Siege (The Warrior Chronicles, 5) (26 page)

Cayan stalked right in front of the man, trying to bend to catch his eye. “
Do you want death? Because I can grant it right now.”

“
Cayan,” Shanti warned, working her
Gift
into Tomous to try and ease the pain keeping him from making it back to wakefulness.

Cayan straightened up and exhaled.
“How many more of these tunnels exist?”

“Two. One in the guardhouse in the front, and one in the mistresses’ chamber at the other end of this building.”

Cayan’s whole body flexed and another blast of power leaked out of him. He looked at Kallon. “Seal those up, and then scrub this city free of Graygual.”

Kallon, despite never having answered to Cayan before, nodded and jogged out of the room. Cayan knelt by Daniels slowly, his face a terrifying mask of rage. Inside of him, though, something was breaking. Grief was rising up and threatening to overwhelm him.

Before Shanti could get up and go to him, Rohnan was there, laying his hand lightly on Cayan’s shoulder. They’d lost a few dozen men and women in the battle, all hard to bear. They’d grieved together, buried them, and sang to remember them. The pain was acute, but in this, they’d thought themselves safe. They were shut in a city with excellent defenses.

They should’ve been safe.

But with Xandre, they would never be safe.

“He has his prize back,” Shanti said as she noticed clean slices on the ropes on the floor. “And he had help.”

“You think this is the inner circle?” Cayan asked as he hung his head, not shrugging off Rohnan’s hand.

Shanti knelt beside him. “No one outside this city would’ve known where we kept him. He was in here because people would think we took this room. They wouldn’t suspect he did. No. I think this was an inside job. He had help.”

Cayan leaned toward her a fraction. “None of my men, or your people, would know about that tunnel.” He straightened up as Marc ran in with wide eyes.

He saw who was on the ground and sagged. “No.”

“Our rest is over,” Cayan said. “We need to let down the drawbridges, get this city back on its feet, and find Xandre. This ends. I will not lose any more to these side battles. I want him dead.” He stalked out the door without a word, on the verge of breaking and not wanting his men to see. He had to stay strong for them. It was his burden to bear.

Shanti sat next to Daniels quietly. Rohnan lowered himself down behind her and threw an arm around her shoulders. Cayan was right. This needed to end. The more they stalled, the more people they would lose. Xandre would just get better and better. He had probably fortified a few of his cities, and he’d only lay more traps. Eventually, they would have no one left.

“It’s time to hunt,” Shanti said quietly as a tear tumbled down her cheek. “He’s somewhere, and we will find him. Keep your eye out, Rohnan. If the person who did this is in our army, his emotions will give him away. He’ll lead us right to Xandre.”

“Do we tell the Captain?”

“No. We tell no one. We let him go unchecked, right through Xandre’s back door.”

They sat for a moment, huddled together, mourning their loss. After a while Rohnan said, “I am ready for this to be over,
Chulan.
I am ready for my life to begin or end. I am tired of this half-life.”

“Me too, Rohnan. Me too. It won’t be long now.”

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S
ynopsis
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S
asha has grown
up with one surety: she’s not normal. 

She sees things in the darkness that no one else can see. Mysterious men cloaked in shadow, moving through the night. The problem is, pointing out invisible people is a fast track to a padded cell. Orphaned at age five, Sasha quickly learns an important survival tip: keep her mouth shut and stay out of the spotlight.

Until one night, everything changes. She and her boyfriend, Jared, find themselves stranded on the wrong side of town. Suddenly, the men she was convinced were hallucinations, are very real. And very dangerous.

As a new world opens up around her, she meets him. The Boss. An alpha leader who entrances her mind and tugs on her body. Primal and sexual, his people have a different set of rules. And they don’t always play nice.

As danger rises up around her, her differences may be the only thing that saves her life. She must embrace what she’s tried so hard to hide, while resisting the person her body craves most. Sasha has finally found her shadow men, and they will change her life forever.

E
xcerpt
:

A
s I met
his black eyes, his puzzled expression deepened. “You’re human…”

“We established that, yes. What I want to know is, if I am human, what does that make you? And why do I notice you when others usually don’t?”

His head cocked to the side. His easy balance, his lethal edge; he was like a blade resting on billowing silk. “Very few humans are able to withstand our pheromones. Fewer still to break a 
Kolma
 once it has been placed. You’ve not been trained, that’s obvious; so how is this possible when you’re definitely human? Do you possess the blood of another species?”

I could barely think past the pounding ache of my body, begging to touch him. I needed to get a grip! He was revealing some very interesting factoids I needed to jot down in my mental notebook.

His nostrils flared. “Charles was right; your arousal is a unique scent. Like a spicy, warm drink on a mid-winter’s night. It rises above other smells, entrancing the mind.”

“Umm,” charged with questions, determination, anger, and demands, I thrust forward, “Listen, what did you mean about withstanding the…pher-thing? Or breaking the other thing? How can you trap someone’s head with pleasure? Because I’m pretty sure—not positive, but pretty sure—that Jared is straight. And also, I really think we should circle back to what the hell you are, and why nobody knows that you exist? Because this whole people scattering thing is not normal, and I think an explanation is probably in order.”

He stepped closer, not hearing me, or not caring that I spoke. His eyes looked at me like I was a life-sized riddle. They delved, searching. He took another step, forcing me to retreat two steps to keep distance between our bodies. Another step back had my back to the wall.

A small smile curved his lips. “I exude pleasure, you run. I exude fear, you come calling. You want me, I can smell it. I can feel it, almost like a palpable thing. Give in to it. Yield to me.”

Oh God I wanted to. His body was mere inches from mine, his intense eyes looking down into my soul from a face out of a Renaissance painting. The power of him, the sheer strength, had strange, primal fantasies running amok through my head. My core tingled, my chest surged, and my nipples were so hard they could cut this stone wall.

Why had I come here, again?

~*~*~*~

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Into the Darkness

D
arkness
Series

Into the Darkness

Braving the Elements

On a Razor’s Edge

Demons

The Council

Shadow Watcher

Jonas

Charles

W
arrior
Chronicles

Chosen

Hunted

Shadow Lands

Invasion

Siege

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.F
. Breene is a USA TODAY BESTSELLING author of the Darkness Series and Warrior Chronicles. She lives in wine country where over every rolling hill, or behind every cow, an evil sorcerer might be plotting his next villainous deed while holding a bottle of wine and brick of cheese. Her husband thinks she’s cracked for wandering around, muttering about magic and swords. Her kids are on board with her fantastical imagination, except when the description of the monsters becomes too real.

She’ll wait until they’re older to tell them that monsters are real, and so is the magic to fight them. She wants them to sleep through the night, after all…

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