Mikel shook his head trying to comprehend what Jaron had said, while the others listened in silence. “Are you telling us that you are …”
“I am a Shadow,” Jaron finished for him.
“He is the first,” K interrupted, “and he has been with me for nearly two centuries serving as my advisor. He even warned me about the others but I didn’t listen. At the time I was being selfish and had no desire to take on the responsibility that was laid upon me. I wanted to do my own thing, live my own life, and I created them to rule in my stead.” She sighed and returned her saddened gaze to Jaron. “I was a fool.”
Everyone was silent, trying to grasp the information that had been revealed to them. The silence was broken when suddenly Jaron dropped to his knee clutching the side of his head.
K quickly knelt beside him, but did not touch him. “What is it?”
Jaron remained bent over holding his head, then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. K helped him back to his feet but he had an air of hopelessness when he looked over at her.
“What happened?” K asked again.
Jaron shook his head in despair. “They made him do it,” he said as a single tear rolled down his cheek. “They knew it would destroy him, so they made him do it.”
“Made who do what?” Citera questioned, unable to stand the suspense.
“They gave him a choice, to kill her or to change her,” Jaron continued, seemingly unaware of Citera’s question, “so he changed her.”
“Who changed who?” It was Mikel who had asked this time, but no sooner did the words come out of his mouth then the conversation he had overheard between Jaron and Jarod played back in his mind.
“Oh.” The realization hit him like a brick between the eyes. He slumped down, bracing his own head.
Citera, seeing her father’s distress and still being confused, was beginning to get angry. “Dad, what is going on?”
“The Enforcer, I mean Jarod, they made him do something to Maya, didn’t they?” Dirik asked, catching up on what was happening.
Jaron nodded, but said nothing else as he turned and walked away, leaving K behind to fill in the blanks. “Jarod has been forced to change Maya. She is now like him, dependent on the blood of the living to survive,” she answered calmly.
“Why would he do that?” Rigar asked. “And what does that mean for Maya?”
“It means she is trapped like him,” Citera murmured, holding on to Dirik, “forced to do their bidding, their slave like Jarod.”
“It is much worse than that I am afraid,” K said, leaning against a tree and watching Jaron continue to walk away. “By not killing her he revealed to them that he cared. In their eyes she is his weakness, so they will use her to manipulate him and make him suffer like never before.”
Silence befell them as the impact of what K said sank in. Suffer like he never has before. The statement played over and over again in their heads, as they all visualized Jarod and the scars covering every inch of his body. None of them wanted to imagine what manner of tortures the two of them would be forced to endure inside that Tower.
“Is there anything we can do to help them?” Dirik asked, finally breaking the silence.
K shook her head. “No, but one day, one day they will pay for all the suffering they have dealt out, not just to him, but to everyone. But for moment we are forced to sit back and wait.” She stood up and headed toward the cart. “Let us go, there is nothing more we can do here, and the sooner we get to camp the better for us all.”
“And me?” Rigar asked quietly.
“Even you,” K said, pausing in front of him and holding out her hand. “To trust.”
Rigar took her hand tightly. “To friendship.”
K smiled and nodded, then silently resumed her mask. Everyone loaded into the cart, with the exception of Jaron and K who scouted the road ahead on foot. As they traveled, Mikel studied the faces of his family and friends. Citera, Dirik, and Sara were laughing and talking with each other, while Rigar and Mirna snuggled in the front seat of the cart. He then focused his attention on the road as it extended endlessly in front of them. And despite whatever it was they faced ahead of them, he knew they were doing the right thing, for as Rigar had said, one would do anything for the happiness and safety of their family, even if it meant venturing blindly into the unknown.
Epilogue
It was late in the afternoon on the fourth day of their journey to the borderlands. K was taking a moment to relax while Jaron had run off into the orchard behind her to scout for a place to camp for the evening. She had made herself comfortable on the branch of an apple tree just off the road, awaiting the arrival of the others and Jaron’s return while she peeled an apple and watched the sun slowly begin to make its way below the horizon. From off in the distance the sound of voices caught her attention. A couple of patrol officers were coming up the road in the opposite direction and she could hear the pair chatting idly about upcoming promotions, arrests they had made, and their overwhelming dislike of their chief. As they came closer, she waited patiently. She let the peel fall to the ground below her, before cutting a large piece from the apple and beginning to eat. It was one of the best things she had tasted in a long while, the sweet juice of the fruit relaxing her whole body as she continued to consume bite after bite.
“Hey there, girl,” one of the patrols called out having finally spotted her.
She remained seated comfortably with one leg dangling off the branch as they detoured from the path to approach her.
“What is a pretty girl like you doing out here all alone?” a middle-aged officer missing several teeth asked as they came nearer.
He was as rough looking as they come and quite disgusting. K remained silent, continuing to enjoy each bite of the apple as she tried to block the vulgar thoughts coming at her from his mind, which were unusually loud and very vivid.
