Chapter 1
Chrome
Behind the concert venue, I pummeled my fist into the Elemental’s ribs—my favorite body part to target. The snapping of my enemies’ bones satisfied the restless beast that paced within me.
A loud crack spliced through the littered alley, followed by a grunt of pain as my opponent’s gilded skin caught the light of the overhead streetlamps. Sun had set in the city, meaning the vagrants crawled out from their holes, regardless of how cold it was this time of year.
Fighting was my freedom. My form of reprieve from the shit back home. Missions were the one time when I could fall into a flowing state of violence and release.
The man nursed his ribs, stumbling back several steps as he regained his footing. “You need to listen…” he begged, hunched over. A cloud from his breath bloomed from between his lips thanks to the frigid mid-February temperatures.
“No, I don’t…” I stalked closer to him, a Kinetic dagger in my grip. “Just because your kind’s blood runs through my veins means nothing,” I said lowly, even though I knew no Kinetics could overhear me. I kicked him in the gut, knocking him on his back as he cried out.
Somehow, Elementals knew about my secret hybrid lineage.
Nobody was supposed to know except a very select few.
However, it didn’t stop the Elementals from blabbing their mouths every time they came face-to-face with me.
The best solution was to ensure their permanent silence.
Thankfully, it seemed I was the only Kinetic they spoke about it to for whatever reason.
“It appears that it’s acceptable for Elemental men to abandon their children. Especially those who aren’t pure-blooded.” Not that it was a common occurrence because, as far as I knew, only two existed in the world.
The man kicked at my knee, but I side-stepped and whirled, slicing my dagger across his torso. It was shallow, but the black crystal embedded within the blade would be enough to kill.
With a cry of pain and rounded eyes, he shook his head. “No, please… Your father didn’t abandon you…”
I chuckled, too dark of a sound to have come from a sixteen-year-old boy. I allowed the cold air to seep beneath my skin and bones, freezing any shred of empathy I held in my heart. “Ah, so now you claim to know who my father is?” I closed in on him, a line of blood now staining his navy shirt.
I never met my father. But apparently, my mother had a forbidden little tryst with an Elemental in her younger years.
When she fell pregnant with me, the man disappeared.
Ashamed and disgusted to raise what would be a half-breed, he left me to grow up in hell instead.
Fuck him. “Well, you can tell Daddy that I’ll find him one day.
And when I do, I’ll make him realize his mistake. ”
The man pleaded with me, not even trying to fight me anymore as his body began to quake, either from the cold or the poison, or both, I wasn’t sure. “You must listen…”
“I don’t have a do a damn thing you tell me,” I snarled. “Your kind didn’t want a half-breed, so you left me to be raised by psychopaths. So, you can all fucking burn.”
I plunged my Kinetic dagger deep into the golden-skinned Elemental’s chest. The glowing blue sigils buried beneath his flesh, and black blood seeped around the wound, soaking through his navy tee.
His eyes widened, and his mouth hung agape as he staggered backward, clutching the dagger’s hilt, before his feet finally gave way beneath him.
Dropping to his knees, he shook his head, moving his mouth soundlessly as if he had something else to say.
I gritted my teeth, having a lifetime of rage to unleash on his kind. Despite my fury, I swallowed past the guilt that threatened to halt me.
Only two other Kinetics knew the truth of my origins outside of the king and my parents, and one of them was inside the club searching for the second Elemental.
There would be severe consequences if word began to spread amongst the Kinetic population that I was half-Elemental.
I buried the panic that thrummed on the surface, determined to keep my secret safe.
I presumed my dead-beat dad had run his mouth. The thought of my biological father trying to publicly claim me for clout only pissed me off more. The piece of shit had no right.
“Come…home,” the man gurgled on the black blood that dripped down his chin.
I swallowed the knot in my throat, shaking my head to fight off the allure of potentially finding a place that could feel like home.
It’s what all the Elementals I killed lately seemed to say before they died, and knowing that I had the option of fleeing the oppressive Kinetics to live with Elementals always toyed with my hopes of freedom.
But Elementals would never accept me after all the deaths of their people at my hands.
I yanked the blade out of the man’s sternum, eliciting a garbled shout. Without giving myself the chance to second-guess myself, I slit a deep gash across his throat.
