HEART OF THE CHOSEN (CASTE BOOK 1)

Chapter 45

The next morning I splashed cold water on my face, but there was no way my puffy eyes would deflate in such a short time. Eric was due to arrive within five minutes and I wasn’t dressed yet. I woke up too late, exhausted from my night tossing and turning. I had tried to find an excuse, which never came. What could I say? What could I do to reach him? Nothing. Come to think of it, my attitude had been unspeakable. In the shower and deep in my depression, I knew there was no solution, except to swallow my faults and shut up. It was the least I could do.

I put on a bathrobe. Eric knocked on the door. His gloomy eyes hadn’t brightened and his hardened indifference showed little improvement. He looked away and let me go back to the bathroom to finish dressing. We had returned to the BMW without a word. The road to Somerset seemed endless to me, and when we finally arrived outside the young seer’s building, we still had to wait for him to leave. Not a word, not the shadow of a phrase like “Do you want something to eat?” or “Should we rather ring the doorbell and see what happens?” The two questions tormented me, but I dared not ask them.

At the beginning of the evening, Nicolas Hanlon made his appearance. I immediately got out of the car and followed him for a hundred yards.

“Nicholas!” I challenged him in a soft voice so as not to alert him.

“That’s me!” he replied.

I understood better why Carmichael and Blake sent me to carry out this mission. They had thought of everything, and in particular the fact that Nicolas, in full caste awakening, could not decently resist my charms as a potential succubus.

“You must be wondering how I know your name, and I can explain that to you. Would it be possible to speak in a quieter place?”

“But, Miss,” retorted the young man with the mischievous eyes, “you can call me by all the names you want. But for a little chat, follow me to the park a little further, it’ll be quiet.”

Surprised despite everything that he lets himself be so easily convinced to talk to me, I followed him to a green area, and I saw Eric a few metres from us, well concealed. Nicolas invited me to sit on a bench and I already felt the immensity of his interest when he approached a little closer. That’s why he hadn’t seemed suspicious of the idea of talking to a stranger who already called him by his first name.

“My name is Everliegh, and I’m here to ask you to come and live with me and with people who are very similar to you.”

At first, his face lit up, and then that look gave way to a bewildered expression.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Can I ask you a very indiscreet question?”

“Don’t hesitate.”

“Have you ever experienced anything unusual? Extraordinary? That you can’t explain to yourself?”

“Right now!”

It wasn’t going to be so easy to make him talk. I could see that, from his seventeen years and his hypertrophied hormones, I was dominating him, and I couldn’t ask Eric to intervene because Nicolas risked closing up. He, therefore, left me no choice, I had to go straight to the point.

“Nicolas, I’m going to show you something but you have to swear to me that you won’t tell anyone. I can trust you?”

“Absolutely!”

After taking a quick look around, I closed my eyes. A careful effort of concentration unscrewed the bolts that held the bench fixed in the ground, and when the task was done, I lifted us a few feet above solid ground. Nicolas, frightened, tried to jump, but I stopped him, he was forced to remain motionless and I muzzled him to prevent him from screaming. I put the bench back on the ground, his livid complexion regained some of its colour.

“Nicolas, I am a caste endowed with extraordinary gifts, just like you. I descend from a line in which several of the members inherited powers such as mine. You’re what we call a pre-cog, a clairvoyant if you will. You have visions that allow you to prevent certain future events. Several of your ancestors also had this gift. It’s very rare, Nicolas. So here’s what I propose to you: I want you to come and live with your people. We will provide you with everything you need and more. You’ll live in the most beautiful place that has ever existed, surrounded by people who have the same predispositions as you. I’m not necessarily talking about clairvoyance, there are also telepaths, telekinetics like me or people who can move at great speed and who are strong as rocks. You’ll no longer need to repress your power, quite the contrary. You’ll be able to finish your studies by correspondence and enjoy life with a certain idleness without ever being worried about the consequences. You are one of us, so we’ll welcome you with open arms.”

I paused and looked back at him.

“Before answering me, you must know that this commitment is not without risks. We live secluded and, in a way, scattered around the world. There are issues and rules to follow. Our only desire is to live in harmony. Only, you must know: not all castes are as considerate as those you’ll meet. I even have to tell you that our old pre-cogs died prematurely, I don’t want to hide this from you. I can nevertheless assure you of ultra-close protection and that I’ll never let anyone do you the slightest harm, you hear me! Our potential enemies will think twice before incurring my wrath, I can assure you. Now I’ll untie your limbs and you will finally be able to regain possession of your body. Can you promise not to scream? Blink once if you accept.”

