Shadow Dancer Boxed Set
Page 1
Shadow Dancer Series
Courtney Rene
Published by Rogue Phoenix Press
Copyright © 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62420-281-0
Electronic rights reserved by Rogue Phoenix Press, all other rights reserved by the author. The reproduction or other use of any part of this publication without the prior written consent of the rights holder is an infringement of the copyright law. This is a work of fiction. People and locations, even those with real names, have been fictionalized for the purposes of this story.
Shadow Dancer
Sunny has a gift that she has no idea how to use, until she meets Leif, a boy from the kingdom of Acadia, on the other side of the shadows.
Leif teaches Sunny about Shadow Walkers and how to use her new found gifts. As they grow closer and their gifts grow stronger, a threat arrives. The Shadow Guard has been sent to bring Sunny back to Acadia, to determine if she is a threat to the king as the rightful ruler of Acadia.
As Leif and Sunny prepare to defend themselves, Sunny finds that Leif has also been sent to bring Sunny back to the kingdom but for very different reasons. As a battle for possession of Sunny wages, she is struggling to come to turns with her feelings of inadequacy regarding controlling her gifts as well as the hurt regarding the lies and deceit of everyone around her.
Shadow Warrior
Sunny finally makes her first jump to the Kingdom of Acadia that is on the other side of the shadows, for what she hopes is a vacation. Only her vacation turns into quite an unwanted adventure. Aside from new and unexpected issues regarding her relationship with Leif, Sunny meets the rebel group, makes new friends, fights with controlling her powers, and finds herself neck deep within a county that is torn apart by two sides, each fighting for power. Acadia is not quite what she imagined. How is she, one young girl, supposed to unite the Kingdom as well as unseat a King to take her place as ruler of Acadia.
Shadow's End
The adventure and the struggle continues for Sunny, as the fight for control of Acadia is near. Battle lines have been drawn, not just by King Gideon, but also by the rebels that were once Sunny’s allies. Due to unexpected trips to the ice realm and the fire realm, new allies are found to help build the Army of the Sun. There are new worlds explored. New friends and new enemies made. Ready or not, Sunny must prepare for what is coming as well as decide where she belongs within it all. But…what about prom? What about Leif? What about home? How can she, just a seventeen year old girl, rule a whole world? She’s not even sure if she can get through finals.
Shadow Fire
No one really knows who Leif is. They know the man he portrays and the things he has done, both good and bad. He was a boy that came from nothing and grew into a man full of rage that almost killed the one person he set out to save. He roams the realms waiting for death. Waiting for an absolution that doesn’t come. Then a rumor surfaces. A threat has been made against Sunny. Leif sets out to try to right the wrongs of his past. He sets out to do what he was meant to do from the beginning, save the queen. Can he do it alone or will he have to do the one thing that is hardest for him, which is: Ask for help.
Shadow Dancer
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Shadow Warrior
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
Shadow's End
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
Epilogue
Shadow Fire
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
Shadow Dancer
Prologue
"My Lady? I don't know what to do. I don't know what else...I think we need to call for help."
"Where is she? I can't see her."
"She's fine, my Lady. She's sleeping, right over there. Can you see her?"
"Bring her to me. I want to hold her."
"My Lady, you have lost too much blood. We need to get you to a hospital or something. Please."
"Star, it's already too late. You know it. We can't call for help. We have to keep her safe. She's all that's left. She is worth that and so much more. God, I am so tired. Please bring her to me."
"My Lady..."
"Even now Star, after all these years, can't you just be my friend?"
"I will always be your friend, my Lady, but you will always be my Queen. Even now, even later, that will never change. Here she is. Do you have her?"
"I've got her. Please don't hover over me, Star. I'm alright. Look how beautiful she is. Can you believe Malcolm and I made something so beautiful?"
"Yes, I can. She looks like you. She has your hair, all golden and soft. She has your mouth too. Don't you think?"
"Yes. Oh God, I want to hold on to her forever. I never want to let her go. Star, you have to promise me that you will keep her safe. Whatever you have to do, you have to keep her safe. Promise me."
"No, my Lady, we will keep her safe. You and I together."
"No, Star, this burden will fall to you. You already see the truth of it, right here in front of your eyes. I'm just so tired. Here, you'd better take her. Bye, my baby girl. I love you so.
Star, promise me. You've done all you can here. All that is left is her. Malcolm is gone, and I…"
"Stop it! You can't just give up! Don't laugh! Can't you see that it's tearing me apart? I can't do this without you."
