HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 15

I turned around. The fiery-voiced figure stood inches from me, so tall I had to stand up to see his face.

“Remain seated, please,” he said, placing his imposing build behind the desk, “I have something important to discuss with you, Everliegh.”

“But... How do you know my name?”

“Come on, Miss Burberry, we’ve known all about you for a very long time,” Conway said, closing the door behind her.

An indescribable chill froze me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move a single muscle. Only my head remained mobile. I immediately concluded that the two individuals standing in front of me were caste. Conway was planted just behind the man, her reverent attitude suggesting who was the master between the two. The man was obviously no more than thirty and his sublime mixed-race face was all the more revealed by long cascading dreadlocks. His pupils sparkled with their emerald colour, incandescent and fascinating. His nose, fine and robust, underlined a willingly pleasant mouth, and wrapped in his long black coat, he stared at me with the lust of an animal that has just captured its prey. He wore an angelic smile that revealed perfectly white and symmetrical teeth. Beauty personified in a man’s body. He never took his eyes off me, and my caste-sense picked up his feelings for me very clearly. He, too, was attracted to me, but unlike Thomas and Eric, his vibes didn’t come to me like a fiery squall but like tentacles that wrapped around me, subtly mingling with my own emotions. I was transfixed. For a moment lost in his incredible gaze, I obviously didn’t forget the critical situation in which I found myself.

“You know Sophie,” commented the man, pointing to Conway with a wave of his hand.

“Let’s say that, until now, I didn’t call her by her first name.”

“My name is Carmichael,” he proclaimed, ignoring any form of sarcasm in my remarks, “and I’m a caste. Just like you, my dear.”

“I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Everliegh, we both know it wasn’t the intervention of the Holy Spirit that stopped the bullets on the train. Gregory was…let’s say…fascinated by your intervention.”

“Are you talking about the redhead who tried to kill me?”

“He went a little too far, I admit, but the result is more than convincing. You’re one of us, Everliegh, that’s a fact.”

“So, now is when you’re going to ask me to join the Order, aren’t you?”

My reply disconcerted him for a second, his gaze lost its unwavering bearing. Surely he hadn’t expected me to know so much and it annoyed him.

“I see you’re well informed, even though we don’t really have a name, you know. I wouldn’t have thought your cousin so reckless, though.”

“Sam has nothing to do with it.”

“It’s those Panchak brothers,” Conway said scornfully.

“Mmm… maybe Everliegh could tell us a bit more about them.”

Suddenly, a low growl tore my eardrums. My brain was assaulted by an invisible force. My head was nothing but pain. I gritted my teeth, trying to contain the scream that crept up my throat as my mind seemed to be ripped to shreds. Conway eyed me with a demented gaze, a vein in the middle of her forehead indicating the intensity of her concentration. So it was she who caused this pain and my immobility, I was sure. After one of her final assaults on my subconscious, I was suddenly seized with an irrepressible urge to tell him the whole truth about Thomas and Eric. My lips were about to reveal all when a wave of hatred surged through my chest so furiously that my eyes rolled back.

“ENOUGH!”

Conway was thrown backwards and smashed the whiteboard so hard that she immediately fell unconscious to the floor. Carmichael hadn’t even blinked. On the contrary, he showed me an approving grin, like a master, proud of his apprentice.

“You’re formidable, my dear, few people can boast of resisting Sophie, it’s admirable.”

Freed from my invisible chains, I stood up abruptly.

“I’m not interested in your proposal,” I said as I was about to leave the room.

“However, I have the means to make you change your mind.”

His friendly tone barely concealed the threat of his remarks. He walked around the desk and sat down on the edge.

“You don’t want to talk to me about the Panchaks, that’s your choice. Anyway, I’ll soon learn all there is to know from them.”

“Leave them alone, please!” I implored him, perfectly guessing the type of means he was ready to employ to achieve his ends.

“Oh! I see…” he declared, looking thoughtful with his index finger tapping his lower lip, “so you tasted the pleasures of the flesh with one of us. Do you know that you’ll never be able to go back with a normal man after that? Relationships with humans will quickly seem tasteless to you, believe me. But I’m still curious, which one had the chance to share your bed? Or maybe it was both?”

Stunned, I was speechless. His unhealthy euphoria and the vehemence of his questions made me shudder. He instantly noticed my confusion and laughed.

