Free Shadow Revealed (The Enlightened Species Book Two) by Wendy S. Hales Page A

never make it. It had been designed that way on purpose. He tried to call to her using the old bond one more time.
    “You will return to me.” He tried to push into her mind, feeling the barriers he’d become familiar with slam, and smiled when he watched her cautiously glance around. She wasn’t fully immune to his bond after all. His smile fell when he watched a female he recognized instantly stride up. His desire for revenge against Irsu bordered on obsession—she was the reason he had suffered these five years. He wanted to drain her and torture her captive consciousness for decades within him. He’d vowed to himself to make her his first warrior high. Perhaps the psychic high of a warrior would surpass the one he’d had from Etana. She’d been another gift from Osiris; though he no longer felt drugged from her psychic energy, he could still feel her within, three centuries later. How long would Irsu last? His mouth watered for the taste.
    The three spoke briefly and then stepped back into the chortal, headed to places he could not follow. He leaned back into the rock, calling on patience to calm his rush of anger at their departure. They would return. Osiris was never wrong.
    ****
    “You will return to me.” It had been so long since Zakel had pushed against her mind that Umbrae hadn’t realized how lax she’d become in guarding against him. He was close, very close. That thought didn’t terrify her; if anything she felt anticipation. Irsu had never explained why the warriors didn’t kill him the day they rescued her. She’d punched a wall when she’d told Umbrae he’d escaped. Not wanting to incite her friend further, she’d never pushed for more information.
    She saw Irsu walking from the direction of a house. Her friend’s lack of smile and intensity was telling. “Zakel is near.” She spoke before her friend had the chance.
    Irsu gave her a subtle nod. “We have been observing him since he arrived in Mesa a few days ago. Someone tipped him off to your arrival. He sits in the bluff behind me just outside the weave.”
    “Watching for me?” Umbrae verified.
    “We believe so.” Irsu confirmed. “He is watching us now.”
    Umbrae noticed Hans tense beside her. They’d each been given bios on each other before they were partnered together. Hans had never asked her a single question or mentioned what he’d read in hers, a courtesy she had returned. His reaction verified he knew of her blood slave past.
    “Tell me the Survivors Ball invitation was your way of bringing me in on this hunt.” The rage creeping up on her made her voice lower.
    “Oh, the invitation is real, and you are going to the ball.” Irsu’s eyes never wavered. “That was in the works long before Zakel reared his evil head. The Oracles declared you a member of the hunting party this morning. You will get to face him, and if I have my way, you will get to kill him.”
    “The Oracles?” Umbrae had met a few. They were mysterious by calling. The idea of Oracle influence gave her more pause then Zakel. “Why?”
    Irsu grinned for the first time. “Why do they do anything? We’re needed in Greenland; there are others who will be joining in.”
    Enlil . The name floated through her mind, and her stomach clenched at the thought. It had to be him. So often she’d wanted to seek him out and tell him of Etana, especially when she started hearing his name whispered amongst the warriors at the end of her training. She’d never found the courage, nor did she ask anyone about him. Enlil was the love of Umbrae’s life, though she had yet to meet him. Until Hans, she hadn’t made any close ties outside of Irsu and Abby. Unlike the warriors she sometimes trained beside, she knew she would rarely work in units the way they did.
    She was an assassin. Her ability to shadow and shield was from a bloodline that the Volaticus believed died out thousands of years before her birth. They didn’t even have anyone that could mentor her. Her