Chosen by Ella James Read Free Book Online Page B

over. Her body throbbed like she’d just run a mile or two, and her sweaty skin felt flushed, but she felt enough like herself again to be mortified that she’d done a (literal!) drive-and-drool in front of Cayne, who still had his eyes narrowed at the guards.
    Julia rubbed her temples and looked around at the rest of her friends. Drew chewed his lip and looked down at his feet, which were tapping an awkward rhythm on the floorboard. Both Carlin and Meredith seemed to be recovering from their own droolfests. Julia glanced at Edan, expecting some smart remark, and was shocked to see him looking…livid.
    “Edan…what’s the matter?”
    Cayne was looking at him, too, openly curious; none of them had ever seen easy-going Edan mad.
    Cayne’s quizzical look seemed to snap Edan from some kind of trance. He jerked his hand into his pocket, coming up with a black snakeskin wallet he rifled through. He pulled out an amazing number of bills and counted them quickly, inhaling deeply as he did. Then he stuck them back into his wallet and pressed his mouth flat.
    “Bastards,” he muttered.
    “Who?” Carlin asked.
    “At the café. They didn’t give me all of my change!”
    Meredith snorted. “You mean you paid them too much?”
    Edan shrugged, rubbing his rock star hair and looking…well, he looked a little ragged.
    “Are you feeling okay?” Julia asked.
    “Fine,” he growled, then shot her an apologetic grin. “Even immortals feel shitty sometimes.”
    “Are you really an immortal?” Carlin asked, raptly.
    “Cayne’s not,” Julia put in, for reference purposes.
    Edan glanced at Cayne, whose turn it was to look uncomfortable—though Julia wasn’t sure about what. Something flitted across Edan’s eyes—something that looked a lot like regret—and then he smiled tightly and shook his head. “I’ll find out soon if I don’t get my hands on a Keurig.”
    “Oh, so that’s why you feel no good.” Carlin rifled through her bag and produced a little packet. “Instant coffee. Pour it in a mug.”
    Edan winced, but he nodded and stuck it in his pocket.
    “You have a Keurig coffee maker?” Meredith asked. “We weren’t allowed to have coffee at the compound!”
    Edan shrugged. “I also didn’t have any friends.”
    “I still don’t understand how I never met you,” Drew declared. “I never even saw you.”
    “Fate conspires,” Edan said, his eyebrows wiggling.
    “You guys, we need to go inside.” Meredith was drumming her fingers on the wheel, and Julia noticed Cayne had turned completely around in his seat and was doing his old Cayne-as-watchdog routine.
    When she remembered it was really all for her , she felt a half sick, half pleasant rush. How ridiculous was it that she’d grown up an unwanted orphan when she was really some special— Oh no. She swallowed hard and shook her head. She would not allow herself to think she was special.
    Drew and Mer left to check-in, and Cayne ordered Julia into the driver’s seat in case of an emergency, flee-now kind of situation—an order she resented but followed after sticking out her tongue. A few minutes later, Drew and Meredith were back with a bunch of little silver keys, instructions on where to park the van (an underground parking deck Edan offered to find), and bookings in adjoining rooms 503 and 505.
    “How’d you do it?” Carlin asked. “I thought we would need a reservation.”
    “Julia and I should go in first and look around,” Cayne interrupted.
    Meredith nodded. “You can do that when we all go in. Which can be now.”
    *
    The fiercely guarded House of the Gods, St. Moritz looked no more threatening than an ice cream parlor, Julia decided after she and Cayne had walked around for almost an hour.
    Without his merry mind-control powers, Cayne had had to participate in real human (okay, human-Nephilim) interaction. Julia had been shocked to watch him chat it up with one of the security chiefs—a short, bearded guy named Henry, who opened