmart the patrolling officers game, he skulked his way to a door with EXIT over the top and gingerly pushed it open.

I winced expectantly, waiting for alarms and red flashing lights and a rush of officers. Surely this idiot was about to give himself away. But… nothing happened. He made it out into the night without any issues and took a hard left.

Well, shit. I’d stayed holed up in here for nothing. Either Levi knew that this door didn’t have a working alarm sensor on it, or none of them did and this particular door led to somewhere he wanted to go.

I followed him out into the cold night air, around a few corners and along a stretch of the building, and as we passed exit after exit, I realized my first assumption was true – Levi had gone out of his way to leave through that particular door because it wouldn’t cause the alarm to sound. I made sure to memorize how to get to it from the inside (and outside) so I could come and go as I pleased.

Thanks, Levi, I thought as I watched him leave the protective cover of the building and head toward the courtyard. The same courtyard from earlier today. He basically gave me the keys to the building.

I tentatively followed him there, unsure if I could control myself if I were alone with him, this kid who’d cut Iris’ head off, for an extended period of time. But really, what would be the harm in killing just this one? Maybe I could temporarily get it out of my system and then I could concentrate on the others better. He was the one who deserved it the most anyway... other than Kat. And who would see if I decided to snap his neck? Strangle him until his heart stopped beating?

I clasped my hands together so hard my knuckles popped, and I swallowed against the temptation.

No.

As satisfying as it would be, a dead or missing kid would cause a panic. A heavier police presence.

Iris’ voice echoed through my mind: Control yourself, Lil.

Fine.

I found myself sitting on a bench across from him so I could watch him for a while. See if he went anywhere else or if someone else might show. Maybe he was supposed to meet someone here. But as the minutes dragged on, as he dove deeper into his solitude, he seemed to drift into sadness. His strong shoulders were drooping; the attractive lines of his face had hardened; his eyes were glistening with tears. He let out a long, shaky sigh, a cloud of icy breath drifting away with the breeze, and he ran a hand through his blonde-tipped hair, rested his forearms against his knees as he stared at the ground between us. Something about this place – maybe a memory? – picked at a raw, gaping sore in his heart. Probably something to do with Kat and the way she’d ripped him to pieces by cheating on him. To be honest, though, it kind of surprised me that he looked so sad over it. When he’d been around her and the others at dinner, he seemed a lot more comfortable with their situation.

Leave it to a guy to bottle shit up. But at least that meant it would probably lead to an explosion later.

See? Iris said in my thoughts. Aren’t you glad you didn’t go ahead and kill him?

Okay, fine. So maybe not going ahead and killing him had been helpful, after all. Now I needed to figure out a way to make his wound a little bigger. Not that I still didn’t want to snap this kid’s neck. But sure… I guess I could wait until I’d played with him a little more. Found a way to make him a little more miserable.

I sat there with him for another good hour, nearly freezing my tits off, but nobody showed. He really was out here just to brood about Kat.

I cupped my hands over my mouth and blew into them (not that it did much good. Next time I would bring a jacket and gloves), looked to the sky to see that the moon was already on the descent. Damn. I’d been at this school a good fourteen hours and I still wanted to visit the woods before dawn to see if I could find Pretty Boy. Footsteps in the forest would be harder to mask in the daylight. It would be like walking in snow – they’d see me coming. Not to mention, it would already be hard as hell to get to them without them hearing me.

I then made yet another mental note – levitating. I needed to find something about that in the spell books. That way I could float my way through the school and woods to spy.

I looked back to Levi and started to stand, but in a way I found it hard to leave. Like if I left him I’d never see him again and would miss my chance at killing him forever. And there was something else there, something I’d picked up on as I sat with him in the quiet. I’d sensed it a few times in the air between us – something looming and ominous. Potent. I couldn’t quite figure out if it was a gift he possessed or if it was the promise of something in his future. I also couldn’t shake the feeling that it might affect me and my plans. Like if there was anything at all that could thwart my quest for revenge, this boy would hold the key.

As I turned and walked away, I had to clasp my numb hands together again to keep from launching back over to him and killing him. Patience, I reminded myself. Levi wasn’t going to go anywhere, and I’d kill him before he would have a chance to ruin things for me. Besides, fate had obviously brought me to him tonight. I'd been at the right place at the right time to follow him out of the only door without an alarm.

These kids were meant to be delivered over to death, and I was meant to be the one to do it.