Any tiny spark of hope I had of fleeing the Kinetics died with him—as it should’ve. I was the property of King Forest.
Backing away from the corpse, I worked to shut down my conscience. I had no other choice. I wiped the blackened blood on the sides of my pants.
The excruciating pain from the brand I’d receive for the Elemental’s death would become another reminder of my darkening soul.
My heart reverberated from the beat of the bass drum inside The Phantom.
Unlike outside, the muggy air inside the concert venue suffocated me.
Sweat beaded down my temples from the tight quarters packed wall-to-wall with bodies, who moved to the soaring melody of the rhythm guitar just before the lead came in with the solo.
The music helped push the decaying Elemental from my mind.
There was a second one hiding amongst the humans somewhere, and Slate and I couldn’t leave until he was dead, too.
Decapitated Bliss was an up-and-coming emo band in the Atlanta area.
Their rising popularity landed them a gig at one of the most popular venues in the southeastern region.
It was a benchmark for bands to play here, an accomplishment that meant they were close to making it big.
It didn’t make sense to me. The Phantom was an old, abandoned factory that had been converted into a concert venue despite its compact size, rickety wood, and aluminum structure.
With three levels, the highest ticketed bands performed on the top floor, and I wondered if the volume of people would cause the floor to eventually collapse.
I met Slate’s gaze from across the unstable venue, conveying that I had the second Elemental in my sight. My cousin’s neat, side-parted cut resembled the deep hues of the smoothest river stone, even as the strobe lights from the venue flashed over him.
We worked well in tandem, only a year apart and growing up together as cousins. I considered him more of a brother, one of the rare few who knew my truth.
A shoulder shoved into me, and I met the lazy grin and droopy eyes of a drunk man who stumbled to catch his footing.
Frustration flared, reluctant to deal with the mass of humans who made this mission more difficult.
I pushed him away, recoiling from the feeling of being touched.
It made my insides squirm and nausea to churn in my stomach.
The only touch I tolerated was my sister’s.
“Sorry, asshole!” he shouted, but it was swallowed by the deafening music.
Reports of humans dropping dead within massive audiences in the greater Atlanta area in recent weeks had spiked. Seeing that none of the reports included witnessing a zombie-like Endarkened near the incident, we believed Elementals were the culprits.
According to King Forest, the long-lost Elemental prince, Griffin Silas, had apparently returned to his people, ready for vengeance, ordering depletions on humans and Kinetics.
King Forest had the Warriors out nearly every night based on information obtained by our scouts.
Rumors that a group of Elementals would be at The Phantom tonight spurred Slate’s and my presence despite it being a Thursday night and having school in the morning.
The convincing fake IDs crafted by the king’s contacts ensured we had no issue getting into the club even though we were underaged.
Slate dipped his chin in a short nod of acknowledgment before pushing off the wall and walking down the narrow hallway leading to the questionable flight of stairs.
The Elemental I’d spotted in the throbbing mass of bodies had disappeared through the hallway, which meant he could’ve gone to the bathroom or down the stairs.
Pushing through the crowd, I followed Slate, except I turned into the bathroom when he descended a level. The stench of piss and stale alcohol gagged me. I covered my nose and mouth just as a toilet flushed and a stall door opened.
A tall man in his late twenties stepped out, looking at the floor as he ruffled his short, messy hair, the fluorescent lights casting gold undertones in the brown strands.
With a specific and foreign glow about him, there was no denying that he was a considered a beautiful man.
Despite my magnetic bracelet meant to mask my ability to detect his energetic signature, I could sense he was neither Kinetic nor Elemental, and especially not human.
As if my senses weren’t at peak level already, all the fibrous hairs on my body now stood on end.
What the hell was he?
The man paused, his fingers still pushed in his hair, and angled his head to meet my gaze from beneath dark lashes. A devious grin inched up his face, which sent my senses higher on alert.
“Well,” he chuckled, his voice a deep timber. “Guess you found me,” he teased, as if we were playing a game of cat and mouse that only he was clued in on.
I snatched a Kinetic dagger from my weapon belt, the sharp angular sigils on the blade igniting blue.