by TylerRose.
Shadows
of the
Night
Book 2 of the Kingdom Key Series
By:
TylerRose.
© 1985, 2016 TylerRose.
All Rights Reserved
No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion
except with express written permission of the author.
Buying a copy does not give you that right.
Made in the USA
Produced by:
TylerRose.
P.O. Box 4341
Sunnyside, NY 11104
Other Books Available
Fiction
Peeper
Peeper Ascendant
Peeper of Gloriana
Peeper Resplendent
The Healer
Arlyn the Deliverer
Evil’s Heart/The Cottage
Last Holy Woman of Mida
Culpation League
Searching for the Kingdom Key
Non-Fictions
Auntie Tyler’s Crochet Garden
Tao Teh Ching for the Family
Beleagrrred Sadist
50 Shades of OH SH*T
50 Shades Sh*ttier
The Complete Award-Winning 50 Shades of OH SH*T
Another 50 Shades of OH SH*T
Dear Reader:
As happened with Peeper, I realized the first book of this series was getting to be much too long. If I’d continued, I’d have had a 700 page book. I decided to cut the first book off and make a second book where the first left off.
Puttering around with that first chapter, I decided I was getting nowhere. I was mired down in tedium. If it was boring for me to write, it would be boring for you to read. So, I went backwards another 70 or so pages and found a better place to end one book and start another.
While this book doesn’t pick up the very minute the first ended, it’s certainly close enough. The difference is about a day.
The title was another puzzle. I decided to give it the original title of the first book. Since everything in this book was the second half of the first, it’s still that same story. Using the original name seems fitting.
I hope you enjoy the continuing story of Tyler Rose Marie Brooks on her march toward…whatever she’s going to end up being.
Love,
TylerRose.
~ NOTICE ~
Any persons attempting to find
a motive or metaphor in this narrative
will be caned by a Singapore judiciary specialist.
And you will NOT like it.
Persons attempting to find a moral in it
will be flogged with a Russian knout.
And you will not like it!
Persons attempting to find an analogy
will be trussed up in half a mile of razor wire
and hanged by their toenails
in the nearest dungeon.
AND YOU WILL NOT LIKE IT!
By order of the Author, per Mark Twain.
In other words,
this is a
Work of Fiction!
Please enjoy it as such.
My Ultimate Appreciation and Respect for
The Ancients
Thank you to my talented daughter
Duchess Rose
For making the cover art.
You did such a fantastic job!
Thank you to Kelly
For your enthusiasm for my work,
your feedback and help proofreading.
Thank you Voluptuary
For your feedback, help proofreading
and with continuity.
Music figures very large in this series.
On this page of my website
http://taobytyler.com/index_files/Page462.htm
you’ll find a list of artists and their songs that have particular meaning
for the series, and links to the lyrics and where to purchase them.
A great many of them are on Spotify,
so you can play them in the background while reading.
Author’s Note
There are a number of characters who have more than one name.
The human name is the alias. To help you keep them straight:
Odin is Thomas Holmes
Thor is Vaughn
Hermes is Dicer
Hades is Nails and Kevin Neiland
Chapter One
“Are we going to put out a notice to arrest Solomon so he can be tried?” Julian asked his father in a video call.
“What for?”
“For three times abducting Tyler and holding her against her will? For repeatedly forcing himself on her sexually? For implanting that torture device and actually torturing her with it? There must be at least twenty charges of rape alone.”
Earnol snorted a laugh. “You must be joking. The whore probably agreed and then decided she didn’t like how he humped after he was done. She didn’t demand to press charges when she had the chance. Not once, and still hasn’t said she wants him tried and sent to prison. Why should I care?”
Earnol ended the call, leaving his son sitting there and staring at the screen with mouth dropped open in shock. If ever he’d needed proof of his father’s callous nature, there it was.
If he could prove his father had hired Solomon, he could take them both down in one shot. He still hadn’t been able to find concrete proof of who had fed Solomon information while on Crecorday station back some 500 years into the past. If it had been Earnol, there was no surprise the truth was difficult to find out.
Tylerteleported directlyto the candle nook in the Immaculate Heart of Mary church and set to lighting candles. When she was calm and ready to see him, she told Julian to come to her.
“Are you okay?” he asked at the entry of the nook, knowing where she’d come from.
“I’m fine. I’m going to go visit Voran III for a couple weeks. Shestna has been dying for me to see his home, so I will. When I’m ready, I’ll come back to the Congress and do courier work again. Your father and I should keep out of each other’s way. I will live my life and he won’t know any different.”
“What’s your real plan?” Julian asked.
“If you don’t know it, you cannot be held responsible.”
