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This is only a suggested reading order because of the information provided in each volume and the ending of the series.
In the Shadows
The Land of Lost Souls
The Origin: Marya’s Journal
Hidden Passages
Soul Fire
The Ring of Betrayal
Heart of Darkness
Soul of Malice
Life after Death
Soul of Malice
Sneak peak!
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THE LIGHT DISSOLVES. Lamont is standing in the middle room of the trella, his thick chest heaving with each breath. Shoulders rising and falling. He turns to me. “I can’t believe you! I’m here because of you. My family isn’t safe with me there and now they probably aren’t safe with me here! You have no concern or empathy for anyone else but you! Always you!” he says, his voice rising with each word.
I’ve never seen him like this. Didn’t know this side of him existed. “I have family too. My mom and dad are in Thraves. They’re in as much danger as yours!” I hurl the words at him.
His fists ball and a whirl of energy smashes into my chest, lifting me off my feet and driving me backwards into the wall. My breath expels and the picture to my right crashes to the floor, shattering into tiny, sharp pieces that scratch my pants, tearing holes and poking into my legs. I’m impressed with his strength.
He marches at me, arms lifted slightly at his sides. My lungs labor for each breath and I don’t have the chance to defend myself before busy, nippy energy encapsulates me. Lamont’s hand moves from his side in front of his face and I slide upwards with it. He controls me like a puppet. “Everything is going haywire and you just keep...doing...all the...things that make it worse. Nothing you do makes it better. They’ll go after our parents. Did you even give a moment’s pause to consider that?” His brain struggles to put the words together.
My airways are breathing now. Not normal, but improved. The power behind the energy blast was incredible. I admire it. Admire his anger and blooming strength. It was always in him. “Yes,” I say in a strangled voice. “I’m leaving here...” I pause and suck in as much air as my thrashed lungs will hold. “We aren’t safe. We have to demand they give us Provence. They have no choice now.” I pause for another lungful. “Don’t you see? No one is safe, not you, not me, not our families, not even Marilisa, but we can mend the veils. We can use that.”
The angry energy surrounding my body doesn’t let up and I don’t fight it. “You don’t even hear yourself.” He shakes his head. “I thought we were friends. You have no friends. When I told you about Hackey, you shrugged it off. No big, who cares, he’s the lycan realm walker. I’m going to get him and I don’t need you!”
His words slice the sliver left of my heart. The consuming energy dissipates and I slide down the wall, landing on the same pointed fragments of the picture and my already injured tailbone. It jars, and ripples of sharp pain move up my spine and neck.
He stomps away toward his room shouting, “I’m not returning!”
The door bursts open and Marilisa's petite frame seems to tower in the doorway. Her eyes flashing pools of red heat. She doesn't wait to be invited, slamming the door behind her. The tapestries on the wall rattle and slant sideways.
Hands at her sides, her chest heaving in and out, pulsing with the rhythm of her flaming eyes. “The tree is dying, veils are ripping, wolves are invading Drakonia, tensions are rising and the lycans are holding Hackey.” She thrusts an arm with a pointed finger in the direction of Canida. “And the two of you are—” Her soliloquy stops cold as she studies my precarious position on the floor and Lamont’s scowl. He looks like fire might explode from his mouth at any moment, bringing the entire trella to a pile of singed dust.
“I’m going to get Hackey. You coming?” he asks her.
“Absolutely!”
My lungs are breathing normally now and I pull myself up. “Not alone,” I say.
Both glare at me. I’m really glad neither breathes fire. Lamont walks past me, ignoring my presence, and opens the door. The sarcanthum flowers shine bright and solaflies blink in and out of the flora.
We blink through teal portals into the center of the legal capitol of Canida. It’s not like Johnston’s Pass with cozy wood structures and a view of Sier’s highlands. Wide steps made for large lycan feet ascend to tall brick buildings reaching into the sky. Lights brighten the streets, and the prairies Canida is famous for don’t exist in the metropolis.
I contact the lawyer through our comicay. His response is quick. I’m on it. Paperwork is done and they’re bringing him out now. Don’t do anything hotheaded. His head voice is calm and all business.
I can’t promise the boiling cauldrons with me won’t try something stupid but I’m gentle as a Navarin seabreeze, mostly because every part of my body, including parts I wasn’t aware of, ache and burn. In the past week I’ve been inhabited by a wraith and icy magic from the scythe, beaten, battered, and bruised.
The lawyer’s voice speaks in my head. This time it’s not settled but shaken and almost condemning. They’re accusing him of murdering three lycans. The three you tried to kill in Provence, but there’s no bodies.
This stabs me straight in the heart. I’ve hated on Marilisa, Hackey, and Shiane for their betrayal yet skulked in my room instead of enacting my vengeance. Someone else has stolen that glory and satisfaction of watching them squirm and beg as they die an agonizing death.
Marilisa taps a foot, arms folded across her chest, lips drawn so taut small lines cut into them. “What did he say?”
“That he’s got it under control and not to do anything hot-headed.”
Lamont lets out: “Pfff...you not do anything hot-headed.” He shakes his head and paces, walking past Marilisa then back.
Seconds stretch into centuries as we wait at the legal square. Marilisa’s foot tapping like a drumstick, back to me, and Lamont paces six large steps forward, turns on his heel and six steps back. Lycan lawyers scuttle past us and I count the number of pedestrians.
Marilisa’s hair reflects silver from the light of the moon, with shimmers of pink and blue from the stars blinking in the darkness. I shift my gaze to the steps and will my mind not to watch them.
Several more minutes pass and I see Hackey and the lawyer descending the steps. My aching body and the palpable tension, I’m overjoyed when they approach. The hybrid lawyer wears a dark suit, his shoes shiny as the stars. White light reflects from them with each step.
Lamont stops his pacing but Marilisa’s foot continues to pummel the ground beneath it. “He can go home for now but is expected in court on Day 1.” In Lols that would be a Monday. “The lack of bodies won’t keep him safe in the current political climate. I need evidence.”
“I know people in Thraves,” I say.
Hackey doesn’t say a word until after the lawyer leaves. Lamont and Marilisa smother him with conversation and she wraps her arms in a hug around him. A twinge of emotion pings in my dead heart. I lost Ryel and have been to the Otherworld and back, my body thrashed, and I got anger not hugs. Jealousy. The annoying pang is jealousy.
I wait, contacting my connections at CIU. I know the purebloods won’t lift a finger to help him but the few hybrids will.
Hackey steps beside me and leans to my ear. “You’ll find what you want beneath Provence. There are tunnels.”
My brows lower in surprise. “You—”
He cuts me off quick, holding up his hands. Silver bands wrap his wrists. “I can’t leave Canida and they took my comicay.” I don’t think the silver will hold him.
Shock and disbelief tremor inside me and settle comfortably into respect. He didn’t kill them, but put them somewhere no one but a realm walker can find them. It’s clever and devious, but the comicays will be a problem. I don’t know how long we have before they find the chip. Our communication is compromised.