Girl Enchanted (Book 2 of The Girl Trilogy) (17 page)

Rodego’s mother was
screaming hysterically. I couldn’t handle it. It was all too sick.
I wanted to run away from this horrible place, but I couldn’t leave
Aver. He was up next.

The smallest shark took
another bite out of Rodego’s torso. His eyes were wide with horror
as he writhed and turned before what was left of him floated
lifelessly in the water.

The largest shark with the
most flesh pulled away from its body was almost still as it just
moved its half torn away body slowly in the water. The other two
attacked the remains of Rodego’s body until it was gone.

By then, the largest great
white was dead and its body turned over as it floated in the water.
The other two, still in a frenzy ate it up.

The crowed was cheering
wildly. Some were crying and gasping. Rodego’s mother had passed
out and the officials carried her out of the arena.

At this point, the shark
keepers lured the two remaining creatures into another cage. The
speaker announced, “Next up is Aver Hainsworth. If he is
victorious, he will win the title of duke on the royal court and a
fabulous chateau beside the king’s palace.” The crowd cheered and
stomped wildly.

17

The officials headed
toward Aver who was still in his seat passed out from drinking too
much. My heart was racing so fast. I tried to figure out what to
do. It occurred to me to start crying with my tumultuous josephine
voice. I could wreck the building with a huge
earthquake.

But, the idea was
dangerous. If the building collapsed, it could crush the crowds of
people inside and even release all of the great whites from their
cages to attack everyone. No, that was a terrible idea.

Ailey and Hark were trying
to wake up Aver, but nothing seemed to rouse him. They were shaking
his shoulders and yelling at him. Hark slapped him in the face, but
he just smiled in his sleep as his head fell back. Then he rolled
to the side of his seat toward Renena who was seated beside him and
he vomited in her lap.

She jumped out of her
chair and screamed, “Ugh, how gross.” But, after wiping the throw
up off of her lap, she repositioned Aver upright in his seat. “Oh,
come on, Aver. Please wake up. Please.” She leaned over and kissed
his cheek. But, even with all that, he remained
unconscious.

Amadathan wasn’t saying
anything at all. She was just sitting in her seat biting her nails.
Her beautiful face looked riddled with fear. It was pale and blood
drawn.

The audience’s focus was
on us now. The officials walked down our row of seats from either
side. Aver’s friends and I stood up to let them pass. But right as
the official with the backwards baseball cap and his tall, bald
headed partner reached down to lift Aver, Hark and Ailey grabbed
their mercury pistols from their holsters.

Ailey fumbled with the gun
for a moment as the bald official swung around and elbowed him in
the face. He fell to the ground.

But, Hark had a firm grip
on his gun. In an instant, he pointed the weapon at the mer with
the baseball cap and grabbed him up by the neck. “Let Hainsworth go
or I’ll kill you,” he commanded.

The audience made an “ah,”
sound. Some of the mers began pushing their way out of the
building. There was a lot of chaos at once.

Resolution came quickly
when the official with the baseball cap pulled a slick move, side
swiping Hark and throwing him over his head at once. Apparently,
these officials were highly trained combat fighters and though both
Ailey and Hark were strong and muscular, they weren’t matched
against these opponents.

In no time, the officials
had Hark and Ailey in handcuffs. Some of the other officials took
them away. Renena and Amadathan were crying, but they stayed with
me as the passed out Aver was carried toward the show cage. The
audience calmed and the crowd that exited the building during the
assaults came back in and rejoined.

Renena, Amadathan, and I
were huddled together holding hands. They were still crying and I
was too shocked to release any emotions. I couldn’t believe what
was happening and I didn’t know how I felt about it. The room
started spinning in my mind. The music within me was overwhelming
me. It was so chaotic.

A thought came to me. I
started to sing. I called upon Aver, hoping to rouse him out of his
sleep. My voice lifted to a high pitch. The rhythms were strong. It
felt like he was listening. He could hear my song in his mind. The
vibrations became erotic. We were connected. The room started to
shake lightly. At once, I lowered my pitch to keep the power at
bay.