He complied, so I let him move with his eyes terrified, he was pale as chalk. Finally, Blake was going to be happy to know that I had used the constraint, but just a little bit, what was needed to convince, that’s all. My heart was pounding as I waited for his response. This first recruitment made me nervous, which seemed normal to me for a beginner. There were long silent seconds before he could manage to utter a few words:

“Can I take my sister?”

“Why this question?” I continued, trying to hide my enthusiasm.

“Because… she’s like me,” he stammered, “I mean, she’s clairvoyant too. I always told her not to make her visions public, already our parents take us for crazy!”

“What’s her name?” I asked him when I knew the answer.

“Abigail. Everyone calls her Abi. Would there be room for her too?”

“Of course, she’s welcome and will even have her own room.”

He displayed a smile so wide that his whole face found the features of the young man in the photo, full of kindness and bliss, but his eyes quickly clouded.

“I thought you would be harder to convince, you know?”

“Here, my sister and I live in hell. My parents think we’re crazy and have become so themselves because they are incapable of understanding us. You’re giving us a way out, Miss, but I wonder how we’re going to handle my parents? The gap between them and us has widened further since the discovery of my sister’s clairvoyance, but they’re not going to let us go so easily.”

“In your opinion, what could convince them to let you come with us?”

“A lot of money! They’ll now understand that my sister and I have a rare gift and that we weren’t crazy, and they will surely wonder how to take advantage of it in the future.”

“Let me judge in due time. But before going to see them, I’m going to introduce you to a person who is one of us.”

Eric came out of his hiding place, a pleasant smile on his lips. It was the first time that I had seen him like this since his return. That smile warmed my heart. Nicolas hadn’t been scared and we went upstairs to his building in complete peace of mind. I asked him to go and pack his suitcase and his sister’s after informing them of our plans. The parents posed no problem. I had reassured them of the fact that we weren’t a sect and that they could correspond with their children as soon as they expressed the request. I knew how to be generous because it wasn’t a trivial transaction that I was offering them. The sum was going to allow them to live until the end of their days and, without any form of modesty, they were already ecstatic by planning to settle in the Bahamas or on an island, where their only concern would be to do nothing all day. I couldn’t blame them. According to the file that Blake had given me, the Hanlons were poor and crumbling under debt. They certainly felt love for their children, but I thought I sensed relief when I offered to take full responsibility for their future.

I had formulated our interest in them as if they were gifted children who had to evolve in a context of their own. They hadn’t asked any questions because they already knew perfectly well that Abigail and Nicolas weren’t like everyone else. The farewells were moving but quite brief. I didn’t dare guess the reaction of the two young people when they discovered Mortain Castle, because they were already marvelling as they got into the BMW. Abigail was a pretty young girl and Eric didn’t leave her indifferent. It couldn’t be otherwise, anyway, Eric was very handsome, especially for a teenager. The young girl’s voice was soft, and unlike her brother who wasn’t very talkative, perhaps intimidated by my presence coupled with my overpowering pheromones, she was constantly asking questions. Who are the castes? How do they meet their needs? What are the different existing powers? Who are the most powerful? All questions that she was entitled to ask and that I had formulated in the past. It had only been a little over three years, but it felt like centuries ago. Eric answered all the questions, and as they digested the answers, I again tried to alert them to the changes that were currently affecting our community. They didn’t seem scared, on the contrary, they even claimed to want to get deeply involved in our cause because, in one way or another, offering them to develop their true nature without restriction made them responsible. They weren’t going to be separated and now understood who they were. This point was essential for Nicolas, who must have suffered for a long time from his uniqueness.

We were only a few kilometres from Manchester. Abigael was whispering with her brother and then called out to me.

“Everliegh?”

“Yes.”

“You know, we predicted your arrival or rather the scene where you lift the bench by thought. Abigail and I thought we were going crazy. All our visions always turn out to be justified, but this one was a fantasy. We wondered if we weren’t losing our minds. When you spoke about your powers, it seems you have more. What are the other gifts you have?”

I dared not answer and was even rather embarrassed. It was Eric who, in a firm tone, answered them in a way that didn’t fail to stun me.

“She has the power to drive men crazy and pulverize them when it suits her.”

Enough said.