Darkness Shatters: Book 5 (Sensor Series)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
About Susan Illene
Acknowledgments
Darkness
Shatters
by Susan Illene
Darkness Shatters
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Illene
All right reserved.
This book, whole or in part, may not be copied, scanned, or reproduced by electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying or the implementation of any type of storage or retrieval system) without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. Please do not participate or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials. Purchase only authorized editions.
www.darknesshaunts.com
Images obtained for the creation of this novel’s cover were licensed for use from depositphotos.com and Teresa Yeh photography. Design by Claudia McKinney at Phat Puppy Art.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events portrayed within its pages are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not meant to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, undead, or mostly dead is purely coincidental.
Sensor Series Reading Order:
Darkness Haunts
Darkness Taunts
Chained by Darkness (novella)
Tempting the Moon (short story)
Darkness Divides
Playing with Darkness (novella)
Darkness Clashes
Darkness Shatters
*Facing the Darkness (story 4.5) is also available on all major retailers in the “A Very Paranormal Holiday” anthology.
Chapter One
There was no price I wouldn’t have paid for one night of peace and quiet, but unfortunately even the brief illusion of peace couldn’t be bought. Not by me, anyway. It was a squeaking noise that woke me.
Coming from inside my house.
I cracked my eyes open and ran my gaze about the dark bedroom, searching for the source. Nothing stirred. My hand crept over to the other side of the bed and found cold, empty sheets. Lucas hadn’t returned during the night. Not that I’d expected him to since he’d called the previous evening to say he’d arrived in Portland—still searching for his missing twin brother.
Faint giggling floated down the hallway, coming from another bedroom. I sent my senses out. Emily’s boyfriend, Hunter, had snuck in sometime after I’d gone to sleep. He was over at the house often enough that I’d almost forgotten he shouldn’t have been there. Emily came up on my radar as warm and familiar, whereas his presence sent light claws raking against my mind.
Damn teenagers.
I shoved my warm blankets away and got up. It was time to do my duty as a parent and put a stop to this. Padding across the room, I grabbed a robe and pulled it on. No need to give Hunter, an eighteen-year-old werewolf, an eyeful since I only slept in a skimpy tank top and underwear.
The wood floor didn’t creak as I crept down the hallway, but that wasn’t my real concern. Emily was a sensor, like me. If she was paying attention she’d know I was coming toward her room, but the emotions I picked up from her revealed no panic. Instead, all I sensed was lust and excitement. Those sort of feelings could distract our kind from picking up any trouble coming our way.
The door wasn’t locked. I pushed it wide open and got an eyeful of the teenagers in bed. Hunter didn’t have his shirt on and Emily’s was pulled up to her neck. His body blocked my view of her chest.
“Hunter, get off of her right now.”
Their heads swung in my direction. Emily’s face was flushed and her shoulder-length brown hair was tousled. She shoved Hunter to the side and pulled the blanket over herself. I caught just enough before that to be sure they hadn’t gone all the way. Both of them still had their pants on. I could give small thanks for that.
“But we weren’t doing anything wrong,” Emily argued. “Just kissing.”
Like it wouldn’t have gone further.
“On a Sunday night when you have to be up for school in a few hours? He’s leaving.”
“It snowing outside.” She pulled the blanket tightly against her chest and scooted up. “You can’t make him leave now.”
Hunter sat next to her on the bed and stared at me with frozen horror. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and there was a bit of dark scruff on his face. Emily might not care about getting caught, but he did. The dread in his brown eyes said it all.
“Not my problem. He has to go.”
I moved toward the bed, grabbed his arm, and hauled him onto the floor. He had to weigh about a hundred and eighty with all the muscle on him, but it didn’t bother me since I’d become immortal and increased my strength. I did make a point of not looking at his pale, naked chest too closely. It was awkward enough that I’d walked in on them making out.
Emily grabbed her phone off the nightstand and pressed her finger to the screen. She lifted it up for me to see. “It’s like, negative forty degrees outside. Let him stay until morning.”
I moved to the window and peered out. It was dark, but the porch light lit up the yard. Only my Jeep sat in the driveway with a thin layer of snow covering it. No other cars were out there, but there was a faint hint of recent tracks leading to the side of the house.
“He should have thought of that before coming here. He’s a werewolf. I’m sure he’ll survive getting home.”
