Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (43 page)

Beside her Chev had ripped his shirt off and was pressing it to his chest as he came to his feet wobbly, looking intently at the battle finishing around him.

There was Elias, rapidly killing a small soldier, but... Elias was also across the way from her, swiping down a soldier whose helmet had fallen off, exposing a man with thick curly brown hair. Rowan frowned, was she seeing double?

Rowan could see the first Elias’s face clearly, taking out the last soldier near him and grinning at Rowan as though they had just accomplished something great, as if they should be proud of what had transpired this day. His eyes though, just looked tired. Carter and Jace finished off the last of their soldiers, righting themselves and looking confused at the back of the second Elias who was pulling his sword from the last soldier, newly dead on the ground with their limbs sprawled out across the murky terrain.

The second Elias turned slowly, allowing the others to look closely at him. He wiped his blood stained sword on his pants, the red smearing along the thick fabric. He had black hair, with a large streak of grey in the front. He had cold, calculating, sapphire eyes, with small wrinkles in the corners that were peering intently at Rowan with curiosity. He stood straight under their scrutiny and Jace took a step back cautiously. He looked questioningly at Rowan, who was shaking her head in disbelief.

“Emlyn?” The older replica of Elias said, his voice filled with wonder as he stared at Rowan. His voice was deep and held the authority of someone used to commanding legions. He took his gaze from Rowan and looked at Elias, who stared at the man questioningly, his face screwed up in concentration.

“Who are you?” Elias asked, gone from his voice was the tone of a God, replaced by the voice of a boy unsure of what was right in his world.

Rowan tried to reach out and sense this new man, but where her mind should have connected there was only a void, black, deep, and soulless. This man before her was the strange, New Thing, she had first felt in the shack with Jace.

Rowan shook her head, her mind going blank
, but this is impossible. My father is dead. He hung himself from the Great Tree. He’s dead.
Rowan thought, blinking at the man.

“He will come for us now. I can’t go back. I can’t go back.”
Rowan’s mother had cried. Her terrified voice echoed around in Rowan’s head, “
He will come for us now!”

“Indeed Emlyn. I have come for you, and Cassius.”

COMING SOON:

Unbroken: Book Two of the Compelled Trilogy

Kristen Pike lives at home with her husband and two children and sadly no cats. She’s loved writing from a very young ag, starting out with small poems and moving up to novels. If she wasn’t writing she would be studying psychology, or perhaps testing chocolate. She loves all things fuzzy on four legs, reading to her children, and playing Minecraft.  Unwilling is her first novel.

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