CRAZY PHONE CALL-a book excerpt Betrayed

I feel terribly guilty for not keeping my promise to write scenes in Bran’s POV.  I will...promise. What's my excuse?

I had to finish HUNTED pronto That's the next book in the GL series. It is DONE! Woohoo. Bloggers interested in joining my street teams, shoot me an e-mail and I'll direct you to team leaders. Some already have blogs

dedicated to the Fire/Energy Guardians, Water Guardians and Air Guardians, but some of them need more members, so come on, ladies. The Guardians need you.

Anyhew, here's a scene (unedited) from BETRAYED.

From the jeep, I could see students pouring into the entrance hall of Cache High School. Some sauntered out through double doors and headed toward the parking lot. Two girls walked past me, turned and flashed smiles.

Before Lil, I would have welcomed their interest. Now? I didn't care. I was a one woman man. Never knew I'd ever say that. Nothing made my heart beat faster than a pair of soft green eyes that twinkled with merriment one second and flashed with heat the next, and gorgeous, curly red hair that defied description.

Where was she? Usually she’d out by now, especially when we had a lunch date.

I pocketed my keys and started for the school entrance. I couldn’t explain the feeling of impending doom. The closer I got to the building, the stronger it grew. Something was wrong.

My heart started to race and it hurt to breathe. I pressed a hand against my chest even though I knew the pain wasn’t mine.  Lil was hurting and scared.

The bastard responsible had better run or he'd wish he'd never been born by the time I was through with him. Student or teacher, Cardinal Guardian or Civilian, it didn't matter. They caused her any pain, they answered to me.

I tried to ping her, but she either had her shield up or something was blocking my signal. She had no reason to have her shield up when among humans, which left the latter, a bad sign in my book. .

I pinged Remy. What’s wrong with Lil?

Valafar. She’s talking to him now.

The bastard. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

I took off at a run. Students saw me coming and jumped out of the way. Maybe they weren’t used to men dressed in all black, leather duster flying behind them, racing through their doors or maybe my expression said it all--move or get mowed down .

 The school’s police officer spotted me right away when I entered the hall. How many times had I compelled him? Every time I came to pick up Lil, he always zeroed in on me like a heat-seeking missile.

I’m a new student, ignore me, I projected into his head and walked right past him without being stopped. Lil and I shared a special bond, which directed me to her now. Down a hallway then another.

“Watch it, dude,” a jock snapped when I brushed past him. He turned, took one look at me and raised his hands. "My bad."

Another corner and I spotted Sykes, Remy, Izzy and Kim. Lil wasn’t with them. Panic slammed into me. “Where's she?”

“In here,” Izzy said pointing at a closed door.

I started forward, but Remy grabbed my arm. “She’ll be fine.”

“She needs me.”

Sykes moved and stood beside Remy, neatly boxing me in. “If she needed you, she would have pinged you.”

My gaze swung between the two Cardinals. I could easily take them down, but Lil wouldn’t approve. I exhaled. “She would have if he wasn’t busy threatening her.”

“You don't know that," Izzy said. "He sounded desperate."

"He played you," I retorted.

"Lil insisted on talking to him and slammed the door on our faces,,” Kim snapped, "so let her deal with him, Bran. She can, you know. Lil might look delicate and helpless, but she is really strong.”

“I know that,” I ground out.

“Then stop babying her,” Izzy added.

“I’m not babying her. I'm trying to protect her. You don’t know how manipulative Valafar is. He’s going mess with her head and—”

The door open and she stood there, looking so beautiful and vulnerable. The pain in her eyes made me want to punch something. Before I could move, she shook her head, stepped back and closed the door.

I ran toward the door, but her energy disappeared as she teleported. “Great! She’s gone.”

“It's not our fault,” Izzy protested.

“She probably heard us discuss her.” The last thing I saw was the faces of the four Guardians staring at me as though I’d gone crazy. I’d completed forgotten about the humans . They were not supposed to see us use our powers or teleport.

Lil was curled up on the bed in a fetal position when I appeared in her bedroom, a pillow covering her head. I lay down behind her, wrapped an arm around her and covered her hand with mine. She stiffened, but she didn't push me away. No matter how angry she was, she'd never push me away. Wishing I could take away her pain, I just held her until she relaxed against me, opened her hand and interlockedour fingers.

“Lunch period will be over soon,” I said. “Are you going—?”

“I’m never going back.” She burrowed deep under the pillow.

“Your grandfather—”

“Will understand,” she finished.

I didn’t know what to say or do to make her feel better. “Talk to me, Sunshine.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I mumbled.

Beautiful and stubborn, and I couldn't have her any other way. I slipped my head under the pillow and whispered, “You know you’ll tell me eventually. We don’t keep secrets from each other.”