“I’m on your side, Tyler. Truly, I want to help you do whatever it is you’re going to do.”
With a psychokinetic wave of the hand, she swiped over top of the candles and snuffed them all at once. Turning around, tendrils of smoke surrounding her, blue eyes as dangerous as they’d ever been.
“I’m going to figure out how to go back and fix it. If I have to break into the transport room and set the machines myself, I will. If I have to go to every planet, learn every trick ever thought of, I will fix this. I may never be an Eminent Doyen. I may never make it to be the Immaculate; but I can damn-well be where I was supposed to have been from the start. I can stop millions of people from dying, prevent trillions of dollars in damage. I will do it if I have to take on Adamantine myself.”
He took that in, understanding the implications, handed over the vidpad and phone he’d brought with him.
“They’re my own purchase and not part of the Congressional media pool. You have all the access I can give you. What else do you need from me?”
“If I use these, can they be traced to my location?” she asked.
“Only if you call someone who has a Congressional phone or is on the Congress; but my father would have to know you were calling to have the trace performed. If you try to access something outside of the standard permissions I was able to get for the machines, a trace will be automatic.”
“Okay. Keep out of my way. Keep your fa
ther out of my way. You can tell them you’ve had contact with me and I’ll be coming back to work eventually. Before I do, I’m going to spend some time on Voran III with Shestna.”
She ported out, leaving him there to ponder the enormity of what they were going to do.
Alone in her apartment, getting ready for bed that night, she stood in the three sided mirror, turning left and right to examine her back. How many times Solomon’s fist or foot had struck her during those ten days he’d held her, she could not say. There had, no doubt, been thousands of strikes. Tens of thousands, perhaps, if she thought about it long enough. There was no sign now. Every bruise she’d seen on herself was finally gone, leaving her pale skin as unmarked as it had ever been. Even the warm shower had brought no marks to the surface.
The long lines from his pain-giving torture device still radiated out from between her shoulder blades. They were smoothed over, the skin having no texture of its own. The doctor expected they would eventually be fully healed and no longer visible but could not say how long that would take. Her breasts no longer bore fingertips in bruise form.
She’d been alone several weeks, healing in solitude, and thought fondly of Demitrius. Their week and a half together had been exactly the tonic she’d needed, and her nipples popped to an unnatural hardness when she passed gentle thumb pads over them.
Her mind shifted images and she thought about Kevin Neiland instead. Nails. Whenever she had masturbated, since before he’d taken her virginity, she always thought of him. His strength, his command. How his gentle hand could become hard as iron in the next second. He had been dead nearly six months, killed defending Earth from Adamantine’s invasion.
The pain in her chest from missing him was still enough to steal her breath. It was enough to stop her hand and her mind in the middle of self-pleasure. She turned onto her side and wept, having never loved anyone as much in her 19 years. As much as it hurt to lose him, how could it be anything other than love?
She fell asleep to the thought of him in her bed with her, holding her close. When she was asleep enough to dream, he was there. Skin against skin, his potent energy and warmth, she buried her face in his familiar chest and cried out the grief that seemed not to have an end.
He held her closer, let her cry as she needed. When the crying was done, she kissed him with growing passion and need. He touched her in all those ways he had taught her to love best and she responded as she always had.
She might deny and refuse others, but she could not ever deny him anything. She parted her thighs to welcome him as he turned her onto her back. She was at once lost to her passion, to him, as he filled her in a way no living being could. She called him Master as she used to do and he made strong but not violent love to her for as long as he held her in this dream place.
In that time, he removed as much grief from her as he could reach, filling that spot instead with love and peace.
[You will find me again when it is time] he said, releasing her to sleep as dawn broke.
One more kiss to her cheek and he was gone.
She slept in silence, a restful slumber like she’d enjoyed in his own home back in Toledo, and woke still feeling his kiss on her cheek. She felt his hands on her body, the fullness of his cock. She felt love rather than sadness, hate, and anger for the first time in a long time.
She woke with a desire to go forward into life again, and made ready to go to Shestna’s home on Voran III.
Chapter Two
Tyler appeared in the entrywayof Shestna’s home on Voran III. This was the first time she’d seen it with her own eyes. He had described it to her once. Had told her this was the spot where she should arrive if ever she decided to take him up on his repeated invitations. A few days to relax before returning to the Celestial Congress and its political pressure cooker sounded good.
She needed a change of scenery, even if she was only exchanging Earth’s United States for Voran’s warmth this time. She had no desire to rush back to the Congress after more torture at Solomon’s hands. She’d told Julian she would eventually return; but had withheld her doubt.
Truth be told, she was fed up with the lot of them and weighing a great many options.
