Forbidden, Tempted Series (Book 1)

Flint DeLuca is sick and tired of moving. Her and her dad have moved three times in the past year. But that’s the life of a carnie. Even an ex-carnie like her. Her father swears this is the last move. All Flint wants now is to graduate from High School and put the carnival life behind her. Unfortunately, one of the two ain’t gonna happen. So now not only is she back in the life she can never seem to get away from, she’s also met this guy who pushes all her “I totally hate you” buttons.

Cain. No last name. Wears shades in school. Dresses entirely in black. And only speaks to her when he’s insulting her. She hates him. Hates him. And yet... there’s something about the Goth boy that draws her like a moth to flame. God, she can’t wait to graduate and get away from Whispering Bluff, only problem is she’s pretty sure her high school is infected by vampires. Cain might be one of them. And for some reason, she seems to be on their menu.

Sometimes High School really sucks...

Forbidden

Cover Art by Damonza

Formatted by D2D

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T
his is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Selene Charles, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in the context of reviews.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of all people involved with the creation of this ebook.

Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Selene Charles.

Unauthorized or restricted use in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patent Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2014 by Selene Charles, Hawaii, United States of America

––––––––

W
hen a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another.

My mom told me that a long time ago.

I laughed. How could a butterfly possibly do such a thing?

She held my face and stared deep into my eyes...

“Because, Flint,” she said, “sometimes in life we do things. Things that don’t seem to matter at the time. But in truth, it’s just the beginning of the ripple effect.”

I wonder if she knew?

If she knew and was warning me? Because, looking back, it all started the next day.

The day she died.

~Flint DeLuca’s journal

Chapter 1

“T
his is it.”

Flint stared into her father’s excited brown eyes as he slapped the folded newspaper down on the kitchen table, sending her spoon sailing through the air to land with a plink on the cheap linoleum tile.

Now, instead of eating a bowl of cornflakes, she was wearing the bowl of cornflakes.

Hissing, she reached across the narrow kitchen and snatched the faded blue dishrag off the sink to swipe at her
I love sparkly boys
shirt. She sighed, biting back an aggravated remark.

Like the fact that she’d had to babysit the Smith’s five-year-old twins two nights in a row just to afford it. “Dad,” she groaned.

He ran blunt fingers through his spiky hair. “Sorry, baby, sorry. But look.” He tapped the newspaper.

She smelled like milk. She couldn’t go to school smelling like this. First day of her senior year, just freaking awesome. Now what was she gonna wear?

Tossing the rag away, she glanced at the highlighted article. He’d circled it in red, as if she couldn’t have pieced together which article had made him this excited. Dad only loved three things in the world.

Mom. Her. And the circus. Especially a circus in need of fliers. Or trapeze artists as most non-carney folks called them.

She sighed. “I thought you said no more of this, Dad. After Mom—”

He clenched his jaw, ten days’ worth of stubble looking gray in the dimly lit galley kitchen. “I need to work, Flint. That’s what I know, that’s what I can do.”

It wasn’t easy for either of them. Mom’s accident. It’d happened a year ago, and Flint had finally stopped having the recurring nightmare of watching her mom plummet to her death from the fifty-foot-high tightrope. She missed her mom, but it was no longer the jagged ache it once was. More like a dull throb that twinged on rainy days.

And it rained most days.

But it was different for her dad. She didn’t think he’d ever get over it.

He’d started drinking again. He tried to hide it. She was pretty sure he didn’t want her to know he’d fallen off the wagon, but it was obvious when she’d come home and find him passed out on their ratty sofa, TV on and breath reeking of scotch.

He shifted on the balls of his bare feet, excitement coming off him in waves. She hadn’t seen him this happy in forever. The day they’d buried Mom, it was like a part of him had died.

She nibbled on her lower lip. “Did you call them?”

He nodded, grin cutting a huge path across his face. “Yup. Told them I was a catcher for fifteen years and mentioned that you were a pretty good flier yourself, but an even better tightrope walker.”

“No.” Flint jerked out of her seat and set her empty bowl in the sink. “I told you I won’t do it again.”

His eyes lost some of their luster.

She patted his upper arm, immediately regretting snapping at him. Being around Dad lately was a lot like being around a tomcat that’d been declawed, just a shell of his former self. “Daddy, you don’t need me there. I don’t have the same passion for that as you or Mom did.”

Such a lie. But the truth would devastate him.

He nodded, already distracted, likely itching to get things started. “Circuses always need catchers, right?”

“Yeah, Dad. I gotta go change my shirt.” She frowned down at the offending pale stain circling Edward’s name.

