Shadow Revealed (The Enlightened Species Book Two) (8 page)

He understood Osiris’s anger at him; he’d kept his slave secret from his old friend. When he’d originally purchased her on the wharf, he had intended to give her to Osiris as a gift, but when he discovered she was iron-rich, he decided to keep her for a while. She saved him the effort of acquiring human blood, which allowed him to focus on what really mattered, his psychic highs. When he’d realized her ability to shadow, he knew the value she would be to Osiris. His intent had been to mentor the little bitch before presenting her to Osiris for a price. Between hunting victims, the subsequent highs that followed, and the inevitable detox after, he’d never felt the motivation with the whore. When he finally did, those SOSC bastards took her before he could collect; his deal with Osiris had been sweet too.

When Osiris had appeared, he figured it was the end until the male had handed him a young Tellus. He’d watched while Zakel drained it, strengthening, reeling in the psychic tingle of the infusion from his victim.

“Are you strong enough to port, my friend?” Osiris had asked him. His first inclination was to lie and tell Osiris he needed one more. He thought better of it, remembering Osiris’s anger at finding out Zakel had been keeping the female from him for decades. It had taken him a week to heal, even with additional victims, then years to overcome the headaches. Luckily the SOSC had raided the house were Osiris had taken him after he’d lost the female, saving him from a worse fate. That in mind, he nodded instead, and Osiris snapped his fingers. One of Osiris’s Elven guards stepped from the trees, pulling another young Tellus, tossing it to Zakel before returning to the tree line. Zakel’s skin tingled with the question of how many of Osiris’s people might be in the trees. The worry vanished when his dentes hit the vein and psyche of the second helping. He savored his second victim the way he’d been unable to with the first.

“Rumor has it the SOSC is planning an event to celebrate all the females they have rescued in the last few years. Your former blood slave is amongst them,” Osiris began. That got Zakel’s full attention. “I want her. I also want this female.” He held up a picture of a female with long blond hair and green eyes. The female was laughing into the camera. The background showed rows of seats filled with smiling people of all species in human disguise. The female was wearing a wedding gown.

Osiris continued, “Her name is Jess Einar.” Zakel couldn’t help growling at the name. “Yes. Her mate is related to Irsu Einar, the very female who led the unit that captured your slave.”

Zakel tossed the second drained body next to the first; keeping his eye on Osiris, he watched out of the corner of his eye as the bodies were dragged away for disposal. “Where?” The word left his lips on a growl.

“The event would be too risky. I’ve learned that the two females will be uniting prior to the event. You will only get one chance to capture them. They will be staying together in this home prior to the event.” Osiris handed him an aerial photograph with a close up inlay. The aerial was a desert setting. The inlay’s close-up showed a modern-built, two-story home. No doubt it had additional levels built below ground. To a human, it would probably look welcoming; to Zakel it looked like a fortress.

Osiris handed him one more photograph of a rocky bluff, with the house visible in the distance. “That bluff is where you can lie in wait for an opportunity to acquire the females. When you have them, call me.” He handed over a disposable cell phone. “My number is programmed.”

“What do I get in return?” It must have been the high giving him the courage to ask. “The additional female should increase the return.”

Osiris gave him a slow deliberate smile. “I will make you a king. You will be given a blood and breeding site, fully protected and staffed. I will ask for one tenth of the offspring produced.”

A victim farm? Where he would be protected to raise victims from birth? That had been Zakel’s dream for centuries. How had Osiris known? “Agreed,” he stuttered, the pictures trembling in his hands.

Osiris handed him a map of the state of Arizona, an X over the Mesa area. The final piece Zakel needed for a geographical port. “Agreed.” He vanished, leaving Zakel high and motivated.

Osiris had failed to mention the SOSC facility that lay behind the house. At first he thought that perhaps Osiris was unaware of the additional risk, but Osiris must have known. That was the only explanation for the generous offer he’d given Zakel. He’d offered the one thing he knew Zakel wanted most in the world, well aware that Zakel would be unable to walk away.