We might live out in the bush of Alaska where houses were few and far between, but there were only so many places to leave a car in January with all the snow that had accumulated over the last few months. I was willing to bet he’d parked it around the side of the house where he could plug the vehicle into an electrical outlet to keep it warm. That’s where it was the last time I’d caught him in Emily’s room. With winter set in the temperatures were too low to risk a cold start. It could ruin the engine.
“Fine.” She shot me an annoyed look before hopping out of bed to give Hunter a quick kiss, blanket still wrapped around her. “Just come by tomorrow night.”
He gave her a rueful smile.
“You know the rules, Emily.” I pointed a finger at her. “You two got caught in the act and can’t visit each other for a week.”
There was nothing I could do about school, but since they tried to spend every possible moment with each o
ther I could take nights and weekends away.
“That’s such bullshit.” She plopped herself onto the bed.
Sometimes I missed the old Emily, who was sweet and didn’t argue with me so much. She’d been an easy teenager to take care of until she’d gotten a head injury the previous spring and her personality had altered drastically. Now we fought more than we got along.
“Sorry, Melena,” Hunter said as he pulled on his sweater.
“You need to stop letting her talk you into this…” I stopped.
A scratching noise came from downstairs. Sable had just come through the cat door and was making her way toward us at a fast pace. She skidded to a halt at my feet, currently in the form of a reddish-brown lynx with black markings, and growled at me. Then she sunk her teeth into my robe and tugged until I almost fell over. It was the sign she’d been taught to give me in case there was an emergency and I needed to follow her somewhere. Probably into the woods since that’s where she typically roamed and there wasn’t much else this far outside Fairbanks.
“Is it really that important?” I asked her.
She ran to the doorway and then looked back. I could sense the urgency in her emotions. She was definitely upset about something and wanted me to see it. Whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have to check it out.
“Finish getting dressed and meet me at the front door,” I ordered Hunter.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I rushed to my room to get dressed with Sable following at my heels. Considering Emily’s warning about the temperature outside, I put on several layers of clothes. My body could handle it no matter how cold it got, but that didn’t mean I didn’t suffer discomfort. Especially when it got well below freezing.
“Are we going far?” I asked Sable, debating which boots and jacket to wear.
She could understand me, but she couldn’t answer back. Instead, she sat down. That was her way of answering yes. Her fae trainer had taught her many things including basic forms of communication, fighting, and hunting. I still hadn’t read the entire manual that came with her since it was written a lot like Apple’s incomprehensible terms of service, but I caught all the highlights.
“What did you find?” I slipped on a pair of heavy boots.
She flattened her ears. All that meant was that it was important that I go see for myself. Ah well. I hadn’t really expected specific details from her. The feline shape-shifter could only tell me so much.
I grabbed a heavy jacket and headed for the stairs. Hunter came out of Emily’s room at the same time. It hit me then that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take him along. If Sable was this insistent on me going, it could be something dangerous. It couldn’t hurt to take some backup and I might as well have someone else out there freezing with me. Aside from Kerbasi, who wouldn’t be much help and was probably going to complain the whole way. I didn’t have any choice about bringing him, though.
“It looks like you’re going on a trip with me and Sable,” I told Hunter.
“What?” He glanced down at the cat winding between my legs.
Emily gave me a sullen look from her bedroom doorway.
“Sable found something and we need to go see it. If you prefer your wolf form, you better shift while I’m waking up Kerbasi. There’s no telling how far we might have to go.”
Sable roamed a wide area and often traveled for miles from the house. She knew better than to go near humans or their homes so most likely whatever she found was deep in the woods.
Emily crossed her arms. “If he goes, is he still banned from coming here for a week?”
I considered it. Being a parent sometimes felt like being a judge, jury, and executioner.
“You’ll have to do some extra chores after school for your punishment and he still can’t come over for three days. Take it or leave it.”
“Deal.” She held out her hand.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t bother to shake it. “Go back to bed. We shouldn’t be gone too long.”
“Wait, don’t I get a say in this?” Hunter looked between us.
“No.” I left him and headed down the stairs. “By the way, if you do decide to change into your wolf form do it in the dining room. I don’t want Emily seeing you naked.”
A snort came from her direction.
I unlocked the front door and let Sable go out first before shutting it behind me. She ran off, heading around the side of the house where the tail end of Hunter’s car peeked out. I pulled my knit cap down over my ears and adjusted my gloves for a snug fit. It was bitterly cold out. My breath fogged the air and fat flakes of snow fell from the sky. Why couldn’t emergencies like these occur during more respectable hours? And preferably in the summer?