Even though I felt him in
my mind, I saw with my eyes that he was still asleep. What was
happening to me? I could feel him. It was strong. “Don’t worry,
Cordellia. I am here. Nobody is going to die.”

But, the shark keepers
lifted Aver up and threw him into the tank. His body floated in a
deep sleep. The great whites were released into the show
cage.

I continued to sing.
Anything to wake him. But, he didn’t move. The sharks were circling
him.

“I’m here, Cordellia. I’m
here!” I heard the voice, but why wasn’t he moving. But, then I saw
him. The voice was not Aver. It was Shaul!

“I’ll take his place,”
Shaul yelled out to the officials. “I volunteer.”

“Go ahead,” one of the
officials said.

“They let him
by.”

“No!” I screamed. Without
thought, I ran through the crowd to stop Shaul.

But, he dove into the show
cage between the sharks who were circling Aver’s unconscious
body.

“I volunteer. I
volunteer,” I screamed to the officials. “I’ll take his
place.”

They let me pass. Before I
could even think about what I was doing, I dove into the show cage.
The sharks were circling Shaul who was holding Aver over his
shoulder now. I swam behind the circling great whites alongside the
bars of the cage and to the bottom floor. I was underneath the
predators and the boy I loved now.

I couldn’t let Shaul die.
I was him. He was me. We were one. “Shaul, I volunteered. You are
free now. Get out of the cage.”

As one of the sharks
brushed past him, he looked down at me. “Cordellia,” he screamed.
“Get out!”

I started splashing and
yelling to get the sharks’ attention. After everything, I didn’t
care if I lived. I just wanted Shaul to survive. At once, I bit as
hard as I could into my arm. Blood began to gush forth into the
water.

It worked. The great
whites smelled the scent of my blood. They turned away from Shaul
and Aver and came after me.

I charged at one of them
and grabbed onto its enormous back. It threw me around and bit into
the side of my tale, but the injury wasn’t deadly. I started
clawing the shark ferociously. Though, no matter what I did, it
wasn’t enough.

I heard a spell. It was
Latin. The sharks turned into huge blossoming water lilies. Shaul
remembered my favorite flower. Their bright petals fell in beauty
to the floor. I heard the crowd shriek in fear.

“A serpent!” someone in
the crowd screamed. Then much of the audience was yelling,
“Serpent, serpent, serpent…” They pushed and shoved their way out
of the building.

Shaul and I swam to each
other. Aver was groggy, but he awoke. Shaul released him. I looked
at Shaul deep into his beautiful silver eyes.

“I love you.” I couldn’t
help but say it. My feelings poured out of me.

“I love you too,
Cordellia.” He took me into his strong arms.

The music in our minds was
true. It was a symphony of love. We held each other tightly. My
heart beat against his and we were one.

Réussie
Miliardario

Hi, Everybody! Thanks for
reading
Girl Enchanted
. At present I am working on book 3 of
The Girl Trilogy
with the tentative
title of
Girl In Love
and the
Endless Love
series (teen adventure romances with a bad boy
and bad girl!). Keep an eye out for upcoming books. I’m writing
like mad and the process is thrilling! Hope to have both the
trilogy and series out soon!

Here is a sample of
Outlaws (Endless Love, #1)

1.

The school bell just rang. I tossed my
folder and literature book into my backpack, zipped it up, and
threw it over my shoulder. When I stepped outside, I was rudely
reminded of how hot it was today. The warm Santa Anna winds were
strong. I was glad that I wore shorts and a tank top to school
today. It would be easier to handle the late May heat on my walk
home.

I think I was the only senior at San Diego
High School that didn’t have a car. My mother and step-father had
lots of fancy cars, but they wouldn’t let me have one. They said I
was too stupid to own an automobile. I’d just crash it or do
something idiotic in it like get pregnant.

