Shadow Revealed (The Enlightened Species Book Two)
Read Shadow Revealed (The Enlightened Species Book Two) Online
Authors: Wendy S. Hales
Shadow Revealed
By
Wendy
S.
Hales
The
Enlightened
Species
Book
Two
AMAZON KINDLE EDITION
PUBLISHED BY
Wendy S. Hales
Shadow Revealed © 2012 Wendy S. Hales
All rights reserved
Amazon Kindle License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, please purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an 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 the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Kelli Ann Morgan
www.inspirecreativeservices.com
Editing by Alisa Carter
The Professional Editing Edge
Formatting by
Bob Houston eBook Formatting
ISBN: 978-1476097336
Dedication
For Grandma Vera:
Grandma, you taught me so much. Held me while I cried rejoiced in my triumphs. Found me when I was lost and refused to let me deny my worth. Your belief in me helped me learn to believe in myself. Your spirit talks to me as I type this. I love you more than words can convey … and I miss you everyday.
Acknowledgments
With overwhelming gratitude to the Enlightened Species readers
Thanks to Shavaughn, Lacey, Kim and other friends who took the time to discuss every detail of Shadow Revealed.
To MDB & CFA: The pain of losing someone you love is never easy. You faced your father’s illness and death with courage and strength beyond your young years. I am so proud of you.
To my sister, Patty, who calms my storms and laughs with me in the rain. Thank you … for everything.
To my husband who smiles and nods perfectly at whatever I say.
To my parents whose pride in me is the greatest gift I could ever ask for.
Prologue
“Delivered from an Abbey this morning. A strong lass. Make me an offer!” the slave trader shouted out to the passersby. He had referred to Umbrae as a pathetic chit the few times he’d spoken directly to her.
Delivered
was a lie. He and another man had taken her and her two roommates through the window of a Catholic orphanage several days earlier. Umbrae had been sound asleep when one of the men had slipped a linen hood over her head. She could hear the other two girls struggle, followed by the distinct sound of two thuds, and the struggling had ceased. It didn’t take much of a stretch to realize that the other girls had been violently knocked out. Rather than face the same fate, she’d forced herself to remain calm. Docile.
“Pick one an’ let’s get outta here,” one of the slave traders said from across the room.
“Why not take both?” The second man was beside her.
“Too hard to carry three between the two of us, idiot. Just grab one an’ make sure she ain’t sickly.”
“I can carry two of ‘em by myself.” He lifted her off the bed and threw her over his shoulder. Umbrae bit back a grunt. “Hand me the other one now.” She’d felt a counterweight go over his other shoulder.
“Don ya cry to me when they get too heavy to run with.” The first trader warned as his voice traveled away from her. With muttered curses he climbed clumsily out the window, balancing the weight of her and her bunkmate. The night air chilled her calves as she bounced on the man’s shoulder across the yard. She knew when they entered the surrounding forest from the sound of the breeze rustling through the leaves. The direction of travel was confirmed when she heard the stream. She’d hoped to be able to find her way back to the sanctuary if she paid attention, until she heard the first man’s burden being dumped on what sounded like wooden slats. Then Umbrae hit the same wooden slats of a hand-pulled cart. Her bunkmate landed on top of her, whooshing the air from her lungs. Vomit curled in her throat, and she prayed her movements wouldn’t call the men’s attention. While they were distracted, one of the girls came around and began screaming. Thud, the screaming stopped.
The next morning the two men had unloaded the three of them from the cart and led them, still hooded and wearing only bed gowns, onto the wharf.
“Going to have to pay someone to take ya offa my hands. I told that idiot, ‘don’t snatch the sickly.’” He muttered profanities and dragged her further down the pier, where a new ship had docked. He’d sold her roommates the first day; unlike her, they’d been robust, hearty. Umbrae, however, had been sick for months before they’d taken her. The trader had given a correct reflection when he’d called her “gangly bones.” At one point, much to her mortification, he’d done a curt visual verification of her sex. “Just to make sure, she’s actually a she,” he’d muttered.
They reached the spot he’d chosen to sell her to the newcomers and batted her in the mouth. “Look alive. If I can’t sell ya or give ya away, I’m gonna weigh ya down and drown ya. So ya bes’ try not ta look so pitiful … You there, make me an offer. She’s my last sale for the day. I’ll unload her to ya cheap.”
