First published in the USA by HarperTeen,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2013
First published in paperback in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2013
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The Elite
Copyright © 2013 by Kiera Cass
Kiera Cass asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
ISBN: 978-0-00-746670-2
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780007466733
Version: 2015-12-09
Call out the servants! The queen is awake!
(For Mom)
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
THE ANGELES AIR WAS QUIET, and for a while I lay still, listening to the sound of Maxon’s breathing. It was getting harder and harder to catch him in a truly calm and happy moment, and I soaked up the time, grateful that he seemed to be at his best when he and I were alone.
Ever since the Selection had been narrowed down to six girls, he’d been more anxious than he was when the thirty-five of us arrived in the first place. I guessed he thought he’d have more time to make his choices. And though it made me feel guilty to admit it, I knew I was the reason why he wished he did.
Prince Maxon, heir to the Illéa throne, liked me. He’d told me a week ago that if I could simply say that I cared for him the way he did for me, without anything holding me back, this whole competition would be over. And sometimes I played with the idea, wondering how it would feel to be Maxon’s alone.
But the thing was, Maxon wasn’t really mine to begin with. There were five other girls here—girls he took on dates and whispered things to—and I didn’t know what to make of that. And then there was the fact that if I accepted Maxon, it meant I had to accept a crown, a thought I tended to ignore if only because I wasn’t sure what it would mean for me.
And, of course, there was Aspen.
He wasn’t technically my boyfriend anymore—he’d broken up with me before my name was even drawn for the Selection—but when he showed up at the palace as one of the guards, all the feelings I’d been trying to let go of flooded my heart. Aspen was my first love; when I looked at him . . . I was his.
Maxon didn’t know that Aspen was in the palace, but he