Elementally Priceless Read Online Free PDF

forget meeting an elemental. A perk of being a Reader, I suppose.
    “Writer’s tend to be killed if they are not lost to the madness. Especially those who write through the ‘ripples’ as you call them. So I am curious if he is even alive.”
    Her fingers tightened around the cup. “He must be. And he must be kept and hidden from the world, kept safe from those who would use him for their own gain as is the case now.”
    A groan slipped out of me. “No, no, no. I am not taking on a kid.”
    “At least find him, and find a place for him to be safe.”
    I stared at the ceiling, the cracks in the wood evident from years of drying in the desert sun, the little sprouts of greenery kept trying to survive the heat in those cracks. “Why, why would I do this?” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help; it was more of getting into shit again. Giselle had been there when I’d rebelled, when I’d been seeking out those who’d destroyed me. She knew what it had cost me. Her request was far more deadly in some ways than what Orion had asked. Him, I could deny. Giselle was far harder to say no to.
    “Because the world will rest on his prophecies. Because the Blood of the Lost is coming into her own and must have this Writer’s prophecies if she is to stop the end of the world from crashing around us. I know you believe this, even if the other elementals do not.”
    Biting the inside of my lip, I thought over what she said and what she was implying. “Let me get this straight. I save this Writer kid, put him somewhere safe, and that’s it?”
    “Yes. It should be simple for you, with your abilities and strengths.”
    My jaw twitched. Giselle didn’t know what she was really asking of me. I’d been confined to Death Valley and was supposed to stay for at least another fifty years. A sentence I could handle, even if I hated it. If I left to find this kid, then I would be forfeiting any rights I had as an elemental.
    I would be anathema and even my father wouldn’t be able to save me.
    “I will think about it,” I said, unable to give her more. Her eyes flickered and again I saw marks of madness hover over her.
    “Lark, please do more than that. I do know what I ask of you.”
    Of course she did, how could I be so stupid? “Then what waits for me, Reader, if I do as you ask?”
    “The world will be saved, and the Blood of the Lost will triumph over the demons that come.”
    I shook my head. “No, I get that part. What happens to me?”
    Her lips pursed tight and she stared into her mostly empty teacup. “It will not go well for you, I will not lie.”
    “How bad?”
    “You will lose your freedom. You will lose everything you are until the final battle when the Blood of the Lost will come for you.”
    The blood slid from my face and pooled somewhere about ten feet below me. I knew what she was saying. “The oubliette?”
    Mouth tight, she nodded and I swallowed the bile that rose in the back of my throat.
    Save the world, and face the consequences: the oubliette was the one place I never wanted to be again.
    The one place I couldn’t face. A small, dark, miserable hole where people were put as punishment of the worst kind. Cut off from the world, from light and the earth and everything good in the world.
    So I did the only thing I could think of.
    I didn’t give her an answer.

Chapter 5

    Rylee
    WE DROVE THROUGH  the night, and I was surprised at how well Caleb held up. Even when we stopped for gas, he didn’t seem tired. Of course, it was maybe a bit hard for me to judge because every time we pulled over my mind was far busier with the taste of his mouth and the feel of his hands roaming my body. His touch aroused and confused me. I loved that he seemed to want me, but I couldn’t think with his skin on mine. And I needed to think. Needed to remember what I was supposed to be doing.
    “Rylee, you should have come to see me ages ago,” he murmured against my mouth. I pulled back and sucked in a deep breath,