When a man stopped, she didn’t know what he was. At that point she didn’t even know what she was. She heard him sniff, attracted to the scent of her blood, then his voice as he’d offered the trader a quarter of what the first two girls went for. She’d known somewhere deep inside that he wasn’t human.
Chapter One
Seventy-Eight Years Later
She awoke from the old haunted dream to the sound of
cachink,cachink,cachink
alerting her that Master Zakel had returned. Those first thirteen years spent in the orphanage, completely unaware that she wasn’t human, had been the only time she’d ever been free. The two girls had no doubt died of old age long ago, while she remained chained to a monster decade after decade. They were the lucky ones. Umbrae scooted into a sitting position with her back against the tree she was anchored to. Fist held tightly to her chest she tucked her knees under her chin. The lead hood he carried to control her swung in his back pocket, where he had tucked it after attaching her platinum/lead collar and chain to the tree.
Cachink.
Closer he came. How many days ago had he left her chained here this time? How powerful would his energy be when he reached her? There was no way to hide from
him
with her talent, not with her blood in his veins; still, he was always sure to hood her when they traveled.
Since the night she’d been abducted so long ago, she’s spent more time hooded in one form or another than not. She actually preferred the hood on most the time. It made it difficult to walk, but it was easier to escape into her mind and stay oblivious to the outside world.
Most of the time he killed without her present. Her smell seemed to give his victims warning … hoorah. When he did capture and kill in her presence, she was usually hooded and could pretend she didn’t know what was happening. Umbrae hadn’t killed anyone herself … yet. Every time she’d promised herself she would
never
do something, it inevitably incited a situation where she ended up having to do just that. Now she stuck to recognizing that she might not have done something yet … only yet.
Master’s Zakel’s anger reached her before he entered the grove of trees where she sat waiting.
Waiting—
like she had a choice.
“Give me your wrist,” he demanded. He dropped down beside her against the tree and waited expectantly for her to comply. Again, not like she had a choice.
Obediently she held her wrist before his mouth; heaven forbid Master Zakel would make an effort and guide her wrist to his dentes. No, he wanted to have his meal held before him in a way that would require zero effort on his part. One of many lessons she’d learned by fist decades ago.
The fact that she had not eaten or drank in nearly a week was irrelevant. If she were too weak to walk he would merely drag her behind him until he felt like stopping again. She couldn’t die unless he took the last drop of blood from her body. She could be miserable, unconscious until her bone marrow could make more blood and her body could resume functioning, but she would live. She wondered if all human/Elven hybrids lacked the ability to release their energy into the universe at will the way a full Elven could.
Maybe this time he would finish draining her. She could only hope. He drained all manner of psychic species yet continued to pack her around, his own personal blood bag, to save him from having to satisfy his blood iron needs in addition to his
other
addictions. Keeping her alive this long was a boon to the other Morsdente they’d encountered over the decades. Especially since Morsdente became Morsdente by preying on others because they were essentially too lazy to apply themselves and develop their own psychic and physical abilities.
Umbrae suppressed a wince when he struck into her wrist, giving it a vicious shake to further tear the holes and increase the flow of her blood. It would heal. It always did, eventually, unfortunately. An oily sensation coated her thoughts as he pushed into her psyche. He selfishly used her limited reserves of psychic energy to stave off some of his withdrawal symptoms.
“Zakel’s cruelty with you means that no one died by his hand this day, Umbrae.”
Umbrae clung to the reminder that had once been whispered to her telepathically. It had been a long time since she’d heard the voice of her only friend.
She willed thoughts that would hopefully repel him from her mind—the smell of animals decomposing, a favorite she rolled in when she stumbled across it; the slimy feel of seed inside her after Zakel or someone he traded her to had forced their way into her vagina, the horrors of watching him kill. Anything she could think of that would illicit disgust. She had to work at it. There was very little left in her reality that drew any emotion from her whatsoever. Once sure that her thoughts would disturb him, she sent the emotion into the black oily sludge of his psychic energy, slithering along the limited access he had to her psyche. Thankfully, he never gave her enough thought to realize he had been unable to penetrate her mental shields for decades. He thought he had access when in truth she broadcasted to him.