“Ah, Everliegh! You’re so sweet.”

“And you’re crazy!”

In no time, Carmichael was standing a few centimetres from me without me seeing him advance. His right hand slipped gently under my chin and lifted my face. This touch caused in my brain an electric shock so strong that it radiated in an instant to the rest of the body, triggering a frenzied heartbeat. I could have slapped myself for feeling such a thing! And yet, I had no way to resist him. On the contrary, my physical contractions increased convulsively as I gasped for air to breathe. That’s when Carmichael pressed his lips to mine. The worst is that I welcomed his kiss as if his action was completely legitimate. After a lapse of time that I cannot estimate, he pulled away and observed my feverish reactions. All contact broken, I painfully regained the reins of my mind. I glared at him as I slammed the door open. Carmichael gripped my arm, and at his touch, I took a deep breath but didn’t turn my head away.

“We’ll meet again soon,” he said, “I would like to introduce you to someone you’ll be happy to meet.”

“I never want to see you again.”

“Yet, Everliegh…, you will soon be mine.”

I rushed down the hall without looking back. Arriving at the stairs, deserted at this hour, I leaned against a wall to try to regain control of my breathing and hold back the tears that were just waiting to flow. A part of me had felt horribly dirty, ashamed, and yet... I had never felt such an attraction, even for Thomas. I now hated the man who had made me feel this filthy thing. Could this caste attraction be more powerful if the person was older? I couldn’t ask anyone the question. Neither Thomas nor Eric nor Sam must know what had just happened. That Carmichael could go to hell!

“What happened to you, Eve?”

“Eric!” I cried, throwing myself into his arms.

“What’s happening? I looked for you everywhere, someone told me you were in Conway’s classroom.”

“Which was the case!” asserted a deep, gravelly voice at the top of the stairs.

“Carmichael!”

“Who’s he?” Eric asked me.

“I wonder the same about you, my dear,” replied Carmichael, “are you the lucky man who had the privilege of deflowering our friend here? To see your face, I conclude that no. It must be awfully hard to resist the temptation, though. In your place, I would hate my rival, that’s for sure.”

“But you’re not in my place.”

“Fair enough,” Carmichael said as he walked elegantly down the stairs, “but still, you’re dying to want her so badly, it’s eye-popping! Would you mind if I told you she’ll be mine one day? And more, it’s even she who will come to find me.”

“Never!” I replied.

He gave a throaty laugh and disappeared towards the exit, not without touching my face with the back of his hand, thus causing a new jolt in my chest.

“Who was that guy? And where’s Thomas?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t seen him all day.”

“But you were with him this morning?”

“Yes, but I left him at 7:00 to change at home, you had already left.”

“That’s when I arrived home, but Thomas wasn’t there.”

“What... what?! But where is he then?” I said, seized with dreadful vertigo.

“Let’s get out of here right now.”

Eric wanted to save me from his growing anxiety, but I endured it as much as he did. We ran down the stairs and to his car. I had, in the meantime, caught the furious gaze of Olivia who was obviously waiting for someone. Eric paid her no attention, which I would have preferred given the situation, but I didn’t have time to dwell on the subject when I noticed that he was picking up speed. He was already sitting in the driver’s seat of his Audi when I arrived at the car. It only took us a few minutes to reach his building. No trace of Thomas but a few belongings of his had been taken.

“Explain to me exactly what happened this morning,” Eric asked solemnly.

“I left him around 7:00 a.m., he said to me: “See you later”, we had agreed to meet at the entrance to the school, that’s all, I swear.”

“Eve, try to remember if you passed anyone on the way, in the building? Or in the street, for example?”

“No. Not even a cat.”

“It’s incomprehensible. No one could have overwhelmed Thomas if he was kidnapped…”

“Kidnapped!”

“Listen to me, Eve, because this has to be very clear to you. Except when he’s with you, Thomas has never gone anywhere without telling me and vice versa. This morning, you were at school, so I was convinced that he had left to wait for you at your place. I went there for a quick look but saw no one. This afternoon, I called him several times and still nothing until I left to meet you. And now a guy comes out of nowhere and seems to know everything about us. These are not coincidences. Now explain to me who that guy with dreadlocks was?”

His abrupt tone had the merit of triggering my internal alarm signal. I was beginning to see a conclusion. But I dared not believe it, for fear of being right.

