Vala Eminence Read Online Free

that.”
    Cheyenne laughed some more. He wasn't used to hearing that kind of a response from anyone. Sometimes, on a rare occasion, he made an amazing wisecrack in class. The other students would laugh at those, but that was a lot different than having someone laugh at something he was trying to be serious about. Denver wasn't funny and he certainly wasn't trying to be.
    He cleared his throat. “Gonna let you go now, babe.”
    â€œOkay, I'm glad you called, even if it was just to talk.” She paused. “Especially because you just wanted to talk, actually.”
    â€œSure thing. Maybe I'll do it again sometime, maybe I won't. I figure, why not see what the whole talking thing is all about,” he said, trying to maintain his cool attitude.
    â€œAnd what's the verdict? Worth doing again?”
    â€œYou're pretty intelligent, so I don't think it'd kill me to keep trying.”
    Another chuckle. “Goodnight Denver, I…”
    â€œGoodnight,” he said quickly and hung up before she even had a chance to finish her thought. If she dropped the "L" word on him, he wasn't sure what he would do. Love was a foreign concept to him. Because of Lucien. The demon's words echoed in his mind.
    He will live like the demons, with no moral conscience. He will be like my son. And forever he shall be in debt to me, paying for the mistakes you have made. That is the curse I place upon this boy …
    No wonder Denver was so messed up. Lucien made him that way with some stupid spell he placed over Denver when he was a child. He closed his eyes. There was a great deal of information to absorb still. The whole thing was exhausting. He smiled. My father is alive.

Chapter Two

    Denver's alarm clock beeped obnoxiously on the other side of the dorm room. He lived alone in a single apartment, not by his own choosing, but not something he necessarily minded either. Most of the other students at Vala annoyed him to no end and the staff thought he was rowdy enough to keep away from a roommate. After all, Denver could corrupt even the best of teenagers into doing the worst with his amazing abilities of persuasion — another skill he learned from the master of manipulation himself. Lucien lied, but Denver did his best not to resort to such a thing. Lying was boring and cliché anyway.
    If he had been sleeping in his bedroom, he would have unplugged the alarm clock and gone back to bed. He was exhausted. Any time he took a trip down to the underworld, he felt a bit winded. Not because the journey took energy from him, but because there was such a great contrast in it. In the underworld he had an overabundance of power. Whenever he was there, he had so much juice flowing inside of him he didn't know what to do with it.
    When he came back to the bland, real world, he lost a lot of that power. He imagined it had something to do with the fact that he wasn't the official ruler of the underworld yet, and merely the heir. There was going to be much for him to learn if he was going to take back his father's kingdom from the demons. He especially needed a family history lesson so he could understand more fully how the demons were able to take over in the first place.
    Denver wanted all of his power, and to lose even just a small amount of it exhausted him. By the time he got out of his bed to walk over to the alarm clock and turn it off, he was wide awake. He looked at the time and saw that he was already late for his first period of classes. If he weren't on academic probation, he would have skipped it — again. The first class of the day was always the hardest one for him to get to. Denver and mornings didn't mix well. The threat of getting kicked out of Vala was good motivation for him to get his butt into gear, because at Vala he was protected. He didn't care about his education. Denver had already been at the school for longer than he could even remember. He only did enough to slide by and guarantee his room and