Gabrielle

In bestselling author Lucy Kevin's new novel, GABRIELLE, a 17 year old songwriting student at a high school for the arts, suddenly finds herself caught between a good boy, a bad boy...and an ancient legacy that comes with its very own curse. (Book 1 in the Ancient Legacy series)

Bonus material: This ebook contains 5 songs written by Gabrielle. Listen to the songs (via youtube) at [http://lucykevin.blogspot.com](http://lucykevin.blogspot.com).

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An excerpt from GABRIELLE......

You probably don't think they exist anymore. At least, not in America. But they do.

My grandmother was one. So was her mother. And when I turn 18, evidently it's my destiny to become one, too.

But last fall I hadn't heard about the curse, I hadn't met Dylan or Bradley...and I had no idea that I was about to make the most difficult choice of my life.

* Ch. 1*

I was the last one at my high school to see him.

All afternoon I'd been sitting at a piano in a tiny practice room in my school's basement, working on a song. Senior year had begun six weeks earlier and I needed to get working on the five songs that were going to be part of my application for college. With my current song as it stood, a few random-and by random, I mean bad-piano riffs and no lyrics whatsoever, I figured I had a great future going for me in data entry.

Usually, I loved those hours in the tiny composition rooms, hunkered down over a dusty piano, sweating out the notes, chasing that beautifully breathless feeling that would grip my lungs, squeeze them tight, and send my heart racing when my fingers found a great melody or I stumbled upon a great lyric. When I first started writing songs, and it was all so fresh-before I really had a clue about good or bad-there had been times when I could practically see the perfect combination of notes and beats and words line up in front of me, squeaking into my subconscious through the path of least resistance.

But today, the perfect notes and words seemed as elusive as they'd ever been.

I'd tried to start a hundred different songs over the past few weeks, but each one was more insipid than the next. The truth was, I'd made it to seventeen without ever crying into my pillow all night about a broken heart or sneaking off to throw up or cut myself like some girls in my class. In fact, the only real emotional pain that I had to mine-never knowing my father and losing my mother when I was a little girl-wasn't anything anyone would want to hear a song about.

Which was good, because I didn't ever plan on going near it.

The practice room walls felt like they were closing in on me. But I hated to give up. Maybe if I took a short break, something brilliant would come to me before I went home for dinner. Scooting off the piano bench, I locked the door, grabbed my iPod, and stuck my earphones in.

Choosing a Metallica song - my secret release - I put it on repeat and started playing. I might not have experienced monsters under my bed or any of the harsh untruths the singer was screaming about, but it was a huge rush to get to feel it vicariously.

The song took hold of me, playing me instead of me playing it, and I let loose on the piano, letting the chords crash through my fingers, up my arms. I screeched out the words in a way that would make my vocal coach weep, but I didn't care. It felt so good to give in to anger and pain, even if they were someone else's words and music, to let the raw fury in the song obliterate the empty spaces inside me. My eyes shut tight as the song played on repeat-again and again I rode the harsh wave.

And then, suddenly, I realized I wasn't alone anymore.

My hands shaking, I yanked out my earphones just in time to hear him say, "Jesus. Who the hell are you?"

No one had ever heard me completely let go like that before and I felt as if he'd seen me naked.

And then I remembered the door. I had locked it. “How did you get in?”

His mouth moved slightly, as if he would smile. But he didn’t.

“Locks are easy.”

I swallowed, realizing how small the room was. A stammered reply was on the tip of my tongue when he continued, “Those chords with that song. It shouldn’t have worked. Nothing about it should have worked. But it did.”

And then, through the crack of least resistance, it finally came. That breathless squeezing in my chest, the racing of my heart. But not from a song.

From him.

From what he’d said about me, about my playing.

Without asking my permission, he slid onto the piano bench. His thigh in his worn black jeans ended up pressing hard against my right leg.

I swore I could almost feel his heart beating through our legs.