“This guy told me his name is Carmichael, he’s from the Order. Conway asked me to meet her at 5:00 in her classroom. When I arrived, there was no one there, and suddenly he was behind me. He introduced himself and Conway showed up. She immobilised me. I don’t know how but I couldn’t move a single muscle.”

“What did they want from you?”

“I guess they wanted to enlist me, but I think I surprised Carmichael by telling him about his goddamn Order.”

“Did he ask how you knew of his existence?”

“Yes. Initially, he concluded that it was Sam, but Conway told him about you. He wanted to know more, Conway almost blew my brains out to make me spit the truth, but I held on.”

“What did he say next?”

“Eric…,” I said as I now understood the meaning of Carmichael’s words, “he said he would soon know everything there was to know about you.”

Eric stepped back, staring blankly, and collapsed into the chair.

“What did he say to you after that?”

“Nothing important.”

“Eve!”

“He… asked which of you two slept with me,” I said, flushed with shame.

“Keep on going.”

His face was expressionless and yet I could feel the rage he was trying to contain. Eric was a master at hiding his deepest feelings, but I wasn’t. Explaining everything to him was torture, and yet I owed him the whole truth. I owed it to Thomas too.

“Before I left the room, he approached me… touched my face and… kissed me. I no longer had control of myself. Eric, am I crazy?”

Eric knelt in front of me.

“Eve, it’s not your fault. Yesterday, we didn’t tell you the whole truth about this attraction between caste. Some have more effect than others. It certainly is the case with this Carmichael and… it’s also the case with you.”

“What? My case? Am I some kind of caste succubus?”

“Mmm…yes, that’s about it. Your power of attraction is so different and ten thousand times stronger. Either way, you had nothing to do with it, Everliegh. When we first met you, we immediately understood that you weren’t like us. You had this sort of aura around you that drew us in like a magnet. We couldn’t do anything about it and we weren’t prepared. Thomas was already out of control the second he laid eyes on you.”

“And you?” I say before immediately regretting my question.

“And me…”

A long silence. I could only guess his embarrassment, so I cut short his discomfort.

“Eric, what are we going to do for Thomas?”

“I think that Carmichael took him. He must have been very cunning because Thomas is faster than me, he always had the upper hand on speed and I on strength. To surprise him, they had to prepare their plan in advance. Either they hurt him but I can’t see any blood, or they drugged him. I lean more towards the latter solution. We have to go to your place, this apartment isn’t safe. Neither is your house, but it’ll do for at least one night.”

“Okay. Sam will arrive tonight, apparently, he learned something important.”

“We’ll wait for him at your place, but don’t expect to see school again for a while. From what was said at your meeting with Carmichael, the Order will be in touch with one of us.”

On this disturbing statement, Eric fills his backpack with some things. We were already heading home. A moonless night reigned in a dark sky. Not a word had been exchanged during the trip, which wasn’t so bad. My head was churning with too much information and I was unable to follow a conversation from start to finish. I was now convinced that Thomas was alive. Carmichael needed him if he wanted to know more, but after what had happened to Cedric Fabre, I knew he wouldn’t be safe from torture. I tried to erase that possibility from my mind.

“Eric, Carmichael told me that it was very rare for anyone to resist Conway.”

“So she must be powerful, and so are you.”

“She’ll use her power over Thomas to make him talk. But what are they looking for, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, “and why did they go to such lengths to capture Thomas? At least we know that, for now, my brother is alive, and that’s all I care about right now.”

“You know, I remember something. Carmichael told me he would soon have someone to introduce me to. Do you have any idea who he was talking about?”

“No.”

“Eric.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be eighteen.”

“I know.”

“Oh! Well, I won’t have much of a future if I quit high school now.”

“It’s too dangerous, Eve. And we need to find Thomas.”

“Yes, of course,” I whispered, “I just wanted to say it out loud, that’s all.”

The house was lit, so I figured Sam must be home. As soon as the car was parked, I rushed to open the door, but once inside, the scene that was taking place before my eyes made my blood run cold. In a split second, Eric planted himself in front of me. In front of us, Carmichael was quietly sitting in one of the armchairs in the living room, making conversation with a totally amused Olivia. When she turned to us, there was only contempt in her eyes. Eric immediately raised his voice.

“Olivia, you’re leaving. Right now!”