Before her, some ten or so feet from the door, was a circular, sunken, sitting area. The path around it was ten feet wide on all sides, to give full clearance. There were no railings to prevent someone falling over the drop off. Above was a frosted glass skylight to illuminate the entire room.
Several doors were lined up off the path around to the right, that path pushing the doors far enough away that the sitting area didn’t feel enclosed. Closed doors but they were all empty bedrooms. Old energy. No one had visited in some days.
To the left, an open dining area with a U shaped table shorter on one arm than the other and with more than fifteen seats. Open kitchen beyond it. One more open room at 11 o’clock from where she stood. A corridor at 12 o’clock contained two doors to the right and one on the left.
Beyond clean, the place was all but sterile. Tastefully decorated but not flashing wealth like Thomas’ home. Mostly vases, paintings and the occasional statue— and lots of white. The carpet, the fabric on the walls, furniture, all were white except for the Norav skin in front of the fire place. That was black and tan.
The house looked more looked like the home of any middle class unmarried man than the home of the First Prince of the entire planet.
A man appeared in front of her, a small and slight Neverseen servant, his expression plainly curious about her sudden arrival. She’d not used the bell, had not waited to be greeted and let inside. The irregularity of her arrival was disconcerting to him.
“May I help you, Mistress? Prince Shestna is working and not to be disturbed,” he said in Voranian.
“Tell him Tyler is here,” she said in the same language and loud enough for him to hear her from the open office.
“Tyler?!”
He was coming out of the office and around the kitchen side. She stood firm in place and waited for him. Gray skin with peach spots, just enough feline in his face to know he wasn’t human. He had yellow eyes and skin that felt exactly like that of a sphinx cat on Earth.
“Thank you, Neverseen,” he said, reaching the entry.
The servant vanished to other duties and Shestna took Tyler into his arms for a tight hug of relief.
“Julian said you would be in contact. What happened? Are you well?” he continued in his own language.
She remembered he had once said that he spoke only Voranian while on his home world.
“Doesn’t matter what happened. You said I could come visit your home. Here I am,” she said aloud, and continued telepathically [I have information on the Emperor’s missing Rovan.]
He went seriously serious, all joy and humor gone. [How do you know about that? No one knows outside of me and Dorn.]
[I was there when it was sold to Solomon. The man selling it said it was proof a Neverseen could be paid off] she said telepathically. [It was a very large bottle by my standards. Like a beer bottle, full to nearly the top with powder. He said it wasn’t cut because they don’t cut it for the Emperor.]
His phone was in his hand, a button pressed.
“Royal Brother, I have information you need to have. Tell no one I called or why. Come to my home the minute you get this message.”
He smiled at her, picking up the suitcase himself rather than calling the servant back. “I’m pleased to see you. I’ll give you the second room here. The front corner is for Royal Brothers and my eldest sons.”
“I didn’t know you were married,” she said.
“I am not married at the moment; but I have a number of children from previous wives. They come to visit whenever possible. You will probably meet some of them.”
“How many previous wives?” she questioned.
He had to chuckle. “That is a conversation for later in the day and much wine.”
He pushed open the second door on the right. She saw
a simple but pretty room in garden colors and floral motifs, a bright spot that made Voranian women smile when they saw it. The room he always put his women in. Rather like the favorite’s room on K’Tran, but without the motives and meanings associated. Bed, sofa, desk, dresser. Room in the corner was a toilet room. Just a toilet and a sink. He put her suitcase on its back on top of the dresser.
“The window opens fully to let in light and air,” he told her.
“How do I take a shower?” she asked.
“You don’t. When you want a bath, my Neverseens will bring the tub and fill it or you can bathe in the outside pool. I will also ensure you have a constant supply of distilled water. Offworlders cannot drink our water straight from the tap. Wine, beer, boiled, or brewed drinks will be fine. So will undiluted fruit juices. We are a very warm planet.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said.
“How long will you stay?” he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
“I don’t know. Few days at least.”
“Royal Brother?” came from the entry.
Shestna was out the door in three seconds to greet him, Tyler following but not quite as quickly.
“What information do you—“ Dorn started and cut himself off. “The female should not be privy to these matters.”
“Tyler is the one who brings the information. I suggest you respect her for it. She paid a personal price to bring it to us.”
“Enough,” she stopped him. “It’s very simple. I was there when a man brought a bottle of Rovan to the person who bought it. He said, and I quote, ‘it’s proof that a Neverseen can be paid off.’ That means one of the servants of the royal family was paid to steal the Rovan and give it to him. I’m sure you’re a smart kitty cat and can figure out which one it was,” she ended with a scowl and went back into the bedroom.