"Star, I'm not laughing. I promise you. There just isn't anything I can do to stop it. You can do this. I believe in you. Star?"
"Yes. My Lady?"
"Promise."
"All right. I promise I will do everything I can to keep her safe."
"Do you think you will ever return?"
"I don't know. Everything is changed now. Our whole world has changed."
"Star?"
"Yes?"
"Stay safe. You have always
been my very best friend. I don't know what I would have done without you. Thank you, so much, for everything."
"My Lady..."
"Keep her safe..."
Chapter One
Into the Light
My eyes snapped opened at the buzz of the alarm. Ugh, I could feel the distant thump in my head telling me a headache was on the way. I slammed my hand down on the clock to shut off the alarm. I threw my arm over my eyes and groaned aloud. Another Monday of my life in the eleventh grade, front and center before me.
Five-thirty came much too soon, especially since I didn't get to sleep until after eleven the previous night. I groggily sat up and swung my feet over the bed, stood up, and went to shower myself awake.
After my shower, I stepped in front of my closet to decide what to wear. Unless you are a sixteen, almost seventeen, year old girl, you just can't realize what a difficult task that is. I settled for a pair of black skinny jeans, a pink t-shirt over a light blue tank top. I finished it off with a black pair of flip-flops. As for my hair, I brushed it out, gave it a scrunch, and let it air dry from there. My one real beauty is my hair. It's long and golden blond, with soft flaxen curls.
With a soft touch of make-up on my very pale face, I was set to go. I scrunched up my face in the mirror. No matter how much time I spend in the sun, I never acquire that summer tan others flaunt. I didn't burn either. I just stay, as I always was, ghostly white. With a shrug of my shoulders and a last look in the mirror, I grabbed my school bag and went down to breakfast. That was as good as it was going to get for the day. I sat down at the kitchen table, dropped my bag to the floor at my feet, and I put my head down on my arms.
"What's wrong, Sunny?" my mother asked from where she stood in front of the burbling coffee pot, empty cup in hand, impatiently tapping her nails against its rim. My mother is my complete opposite in appearance. My eyes are a deep rich blue, and my mother's a dark chocolate brown. She keeps her shiny black hair short, in what we call a witch cut. I jealously noted that she still had her golden-brown tan, even though it was late October and the tanning days had been past for at least six weeks. It just wasn't fair.
"I've got another headache coming," was my mumbled reply from deep within the depths of my arms. The thumping in my head was growing increasingly more persistent. It did not bode well for the day.
My doctor said the headaches are part of puberty, except, news flash, I had hit puberty three years ago and the headaches had only begun about four weeks back. They had come with a vengeance and seemed to hit more often and with more intensity each time.
"Did you take the medicine Dr. Backus gave you?" my mom asked. She set her cup on the counter and walked to where I sat. She gently pulled my face up from where it lay and took a good long look. I could never figure out what the heck she was looking for when she did that.
"Mom, you know they just make me feel like I'm gonna barf. They don't even make my head feel any better. I just get the added bonus of feeling sick to go with thinking my head's gonna explode."
"Maybe you should just take a day off," she said. "Stay home. You haven't missed any school yet this year. You could just be worn out."
I sighed quietly. It was October. How much time could I have already taken off? School had only been in session for about nine weeks. "Mom, I'm fine. If it gets really bad, I'll come home." My mom gave me that look again. "Mom really, it's fine. I'm good."
I loved my mom, and my dad, but sometimes it felt like they may as well have just rolled me up in bubble wrap and locked me away in a padded room somewhere. They hovered and coddled, and held on so tight sometimes. I was sixteen, not three. I was old enough to make my own decisions. Try explaining that to my mom, though.
In order to give my mother some small bit of comfort before I left, I put on a big fake grin, hefted my bag onto my shoulder, and with a happy breezy wave, headed off on my morning walk to the high school.
Frankly, the short one-block walk to school was excruciating. Maybe I really should have just taken the day off. It was a lovely fall day, but with every step jarring my head, I didn't take much notice. The morning sun was blinding in its radiance. With my eyes squinted into slits and my head down, I trudged on.
My day did not suddenly get better once I reached school. Not that I thought it would. I made my way through the throng of people to my locker. No one stopped me in the hall, no one shouted or said hello, and I doubt anyone even looked at me seriously. I hated being the new kid at school. It seemed like I was always the new kid. We moved around a lot, and it felt like I attended a new school every single year of my academic life. It seemed like I would just get settled in, make new friends then suddenly we were packing up and heading off to a new town or new city. I had lived from the warm summers of Georgia, to the cold winters of Washington State, and everywhere in between.
