Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,1

teach us?

A blood sacrifice. It has to be a blood sacrifice.

A chill ran down my back, and I scanned the room in alarm. A blood sacrifice? Someone had actually been thinking that? It was impossible for me to tell whose thought it was since I didn’t know anyone yet. Sometimes I could zero in if I were concentrating on a particular person or familiar enough with a mind—like my parents. It was easy to recognize their thinking after seventeen years of hearing it—or trying not to hear it. But here it could have been anyone.

My palms were damp, and I forced my hands open, rubbing them against my jeans. There had been malice in that thought, a palpable cruelty. I usually picked up on emotions and feelings even more easily than I did on thoughts, and the evil I perceived now was chilling.

At the front of the room, Ms. Lacusta began her lecture. The girls in front of me turned around, and next to me, Liza busied herself with finding a pencil. I tried to steady my own hand as I got ready to take notes, and the minds in the room receded to a steady hum.

It had to be a mistake. Or a misunderstanding. There must be a perfectly good reason why one of my new classmates was considering a blood sacrifice.

I was still pretty shaky when I left Chemistry forty minutes later. As I walked toward the door, someone bumped me from behind, hard enough to make me stumble.

“Sorry!” The voice was low and intense and sounded everything but apologetic. Watch where you’re going was what I heard, and the thought was accompanied by a nasty tone as the girl who sat in front of me stared me down.

“I was—I mean, no problem.” I concentrated on answering only what Nell said aloud and tried to get out of her way.

Unfortunately, she followed me through the door and into the open-air walkway. I was more used to a traditional school building with hallways linking classrooms, but apparently in Florida, the classroom doors opened directly to the outside. Covered sidewalks took the place of the tiled hallways, and lockers were against the stucco building between the brightly colored doors.

I fumbled with my bag, trying to find the paper that told me where I was supposed to go next and hating first days at new schools with a renewed passion. I knew Nell was still standing behind me—I could hear the low rumble of her mind—but I pretended that she wasn’t there.

“Where did you come from?” Her question was clipped and abrupt. I decided to pretend that she was asking it in friendly interest.

“Uh—well, the last place I lived was Wisconsin. We just moved down here. I really like Florida—”

“Why are you taking Chemistry?” Nell demanded. There was another flare of animosity in her thoughts.

“Because the guidance counselor said so?” I didn’t mean it to sound like a question, but it did.

“I think you’d be happier in another class,” Nell announced. She glanced around us, as though she didn’t want anyone to overhear what she was saying. I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t want anyone to hear me being a bitch, either.

“Um-Nell? That’s your name, right? Did I do something to offend you just now? Did I kick your chair or breathe too heavily? Because I can’t think of any other reason for you to say that.”

She raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow and pinned me with a stare that I assume brought other people to their knees. I could hear the fury churning in her mind; it kept me from making out any particular thought.

“We’re very selective about who joins this class. Ms. Lacusta isn’t a typical teacher, and it’s—it’s a very demanding course. I think if you go to the office and tell them you want to transfer to botany or astronomy or whatever, they’ll take care of it.”

“What if I don’t want to transfer?” I countered. I wasn’t usually able to stand up for myself like this, but something about this girl just got under my skin.

“I think you’ll live to regret it.” Nell all but hissed this last line. She sounded like the villain in a bad melodrama, and I stifled a completely inappropriate giggle.

“Hey—what’s going on?” Nell and I tore our eyes away from each other to glare at the boy who had interrupted our conversation. Nell looked away again quickly, but I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t look away at all.

He was taller than me by