The Blood Racer (The Blood Racer Trilogy Book 1) by Matthew Winchester Page A

shiny black leather boots. She stood, leaning a toned arm against the door jamb, and looked me over until her eyes fell on the package.
              “Ooh! I knew that old man could pull it off,” she said, holding her hand out for the box. I handed it to her and winced as she wrenched the lid open. “Yes!” she exclaimed, removing a brand new, immaculate pair of goggles from the inside.
              I could feel my jaw dropping slightly at the sight of them. They were incredible. Perfect crafting around the lenses, thick glass housing, rich, dark leather straps. The way she angled them to the light, I could tell they also had an automatic tint feature. It was very difficult to hide my jealousy.
              Grace slipped them over her head and popped them in place, rotating the edges of her lenses with her fingertips. “Oh, yeah. There’s the zoom I wanted.”
              They had a telescopic feature? Come on. Unfair.
              Grace looked around her with the goggles still over her eyes, and then finally settled on me. “Jeez, Adams. Cheer up a little.”
              Instead of replying with something snarky, I just cleared my throat. “There’s a slip…on the box, there. If you could just sign that for me…”
              Grace suddenly pulled off the goggles and narrowed her eyes at me, pulling a toothpick from her pocket and popping it into her mouth. “I know you. Don’t I? You seem really familiar to me.”
              Of course I knew why this was. Not only had I seen her on a delivery or two, but she had been there on both of my trips to Shiloh. She was five years older than I was, but she had come with her parents both times to the Wall of the Fallen, where the memory of my mother and father now rested in stone. We had even shaken hands, but I doubt she remembered that. Even then, she had acted like being stuck there was the worst kind of torture. Rather than make the conversation awkward by bringing those memories up, I just shrugged.
              “I’m in Rainier a lot,” I said. “You’ve probably seen me around.”
              She continued to stare at me, her mind working hard behind her brown eyes. I, on the other hand, could only stand there like an idiot until she signed my delivery slip. “So there’s a paper there, on the box. Could you-”             
              “You’ve met her twice,” came a voice from the hallway. From behind Grace, her father, the Archon Merrick Buchannon, stepped into view. Instantly, I straightened up a bit, trying to furtively smooth out the creases in my shirt hem.
              “Twice?” Grace asked, toying with the goggles in her hands.
              Merrick nodded, his square jaw tilting up and down. His mouth, which always seemed a little too wide to me, opened in a perfectly measured smile. “In Shiloh, after the races,” Merrick said to his daughter. “She lost her father six years ago, and her mother three years ago after the last race. We gave her our condolences.”
              He spoke so nonchalantly, bringing up the deaths of my parents just to prove a point to his dimwitted daughter. He spoke about my family and me as if I weren’t even there. I really didn’t like it, but even so, this was an Archon, and I couldn’t say an unkind word to him. Not without incurring some sort of punishment.
              I folded my hands together in front of my belt buckle. “Mr. Buchannon…It’s good to see you again,” I said, giving him my friendliest smile.
              He looked at me for a moment and then grinned, as if my effort was amusing to him. “Miss Silver, the pleasure is all mine.” He offered me his hand and I shook it briefly. “I must apologize for the mention of your