The chortal opening located inside the weave gave off a pulse of energy, announcing an arrival. A female with dark hair and a Tellus male stepped into the Arizona heat, shucking off coats. He studied the two. The male he’d never seen before. The female was familiar, so he focused on her. She had short dark hair that shined in the Arizona sun, a decent body, though a little too skinny for his taste, medium height with small breasts and narrow hips. She squinted up at the sun and said something to the male. A flash of gray reflected from her eyes. Zakel felt his heart pound with recognition. Kurva.

There was no way for him to port into the facility—the weave guarded against that—but could he fly or run in? Could he reach her before the alert brought reinforcement? No way, the location of the chortal was just deep enough that he would never make it. It had been designed that way on purpose. He tried to call to her using the old bond one more time.

“You will return to me.”
He tried to push into her mind, feeling the barriers he’d become familiar with slam, and smiled when he watched her cautiously glance around. She wasn’t fully immune to his bond after all. His smile fell when he watched a female he recognized instantly stride up. His desire for revenge against Irsu bordered on obsession—she was the reason he had suffered these five years. He wanted to drain her and torture her captive consciousness for decades within him. He’d vowed to himself to make her his first warrior high. Perhaps the psychic high of a warrior would surpass the one he’d had from Etana. She’d been another gift from Osiris; though he no longer felt drugged from her psychic energy, he could still feel her within, three centuries later. How long would Irsu last? His mouth watered for the taste.

The three spoke briefly and then stepped back into the chortal, headed to places he could not follow. He leaned back into the rock, calling on patience to calm his rush of anger at their departure. They would return. Osiris was never wrong.

****

“You will return to me.”
It had been so long since Zakel had pushed against her mind that Umbrae hadn’t realized how lax she’d become in guarding against him. He was close, very close. That thought didn’t terrify her; if anything she felt anticipation. Irsu had never explained why the warriors didn’t kill him the day they rescued her. She’d punched a wall when she’d told Umbrae he’d escaped. Not wanting to incite her friend further, she’d never pushed for more information.

She saw Irsu walking from the direction of a house. Her friend’s lack of smile and intensity was telling. “Zakel is near.” She spoke before her friend had the chance.

Irsu gave her a subtle nod. “We have been observing him since he arrived in Mesa a few days ago. Someone tipped him off to your arrival. He sits in the bluff behind me just outside the weave.”

“Watching for me?” Umbrae verified.

“We believe so.” Irsu confirmed. “He is watching us now.”

Umbrae noticed Hans tense beside her. They’d each been given bios on each other before they were partnered together. Hans had never asked her a single question or mentioned what he’d read in hers, a courtesy she had returned. His reaction verified he knew of her blood slave past.

“Tell me the Survivors Ball invitation was your way of bringing me in on this hunt.” The rage creeping up on her made her voice lower.

“Oh, the invitation is real, and you are going to the ball.” Irsu’s eyes never wavered. “That was in the works long before Zakel reared his evil head. The Oracles declared you a member of the hunting party this morning. You will get to face him, and if I have my way, you will get to kill him.”

“The Oracles?” Umbrae had met a few. They were mysterious by calling. The idea of Oracle influence gave her more pause then Zakel. “Why?”

Irsu grinned for the first time. “Why do they do anything? We’re needed in Greenland; there are others who will be joining in.”

Enlil
. The name floated through her mind, and her stomach clenched at the thought. It had to be him. So often she’d wanted to seek him out and tell him of Etana, especially when she started hearing his name whispered amongst the warriors at the end of her training. She’d never found the courage, nor did she ask anyone about him. Enlil was the love of Umbrae’s life, though she had yet to meet him. Until Hans, she hadn’t made any close ties outside of Irsu and Abby. Unlike the warriors she sometimes trained beside, she knew she would rarely work in units the way they did.