She finished off her last bite and smiled down at the pair while wiping the blade off on her pants leg. “Why I was waiting for a couple of fine officers such as yourselves to pass by and help a lady out.” Carefully she weaved the blade back through her hair and swung both legs over the edge of the branch, continuing to stare down at them.
“Well it appears this is your lucky day. How can we be helping you?” the partner asked. He was much younger than the other, but not much better to look at, and his thoughts were equally as disturbing.
“I seem to be lost. I was told there was a patrol camp out this way where a lady such as myself might be able to earn a few coins.”
The two officers looked at each other, eyes gleaming with excitement and forcing K to once again struggle to keep their overly obnoxious thoughts from running rampant in her mind.
“Someone led you astray, young lady,” the toothless man said, smiling. “There isn’t a camp within miles of here, and all that is down there is a lot of nothing.” He pointed over his shoulder down the path they had just come from. “Your best bet would be to go back to town, which just so happens to be where we are heading.”
K swung her legs back and forth over the edge of the branch like a small child. “Are you sure?” She gave them her most disappointed look.
“Positive,” the younger partner answered. “We walked a long way and there is no one out there except maybe a few animals and I don’t figure they pay very well.”
“We would be happy to escort you back to town,” toothless said, smiling again, “for a discount of course.”
She jumped down from her branch. “How much of a discount? I did after all make it all the way out here on my lonesome.” Slowly she walked around the pair, looking them over like a cat sizing up its prey, then gently brushed her hand through the younger man’s hair.
The toothless man reached to grab her but she ducked from under his arm and moved away, smiling and shaking her finger at him. “No, no. Business first.”
Angrily he moved toward her again. “Well, seeing as we are here and you are alone, I was thinking free.”
K stood her ground. “My, that is quite a discount, I’m not sure my advisor would agree to that.”
The two officers surrounded her, pulling their swords from their scabbards. “Advisor? Is that what you call him?” the younger one jested. “Well he isn’t here, is he?” Suddenly, his face became much more serious, moving the tip of his sword slowly down her cheek. “Now hand over the knives or we will mess up that pretty face of yours and you won’t be able to make more than a couple of dinar on a good night.”
“Okay, okay,” K murmured, pulling the blades from her hair and allowing the long black strands to fall down her back past her waist. She then threw the knives on the ground a few feet away. “The two of you do drive a hard bargain.”
Satisfied she was no longer a threat, they replaced their swords. Toothless approached aggressively; running his hand into her hair and grabbing ahold of a fistful, he pulled her head back and held it there. “Now you will do exactly as we tell you, and once we have had our fill of you we will be on our way.”
K nodded obediently as the younger officer grabbed ahold of her wrist then hesitated. “What is this?” he asked, pulling up her shirt sleeve. When he caught sight of the tag encircling her wrist he jumped back like she had the plague. “She’s a damn Full-blood!”
His older companion was unaffected by the revelation as he continued to grip tightly to her hair. “What does that matter? A woman is still a woman.”
“Don’t you remember? She was eating an apple when we walked up. Full-bloods don’t eat apples.” The younger one continued to protest, “I have a bad feeling about this, I think we should just go.”
“You can go if you like, but I’m going to have some fun,” the older man responded, leaning in close and sniffing K’s hair. “Honestly, when do you think either of us will have a chance to bed something so stunning ever again?”
His partner still appeared unsure, but his desire trumped his reason and he rejoined his partner. “So who goes first?” he asked, brushing his hand down her face. Slowly he brought it down to the buttons of her shirt and began to undo them one by one.
“I do of course, I am the senior here,” the older man snapped, shoving the younger one away. He ran his hand under her shirt and over the bare skin of her waist, still maintaining his tight grip on her hair.
K flinched at the contact but remained still. “My advisor isn’t going to be happy about this.”
“If he was that concerned about it he wouldn’t have left something as pretty as you all alone out here,” the older officer countered, moving his rough hand up her waist and coming to rest on her breast.
“I couldn’t agree more,” a voice said, catching the two men by surprise. The older man found himself suddenly lifted off K and hurled across the path, landing hard onto the ground. Jaron then turned to the younger one, only to be stopped by K.
“That one is mine.”
Once again Jaron turned his attention back to the toothless man, who begged and pleaded for mercy. However, it was too late; the image of him pulling K’s hair and running his filthy hands over her body was all Jaron’s mind could see, and in a fit of blind rage he sank his teeth deep into the officer’s neck.
The younger man turned to run only to find K standing directly in front of him. Frightened, he pulled his sword and pointed it at her. “Lady, please. I’m sorry, I really wasn’t going to do it, I swear.”
“Oh sure you were,” K replied calmly, allowing her mask to fade away. The boy turned white as a ghost as she continued to approach. “You’re not the first man to threaten to cut my pretty face, as you can see someone else has beaten you to it.” In a flash she was on top of him, pinning him to the ground as he screamed like the coward he was. “And now I will have my fill of you and be on my way.”