Usually, my best friend Brooke and her
boyfriend Jacob would drive me home, but today they left early
because they were driving from our beach city, La Jolla, to the
country town of Ramona about an hour away. They wanted to visit
Brooke’s aunt who was in the hospital.

As usual, the kids were noisy and
rambunctious in the halls. One senior grabbed a baseball cap off of
a freshman and threw it in the trash. Some cheerleaders rushed by
with their pompoms in their hands and sneered at me as they passed.
I tried to ignore them. I was in a melancholy mood and didn’t feel
like starting up with them.

Aside from my down mood, it was a pretty
average day except that I noticed bad boy Justin Mason glancing at
me as he talked to his friends over by the school library. He was
far away, but I could tell he was watching me. He was wickedly
handsome. All the girls wanted him, but he didn’t seem to want any
of them.

Last week, after I broke up with my
boyfriend Tyler, some guys at my school told me Justin wanted to
ask me to the prom. I was shocked. I never considered myself
attractive—I was skinny, my nose was pointy, and my eyes were
slits. My brown hair was too long, too thin, and too straggly.
Something about my appearance was boyish and bratty. And I
certainly wasn’t popular. So the possibility of an invitation from
the most desired boy at my school came as a real surprise.

I didn’t know him at all and I heard he was
bad. He had a mysterious past that nobody could figure out. He was
confident, but aloof. Nobody knew much about him, but rumor had it
that he didn’t even have parents.

If Justin really did ask me and if I said
yes, all the popular girls would be envious. I didn’t get along
with most of the cheerleaders and cliquey girls. They thought I was
weird. I definitely wanted to go to prom with Justin even if to
just make them angry. Pay back would be sweet. I couldn’t wait to
see the looks of jealousy in their eyes when they saw the outcast
girl going out with the guy they all lusted over. But, deep down I
feared that the guys who said Justin wanted to take me to prom were
just messing with me, trying to make me look stupid.

I was embarrassed that Justin was looking at
me, so I took a quick detour to the bathroom to get out of his line
of vision. If he was trying to mess with my mind, I couldn’t deal
with it today.

The bathroom was quiet and cool, but it
smelled like cigarettes. I was glad that nobody was in there to
bother me. I splashed water on my hot face to cool off. When I
looked in the mirror with my wet face, I felt like somebody else
was staring back at me. I just didn’t feel like myself anymore. I
felt ugly and alone. I hated my mother. I hated Tyler. I think I
hated everyone.

I must have stood there in the bathroom
staring at myself and thinking evil thoughts for twenty minutes
before I left. When I got outside, all the kids were gone. The
school halls were quiet. I headed over to my locker past the
library.

“
Where do you think you’re
going?” Tyler said as he threw my arms over my head against my
school locker and held them in place.

“
This isn’t funny,” I said
firmly. “Let me go.” I tried to wiggle out of my ex-boyfriend’s
grasp, but he held me too tight.

He pressed his lips against mine.

“
Stop it!” I twisted my
head away, but he held fast, shoving his tongue into my mouth.
“Ugh! Don’t, don’t.” I squirmed to get away. In a fury, I tried to
knee him in the groin, but he blocked my aggressions with his legs.
At once, he pressed up against me.

I kept trying to kick at him as I tried to
spit his tongue out of my mouth. I knew he was broken up about our
break up, but I didn’t want to be with him anymore. He cheated on
me with my own mother. I found them together. It was a tragic
horror that I hadn’t been able to wrap my mind around. I just
couldn’t believe it. I felt like my heart was torn out of my body
and squashed. But, my mom threatened to kick me out of the house
if I told my step-father what she did. And now Tyler wanted me
back!

I started sweating all over. His advances
were scaring me. He just wasn’t normal. In a panic, I bit down on
his tongue as hard as I could.

He screamed as he released me. In agony, he
was throwing his head around. “Why won’t you let me talk to you?”
He demanded. His face was beat red, his brown hair was all messed
up and hot perspiration slid down his forehead.