Free Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) by Laura R Cole Page A

thought
about it, the more she was able to suddenly think more clearly and
much to her disgust found that if she concentrated hard enough on
the man in front of her the more she found herself knowing about
him.
    Suddenly she was drawn into a whirlwind of
thoughts and memories, twisting about her in a violent storm of a
lifetime of experiences thrust upon her at once. She hastily yanked
her mind-self from touching her owner's being and fought hard to
control the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome her from the
vileness of being so close to such a creature. Even in her
carefully controlled state she felt her lip twitch and she licked
it to cover the movement.
    Her owner didn't seem to have noticed the
intrusion, yet another piece of evidence showing his ineptitude.
She fought down a shudder and set to work sorting through the
barrage of information that she had just obtained from her brief
contact. Most of it was an incoherent jumble that she could make no
sense of, but there were other tidbits that had her aching to know
more. But she would never, ever touch such a filthy mind again if
she could help it and she resigned herself to the half-information.
The more she sorted it all out, the more inflamed she became. She
had to resort to clenching and unclenching her fists to keep from
attacking him.
    From her stolen memories she had been able to
gather that her owner was part of some sort of secret organization
that felt as though they were the guardians of mankind and
therefore it was their duty to produce a perfect human by
controlled breeding of a seeded stock that had been created by the
Dark King. However, Katya apparently was part of a group of these
marked which was being tested upon to experiment methods of control
via the collar that she wore. The collar itself, as she had known,
had not been made by her owner, but entrusted to him to use and
report back on its effectiveness. It was designed to increase her
already heightened senses and overall super-humanness, while
dulling her mind to certain specific pathways such as escape.
    There were many clues to what was going on
and Katya could remember starting down a particular thought train
only to find herself distracted. Now that she knew the reason for
it she hated him, and them, even more for the intrusion into her
mind. Her enslavement was even worse than she had imagined; it had
penetrated into her very psyche.
    She could feel her face growing hot and hoped
that he would not realize how angry she was. As much as she would
dearly love to attack him now, the time was not right, but still
she had to fight hard to contain the urge. She would need to bide
her time until such a moment when her escape would be
paramount.
    He finished his ill-thought-out plan and
headed back into the manor to continue his supervision of the house
servants in cleaning up after the quake. Katya allowed her eyes to
shrink to the merest of slits and she sent daggers with her eyes
into his withdrawing back.
    She also knew from her stolen memories that
he was not authorized to use her in the particular manner that he
was and sending her on his own little errands; a piece of
information that could prove very useful given the extremist nature
of his peers, especially with the newest identity of her target.
Her bonds were gone, but now she would lie in wait for the perfect
opportunity, and when it came...she smiled.
     
    *
    King Nathair listened silently to the list of
damages that the country had suffered during the earthquake, and
inwardly nursed his own wounds that the powerful wave of
simultaneous power had caused. The earthquake had apparently been
the result of the magical barrier between Gelendan and Treymayne
disappearing. His mages had explained it like a dam being torn
down, suddenly all the power that had been trapped inside it was
released back into the watershed of the world in a huge rush of
power, causing the power wave and the physical effects as well.
    The border was tantalizingly