Kerbasi’s shack was around back. If I could have left the guardian I would have, but I couldn’t go more than half a mile from him before he’d get pulled along with me. The last thing I needed to hear was his whining if he was jerked from his bed without warning.
The magical bands we wore on our arms tugged on him rather than me since as a sensor I was immune to spells. It was a punishment an archangel had leveled on us almost nine months before—me for breaking into Purgatory and him for being an overly-abusive guardian who tortured his prisoners.
I pounded on his door. More than a minute passed before I heard any movement inside.
“What?” he shouted.
“Get out here unless you want to get dragged.”
He jerked the door open. “Do you know what time it is?”
His silver eyes swirled with annoyance and his black hair hung loosely past his shoulders. He wore a pair of sweatpants, but nothing covered his muscular chest. The man was unusually large. Then again, so were all of heaven’s servants. He also had dark-gray wings, but I could only see the faint shimmer of them. Anyone not immune to magic couldn’t see them at all unless he chose to reveal them.
“Yes, it’s almost three in the morning. I don’t want to be out any more than you do, but Sable found something and she’s insisting I check it out. You’re just going to have to get over it and come along.”
He gave me an annoyed look. “Can it not wait until morning?”
“Apparently not. You’ve got two minutes or I’m leaving without you.”
Kerbasi slammed the door in my face.
He handled waking up better if I brought coffee, but I didn’t have time to coddle him. I headed over to the shed where we stored the snow machines and got one started. By the time he came outside I had it ready to go. Kerbasi couldn’t drive and didn’t want to learn, so he had to ride with me.
“This is most inconvenient,” he muttered, climbing onto the seat and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“Feel free to lodge another complaint to Remiel. I’ve given up on the archangel freeing us from each other anytime soon.” All I’d gotten so far was that Kerbasi had made progress, especially after healing a sick child during Christmas, but not enough. At this rate, it would never be enough.
Hunter came running up in his wolf form and let out a bark. Good. We were all set.
I nodded at Sable, who had changed into a snow leopard. Normally I didn’t let her take the shape of feline breeds not native to Alaska, but we could travel faster if she was a bigger breed of cat. My snow machine would cover her tracks, keeping anyone from discovering the prints later.
“Lead the way,” I ordered her.
She took off at a lope, heading toward the trees behind Kerbasi’s shack. Hunter followed the cat with me guiding the snow machine behind them. The snow had grown deep in many areas, making travel slow. I wove between a sea of trees trying to find the most navigable paths as we headed in a northwesterly direction.
At least two miles had passed before Sable began to slow down at a small clearing. My senses picked up the weak signal of a werewolf on the far side. My stomach knotted as she led us toward him. The life force that told me who was just within the line of trees barely registered. He was close to death. It took a lot for
a werewolf to get into that kind of shape.
There was something else nagging at my senses as well. Something very dark. Every warning siren in my head was going off.
“Stop!” I yelled at Sable and Hunter.
Chapter Two
Sable stopped more than a dozen paces from the trees and looked back at us, her whiskers twitching. Hunter didn’t go any farther, but he sniffed at the ground. The emotions I sensed from him were confusion and worry.
I brought the snow machine to a halt next to them and ordered Kerbasi to get off before digging in the storage compartment for a flashlight. My night vision was good, but it was full dark and clouds obscured the moonlight.
“Why did you order them to stop?” Kerbasi asked.
“Because I sensed something wrong.”
“Would it not be better to let them face it than us? We can partake of these while they deal with it.” The guardian reached into his jacket and pulled out a Ziploc bag with some donuts I’d picked up the day before. He must have swiped the last two before going to his shack last night. The glutton.
“You’re forty-five hundred years old and have more power than I’ll ever hope to have. I’m pretty sure you can handle whatever is up there.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “Do you even know what the danger is?”
Kerbasi didn’t fear much—except perhaps an empty stomach—but he hated getting involved in the affairs of mortals. If he had his way he’d watch the chaos around him, eat snacks, and critique everyone else’s actions.
“There’s a werewolf in there and something is seriously wrong with him. I don’t want to risk Sable and Hunter getting hurt if he’s turned rabid.” I felt for my gun to make sure it was still where I’d holstered it before leaving the house. It remained snug at my waist.
Kerbasi shrugged. “Then let him be.”
“You know we can’t. Now let’s go.” I waved the flashlight toward the woods.
He stuffed the bag of donuts back into his pocket. “Why couldn’t they have attached me to someone who reads all day?”