Elected (The Elected Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

awake. The mid-morning sun is high in the sky, which must mean I slept straight through to the next day. I don’t make a movement, trying to assess the sound. It’s footsteps coming from across my bedroom near the window. I expect to see my mother or a maid, but the figure is a man. It’s too slender to be my father and too tall to be Tomlin.
    My hand instinctively juts out from under my bed covers and finds the small whittling knife on my nightstand. I use it merely to carve wood, but it’s the closest weapon I have. I close my fist around its small handle, ready to plunge it into my attacker should he step forward. I lie in wait, at the defense. But then I think, if he has a weapon, he could strike me from afar. So, I gently lift the sheets off my body and step out of bed, now on the offensive.
    His back is to me, and since my footsteps are light as a feather, he doesn’t turn.
    I wonder why the guards at my door didn’t stop him, but I have little time to ponder because I’m now inches from the man’s back. He still doesn’t move. He’s got something in his hands at waist level. It must be an intricate weapon. One he’s getting ready to use.
    I lift the knife higher in the air, ready to advance on him, when the thing in the man’s hand lets out a loud “Squawk!”
    I falter for a second, the tip of my foot catching against a raised floorboard, and it’s in that brief moment the man hears me and abruptly turns.
    “Hey!” he says, stepping backward against my window when he sees me so close.
    “Get back!” Still, I don’t hear guards ready to storm in and rescue me. So I stand my ground, knife raised, ready to inflict damage against this man myself if I need to.
    I look at him closer. He’s not even a man. He’s my age.
    “Watch what you’re doing with that thing!” The boy’s voice sounds familiar, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it before. I concentrate only on keeping my ground. Keeping him in place.
    “Don’t move,” I say. “If you do, I’ll advance. And show me your hands!”
    “I’m not moving!” He raises both hands in the air, palms open so I can see they’re empty. I want to trust this boy. I don’t want to have to harm him with my knife. But it isn’t until I see one of my pet parrots fly off the boy’s shoulder and onto mine that I realize I know him.
    I’ve never spent more than a second up close to the bird keeper, but over the years I’ve made a personal pastime of watching him from afar. The boy’s name is Griffin. He’s the son of my father’s veterinarian. Griffin is the apprentice, administering to the smaller animals around our house. He’s fixed the wing of my parrot before.
    I step back but don’t lower the knife.
    “What are you doing in here?” My voice is gruff. I might know this boy, but he could still be here to do harm.
    “I didn’t know you were in here. If I’d known, obviously, I wouldn’t have come in to look after your birds.”
    The parrot gives another shrill squawk. I study the boy for a moment. Close to me now, for only the second time in my life, I stare at him openly. The dark hair I’ve seen from afar falls forward over his brow but ends in sharp points around the sides of his ears, like he’s cut it himself without a mirror. His eyes are a deep amber too. Like fresh gingerbread cookies straight out of the oven, glowing and bright. He’s lean but relatively tall.
    The one thing I know about him for sure is his gait. Since before I can remember, Griffin was the only male my age allowed into our house. He followed his father around, watching him work and then taking over some of the veterinary duties himself. I made an art of subtly watching Griffin to learn how a male my age moved and talked. It was one thing studying the masculine characteristics of my father, but it was altogether another to study someone my own age.
    And then there’s the one time I did see Griffin up close, just for a brief second when I was thirteen, but