We had moved to the small town of Nelsonville, Ohio in early August, just in time for me to start my junior year of high school. When I say small town, I happen to mean small town. Granted, it has more than one traffic light, but not much more. The population of Nelsonville is about five thousand people. That should tell you something. It should also tell you that it's not easy to fit in here. If you weren't born there, you weren't part of the inside group. I had been making progress, but it was slow going.
I can honestly say I'm not sure how I made it through the day. I didn't remember much at all, except for the increased thumping and throbbing of my head. The day was worthless, lunch was inedible, and finally, at one o'clock, I gave up and called home. My mom picked me up, thank goodness. I couldn't have walked home. My head was fuzzy and my stomach was rolling with nausea. Any light seemed to just make it all worse. I dragged myself up the steps and into my room, dropping my jacket and bag on the floor along the way. I fell onto my bed and curled into a ball. My head was thumping, my stomach was heaving, my mouth was dry as cotton, and my legs were feeling weird and tingly.
I pressed my head into the soft mattress with my eyes tightly closed, trying to find some type of relief. I wanted the pain to stop. I needed relief, any relief. The usually refreshing scent of laundry detergent sent my stomach rolling again. I quickly turned my head away from the bed and breathed in through my mouth.
The thumping was drowning out everything. I felt like I was suffocating. I wanted to just escape it all. I wished desperately I could just sink into the bed to get away from the pain for a little while. The thoughts were like a mantra in my overburdened head. "Just away, just away, just away," I panted in a whisper.
Maybe I was dying. Maybe my head really was about to explode. "Just away, just away." The chant seemed to be working, if only a little bit. It was then that I began to notice a strange feeling. It wasn't just my legs that were tingling, but my whole body. I realized that I was blanketed in cold. There was also a subtle hum in the background. I didn't know if the hum was an actual sound, or if it was coming from me.
As I lay there trying to figure out what I was feeling, I heard my mom ask from outside the door, "Honey, are you all right?" Too engrossed in my own pain, I didn't answer.
"Sunny?" I heard my mother ask again, with a note of confusion in her voice. I eased one eye open to watch as she came into my room and looked around. It was just a standard teenagers' room. There were several pieces of clothing strewn about and make-up and hair supplies on the counter by the mirror. I hadn't opened the shades that morning, so the room was a bit dim, but otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary.
"Sunny!" Her tone was more anxious now, so I pulled together enough energy to sit up from the tightly curled ball I had been in on the bed.
"What?" I asked.
My mom swung around and stared at me in surprise, her brown eyes so wide that I thought for a moment she was frightened. But then her face softened and the tension drained away. "Oh, you startled me. I didn't see you there."
She gave a self-conscious giggle, which made me give her another look, but the fact was, even though the pain seemed to be reced
ing, it was still quite intense, and I was wiped out. I just didn't have any strength left in order to try to figure my mom out. At least the weirdness I had been feeling had disappeared. In fact, it had left almost as suddenly as it had come. The cold was now gone as well as the hum.
My mom walked over to the bed, reached out and laid a cool hand against my cheek, then asked, "Should I call the doctor? You look really bad."
That didn't make me feel any better. Nothing like hearing you look like crap along with feeling like it.
"No, just sleep," I replied flatly.
"Maybe I should just give him a ring real quick," my mom continued, but I cut her off with a weak wave of my hand and a tired protest.
"Mom, sleep is all I need right now. Can you close the door on your way out?"
I didn't know if my mom left right then, or even if she closed the door on her way out, because my body had finally had enough. I closed my eyes, shut out the world, and thankfully went into a numbing blissful sleep.
~ * ~
When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling great. I glanced at the clock and realized I still had fifteen minutes before my alarm even went off. That was a true first. I was one of those people who actually needed eight to nine hours of sleep every night. Without it, I was a bear and a grouch all day long. Trust me.
I hopped happily out of bed, danced over to the window, drew open the shades on the still gray dawn, and enjoyed the sight. Afterward, I showered and dressed for the day as usual and out my door I went, bounding down the steps and into the kitchen. "Hey," I said happily as I met my mom in the kitchen.
She still had a fuzzy, sleepy look about her as she stood in her favorite ratty blue robe and wild hair. "Hey, yourself. I see you're feeling better."
"Much. I'm starving though. Do we still have bagels?" I rummaged around in the cupboard. Finding what I was looking for, I broke it in half and put it in the toaster. I then turned and leaned up against the counter to wait for it to pop. My mom was looking at me. "What? Do I have something on my face?" I asked, gently sarcastic.