“What time does school start?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Better hurry then.” He reached into the fridge and grabbed a carton of eggs.

Flint turned on her heel, then stopped. “Dad?”

“Hmm?” He cracked two eggs into a sizzling skillet.

“Wait for me after school. I’ll go with you, ’kay?”

He smiled and she rushed off. Stupid milk stain, now she’d have to wear that hideous Tinker Bell shirt Nana had given her last Christmas. Which wouldn’t be so bad except that her grandmother had forgotten Flint had boobs now, and Tinker just so happened to be touching her wand to the tip of Flint’s right boob—a kaleidoscope of colors shooting like a firework out of the wand. Might as well just wear a sign that read “I’ve got boobs, feel free to look.”

Groan
.

~*~

W
hispering Bluff, home to the Tennessee State Conference finals football team, the Woodchucks.

Intimidating.

Flint hiked her book bag up on her shoulder, shuffling through the dense crowd of kids high-fiving and giving hugs. They all knew each other. She wished she knew just one person. Why did going to a new school always make her feel like she’d suddenly sprouted a third eye in the center of her head?

Cheerleader types were dancing in the halls, clapping and doing some sort of silly routine while conspicuously tossing flirty glances at the football jocks walking around in their letterman jackets.

Boys were leaning against lockers, sizing up the girls like they were some sort of lunch special. Someone catcalled, “Heya, red, what’s your name?”

Blushing hard, she shoved past a group of kids blocking her path.

“Hey!” a girl yelled.

“Sorry,” she muttered and pressed on.

When Dad had moved them—third time in a year—to Whispering Bluff, she’d been
so
not happy.

Wasn’t fair to go from LA to here—Nowheresville, Tennessee. She’d never even heard of Whispering Bluff until his finger had randomly pointed to it on his map.

The map. The equivalent of a Ouija board for him. Whenever he’d get that tingle that he’d stuck around long enough—really, whenever he’d start to feel the ghost of her mother resurface—he’d run far, far away. As if moving really helped... but whatever. Anyway, out would come the map. A finger-point later and they’d move on. He’d always been the restless type, which was why circus life had been perfect for him.

He was a true nomad in every sense of the word.

Dad was a big believer in karma and serendipity. A total hippie and prone to go whichever way the breeze took him. Which was usually no place cool, interesting, or remotely exciting.

Until LA. That place had been alive, and for the first time since Mom’s death, Flint had been able to breathe and laugh again. Felt like her life was finally starting to move forward.

Whispering Bluff felt a lot like ten giant steps back, and try as she might to be nice to her dad, Flint also was pissed. Pissed that she wasn’t yet eighteen, pissed she was stuck, moving from one crappy place to the next, pissed that no matter how hard she tried to get away from her past life, things always just seemed to circle right back around to the circus. It wasn’t Dad’s fault, but it wasn’t her fault either for feeling like she did.

Flint glanced at her sheet of paper. She had chemistry first period but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t like the school was huge, nothing like LA, but there were a lot of hallways. Like an obscene amount of them.

She’d already had to backtrack twice.

“I’m pretty sure you passed me a minute ago.”

“Huh?” She frowned, glancing up and smiling into a pair of warm brown eyes.

Skinny, with a smooth face and wavy brown hair, he seemed nice and friendly. “Hi.” He stuck out his hand. “My name’s Abel. What’s yours?”

“Flint DeLuca,” she said, shaking his hand, shivering at the touch of his cold fingers.

Lifting his brows, he glanced at the class schedule she held tight in her hand.

“You’re a senior? And new, right? Either that or you’re really into power walking.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You know you did a total loop, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah.” Heat rose in her cheeks. “Why are the halls so long? I’m trying to find room 201, but I get to 200 and then the next one is 202?”

He laughed. It was a nice sound. Open and friendly, and the butterflies dancing in her gut eased off a bit.

“It’s because the teacher’s union was smoking crack when they designed this place. You’re actually supposed to be two hallways down. I can walk you, if you’d like?”

“That’d be awesome.”

The first bell rang and someone jostled into Flint’s back, pushing her into Abel. He gripped her by the shoulders. She turned to look at who it was and saw that it was a slim girl with short black hair.

The girl glanced at her with thickly bloodshot eyes before quickly turning around and disappearing back inside the crowd.

“What the eff?” She huffed at the girl. “Rude much?”

“C’mon.” Abel took her by the elbow. “Before we get run down in this stampede.”

Flint stuffed her schedule into her back pocket, turning to glare one last time at the girl who’d long since vanished.

“What grade are you in?” she asked a second later.

“Junior. My brother’s a senior too, even has your class. I saw his schedule this morning. This should be so much fun.”