My Merlin Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page B

that’s all he had to say to me?
    “Not all, but it is a start,” his voice whispered inside my head.
    I almost jumped. I touched the amulet that connected us. The only time I’d heard Matt in my head was the last time I’d seen him. After months of reflecting on that last time, I’d concluded that it just made me… angry.
    “Get out of my head, Matt!”
    “As you wish ,” he demurred.
    My fingers curled into a fist. To shut out what wasn’t meant to be. It was his choice for us not to be together and I had moved on.
    The lights of the SUV shut off. Vane stepped down from the driver’s seat. He walked forward, past the front of the car and reached me in a few steps. For a second, he stood right beside his brother. Only a bit of daylight remained.
    The resemblance of their faces and matching length of their frames made the brothers seem eerily similar, but that’s where the similarity ended. Vane’s hazel brown eyes glittered despite the dark. Matt’s amber ones sank into the night like a dying ember. Vane’s broad shoulders moved with loose grace. Matt’s lean ones held tight and still. Despite the shadows, they both flickered sharp and true, even if Vane’s torch burned a bit too bright to hold. The tiger next to the lion, Vane pounced forward and placed himself directly in line between Matt and me.
    Vane said, “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”
    “Since when do you wait for an invitation?” I arched a brow. “Why did you call Matt?”
    “Don’t sound so disappointed,” Matt said dryly.
    Vane smirked. “I didn’t call. The Council did.”
    Five other SUVs burst out of the wooded lane and sped onto the driveway. I tensed. Vane put himself between the SUVs and me.
    “It’s alright. I think you’ll like these visitors.” Matt touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see such a vision. It can be… disturbing.”
    The destruction I’d seen had been more than disturbing. It was terrifying. My gaze lowered. “I don’t know how you live with them.”
    “It helps to have someone share it, for once,” he said softly. “But I would rather not have burdened you. I’m just glad I was close enough to come quickly.”
    I frowned. “You were coming here?”
    Matt said evasively, “I happened to be in the area.”
    The SUVs squealed to a stop beside Vane’s. Several men dressed in uniforms of slacks, black t-shirts, and long wool coats got out. I recognized many of them as guardian wizards who’d protected the Candidates until we got to the Council. Two teenage wizards jumped out of the last SUV next to the broken fountain—a red-haired girl in punk goth clothes and a skinny, black-haired boy with glasses.
    I let out a squeal of delight and ran to greet them. “Gia! Blake!”
    Gia laughed and met me halfway. She caught me up in a tight hug. “I’ve missed you!”
    I touched her long red hair. “You grew it out.” I’d only ever seen her with short, spiky hair. Now long curls softened the angular bones of her face. “It looks good.”
    She gave a small, self-conscious smile. “I needed a change.”
    I understood that. After a night of battling a thousand or so gargoyles, the dawn looked different. I turned to Blake and attacked him next. He returned my enthusiastic hug with an awkwardly stiff one.
    “Er, happy to see you too, Ryan,” he said with a heavy British accent.
    Gia rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you left me with just stiff-upper-lip here for company. It is so boring at Avalon Prep without you.”
    Vane had found Gia in Hong Kong and brought her to Avalon Prep in much the same manner as Matt had brought me. We had both been accepted as Candidates that day. I had no idea where she was actually from. She never talked about her past, and from what little I knew about it, I wasn’t sure how to ask. 
    Gia looked up at the curved gables of Ragnar Manor and whistled. “Nice place, DuLac. A little creepy but… nice.”
    I searched her face. “Actually it’s