Within seconds the deed was done. Jaron carried over the body of the toothless officer and laid it down beside his companion.
“I know what you did,” Jaron stated quietly after a few silent moments. “And I don’t appreciate being tricked into doing something I don’t want to do.”
“You needed to feed,” K replied nonchalantly, as she picked up her blades and resumed her mask. “We have a long journey ahead and I need you in top form.”
He watched as she casually weaved the blades into her black hair, then returning his attention to the two bodies he sighed. K joined him at his side and ran her hand under his arm. “They were not good people, what they were going to do to me they have done many times before, and would have continued to do to others if we hadn’t stopped them.”
Jaron looked down at her as she peered up at him without a shred of emotion. “When are you going to be honest with me again? I’m tired of feeling like a puppet with you pulling the strings. I want the relationship we had before back, the one where you told me everything and trusted me to do the right thing.”
K gazed off into the distance, and while her face remained blank, her eyes revealed a glimpse of the pain and despair that lived deep within. “Jaron, things happened that will take me a while to come to terms with, things that have nothing to do with the Shadows, and I need you to give me time to work it out on my own.”
“And there is nothing I can do to help you?”
Silently she shook her head as she continued to tightly grip his arm.
“At least answer one question for me,” Jaron pleaded, following her gaze to the fields. “Can you hear her thoughts?”
K leaned her head onto his arm and closed her eyes. “No.”
Anger fueled by his love for her ignited like a fire. He struggled to control his tone as he continued to try and figure out what she was thinking. “So why are we bringing them with us, K? If she is the Link then you have restarted the cycle and we both know how this ends.”
“Her and her father helped me and I owe her at least a chance.”
“Yes, because that has worked out so well in the past. Every single time it has been a Link who led you to your downfall.” Jaron ran his hand through his hair trying his best to remain as calm as possible. “K, you haven’t even been awake a month and you have already restarted the cycle.”
“It will be all right, Jaron,” K said sharply, letting go of his arm; her signal that she was done discussing this matter. She reached down, lifted up the body of the young officer, and tossed him over her shoulder. “Let’s get rid of these before the others arrive.”
He silently watched as she headed into the orchard toward the light of the setting sun. And though he knew there was no way to change destiny, he hated knowing that so soon after awakening, K’s eventual demise had once again been set into motion.
Thank you for reading K; The Awakening, the first book in the Shadow Chronicles Series. If you enjoyed it, please don’t forget to rate or review it so that it will find its way to other readers. The second book in the series, Linked, should be available for purchase in the fall of 2015, turn the page for a sneak peak!
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Prologue
Nina and her family stood at the edge of the border staring at a massive expanse of trees; the final barricade between them and their hope for a new life. It was an awe inspiring sight to behold with miles upon miles of towering pines continuing on in both directions for as far as the eye could see. Trees packed so tightly together that their lush branches denied even the slightest ray of sunlight access to the ground below; leaving the floor of the forest perpetually cloaked in darkness. And it was from within this darkness haunting moans and growls emanated, discouraging Nina and about a dozen other families from proceeding any further.
Nina and her family, like everyone else here, had left everything they had ever known behind to reach these lands. Now everything they possessed consisted of what few personal items they could fit inside two small bags, along with some necessi
ties needed to make this journey. And after nearly a week of traveling, including several close calls in which they were nearly captured by the Patrols, they had somehow managed to make it here safely, only to have the forest itself try to frighten them away.
Feeling a pull on her skirt, Nina looked down into the big brown eyes of her six year old son.
“Mommy, what is making those noises?” he asked, his face pleading with her to give him a comforting answer.
“It’s just the wind Kajol, nothing to be frightened of,” she reassured him with a weak smile, trying her best to mask her own fears and doubts.
“Does anyone know how we reach the people in the forest?” A man shouted from the back of the crowd, “or how we let them know we are here?”
The crowd came alive with people anxious to share their versions of the rumors they had all heard. And while they all varied greatly as to what the interior of the dark forest held and how you went about getting there. One common theme did remain consistent in all the stories, once you found your way into this ‘Oasis’ you would finally be free of the Shadows tyranny once and for all.
It was rumored that anyone who was brave enough to make the perilous journey to the border lands would be welcomed and that, within the safety of the forest walls, both races lived together in peace and equality. However, it was nothing more than rumor and speculation, because no one who went in search of the Oasis was ever heard from again. Meaning there was really no evidence at all that such a place actually existed.
And then, of course, there were the stories of the forest being haunted. Tales of frightening creatures with long jagged teeth that stalked the darkness of the forest floor waiting for a meal. All it took was a single step off the narrow path for an unfortunate soul to become lost in the darkness and become the victim of one of these blood thirsty monsters. And while most would prefer to pass such stories off as nothing more than a child’s fairy tale, the lack of people returning from the forest, coupled with the eerie sounds filling the air around them, had this particular group of travelers considering the validity of the tales.
K: The Awakening (The Shadow Chronicles Book 1) Page 37