Rule (Roam Series, Book Five) Read Free

punishments.
    “I’m almost eigh teen .”
    “Exactly. You’re smarter and more mature than this. You know why you have a curfew. Adhere to it, and you won’t be grounded. Simple.”
    “Again?” My mother’s voice sounded from the stairs, and I cringed, looking down at my hands. “Eva, come on .” She glanced at the clock before crossing her arms over her chest.
    “What in the hell are you both so worried about? I am a ninth-degree black belt in Taekwondo, I can outshoot Dad with the AK and the Glock-…,”
    “Maybe the Glock, but not the AK-…,”
    “West,” my mother admonished him, giving him a you’re-losing-the-point scowl.
    “…and I am qualified to teach Kendo! I’m like a freaking assassin !”
    “We know you can defend yourself. But, lately, your grades are dropping, and that kid is too old for you-…,”
    “Too old for me? It’s not like he’s my six hundred year old teacher! ”
    My father ’s face turned to stone, and I immediately regretted my words.
    “ You let him touch you, Eva?”
    I rose to my feet, irritated at my flaring nostrils as fury charged through my veins. I glared at my mother as the lights began to flicker in ceiling. “You told him! You promised you wouldn’t tell him!”
    “Eva, we know that you care about Liam, but he’s almost twenty, and-…,” my mother reached for me, but I backed away.
    “I can’t believe you told him, ” I glared at my betraying mother, and then looked to my father’s disappointed blue gaze. “Dad, my love life is not your business. ”
    I knew when West Perry was pushed to his limits (because I pushed him there pretty often) but I’d never seen him this pissed before. “Who my teenage daughter is sleeping with is my business.”
    “I’m not sleeping with him! ” I threw my hands in the air, stomping toward the stairs. “You know what? If you can’t trust me, that’s your problem, not mine.”
    “You know the decision that you have to make. You have less than four years, Eva. Please, just don’t commit yourself to either world before deciding.” My mother’s voice lowered. She was obviously trying to keep Chris from hearing.
    “I have already decided. I will invite Grandfather, the king, and all the other crazy people to come live here, if they want… or burn.”
    My mom rolled her eyes. “How very gracious of you.”
    “I am not responsible for your actions!”
    “Roam. Eva,” my father stood and moved between us, holding his hands up. “Enough. Let’s go outside.”
    “No thanks!” I bolted up the stairs, carefully gathering enough res pect not to slam my door (again).
    The balcony off my room faced the ocean, and I grabbed my favorite throw blanket before dropping dejectedly to the cushioned chair.
    Though Christopher thought dad was only forty-four years old, I knew he was over six hundred years old. He’d traded his immortality to save my mother’s life, and I had been the one to cast Logan immortal, like Violet, when I was only four years old.
    Children and magic should not mix. I stretched my long, manicured fingers out, trying to recall the dreams of Grandfather Asher’s lessons in magic. The dreams ended shortly after I turned five, only to be replaced by nightmares that had me waking with scratches, open wounds, and bite marks that bloodied my sheets. I would heal within minutes, but one recurring dream, where I was underwater, still made me shudder to think about.
    Immortality, in my mind, was a curse. I’d lay awake in my bed at night, imagining my parents shriveling up and dying, and my brother Chris topher becoming an old man, while I remained, left behind, tagging along with my sister and brother-in-law for my entire existence.
    Call Aunt Morgan. I knew she was sick of hearing about my endless struggle with my parents, but she’d always sympathize with me. It’s the middle of the night, and she’s definitely trying to sleep. My twin cousins, Margaret and Jane, were almost four years old,