She was an assassin. Her ability to shadow and shield was from a bloodline that the Volaticus believed died out thousands of years before her birth. They didn’t even have anyone that could mentor her. Her specialized training had been turned over to the Aquaties. Greyton led the few assassins that species still claimed. Umbrae was secretly thankful her mentor was Aquatie. It meant she didn’t have to create a blood bond to him. When she’d been partnered with Hans, whose job was to have her back and be her eyes when she went in, she had breathed another sigh of relief. Again, no blood bond had been required with the Tellus male.

Umbrae had been afraid to meet Enlil then, and she still was. She loved him. At least she felt like she did. She often wondered if her feelings were an echo of those of Etana, the one person she loved most in the universe. She had never told a soul about Etana; it would have felt like a betrayal to Etana’s gifted memories to tell them to anyone but Enlil. Her stomach fluttered again. What if he guessed her feeling for him once he saw her? Would he view her as a pathetic chit?

“Brae.” Irsu snapped her out of her thoughts. “Come on, girl, we gotta go.” Umbrae swallowed hard and followed Hans and Irsu into the chortal.

Chapter Eight

Enlil arrived in Disko Island, Greenland, right in the heart of the Volaticus, High Ones, and Oracles Nest located on the Southwest Coast. The main part of the nest resembled a college campus built on stilts. Enlil himself had warrior-trained here as a youth. Back then there were only a few communities of higher-level training. Most training was still passed down generation to generation. He made sure to place his port at the edge of one of the hot springs that peppered the entire island, directly below his destination. He’d always loved the hot springs. In his youth he and his friends had once puddle-jumped from spring to spring. They had found nine thousand springs on the island.

From where he stood, he could look directly at the living quarters that followed the historic building style of the Volaticus. This nest was established at the same time as the fallen nest in Atlantis. The dorm-like apartments were still built in the traditional manner, with hive-shaped structures supported hundreds of feet in the air, forever balanced upon thick, solid-crystal spires anchored thousands of feet below the earth’s surface. Set at different heights from a few stories to a hundred feet, all but one of the elevated structures in this portion of the nest were communal dwellings. The larger the structure, the more apartments it housed. The entrances were located all around the outside of the structures, bottom, sides, and top, and each external opening had a landing perch.

He knew from his time living here that the massive dwellings had communal hallways. The structures would generally house persons within an interest group, often within the same bloodlines. One structure might house warriors. Mentors and protégés were almost always housed in the same structure. The internal hallways allowed them to visit their neighbors without having to exit and fly around the outside. Sometimes in heavy storms, flight could be difficult, and even dangerous to the youth. They could port to the cafeteria, since it had a designated port spot that was to remain clear at all times. No one ever ported into another’s personal dwelling unannounced. You never knew what you would encounter; it was also considered extremely rude.

Nestled among the living quarters directly above where Enlil stood was the highest and smallest structure. Within its walls were two chambers, a small one used for Oracle gatherings and small conferences, and a larger one used for judgments, issuing punishments, and launching complaints. If you ever had the unfortunate occasion to appear before the High Ones panel, that is the chamber you would be forced to appear at. Sitting high above the other structures, it seemed to reign over this nest, symbolic of the High Ones reign over the Volaticus people.

Since rogues of every species could jeopardize the unity of the SOSC, the council had been charged with handling them and the societies they were prone to make in rebellion to the Symbiotic lifestyle now encouraged for all the species. That transition of enforcement had only been the norm in the last few centuries, after the SOSC was fully established. However, the handling of Elven Morsdentes, as well as any disciplinary action against the Volaticus species directly, still fell squarely at the feet of the High Ones. Now that the High Ones were utilizing the SOSC forces more often to hunt the beasts, it was only a matter of time before the High Ones were obsolete in that arena too.

Releasing his wings, Enlil flew up to the perch point at the entrance of that very chamber, impatiently waiting for Sargon and Ninlil to join him, and thinking back to the last time he had been here.

****

From the entry of the manor, he stood watching the festivities. Enlil could hear the lively music preferred by the commoners across the fields. The booths in between the castle and the fields displayed handmade fabrics, gems, foods, and fresh breads. Pails overflowed with apples, peaches, even potatoes. It had been a great harvest, and the harvest festival reflected that.