Shadow's
End
Courtney
Rene
Excerpt
Heat Level: 1
Book
Heat Level: 1
The adventure and the struggle contines
for Sunny, as the fight for control of Acadia is near. Battle lines have been
drawn, not just by King Gideon, but also by the rebels that were once Sunny’s
allies. Due to unexpected trips to the ice realm and the fire realm, new allies
are found to help build the Army of the Sun. There are new worlds explored. New
friends and new enemies made. Ready or not, Sunny must prepare for what is
coming as well as decide where she belongs within it all. But…what about prom?
What about Leif? What about home? How can she, just a seventeen year old girl,
rule a whole world? She’s not even sure if she can get through finals.
EXCERPT
Leif
turned his attention briefly to Lucas, who had stayed silent up to that point.
“I see you have moved on. Rather quick don’t you think?” he said.
I
refused to answer his taunt. Instead, I said to Lucas, “You about ready?”
A
red flush of color appeared across Leif’s normally pale cheeks. I didn’t care.
I was not going to be baited or made to feel bad for being out with Lucas. Was
it a date? It hadn’t been specifically declared that, but it was something more
than just an outing too. Maybe I was moving on, but that was my business. Not
Leif’s.
“Yep.
I’m ready,” Lucas said, then shoved the last bite of burger into his mouth and
stood to clear the table.
I
did the same, and gathered up my trash and belongings.
Leif
suddenly and inexplicably became enraged. Either he was more upset about Lucas
than I had realized or he really was going a bit on the loopy side. He grabbed
my arm painfully and said, “We aren’t through here.”
“Stop
it! You’re hurting me,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t want to cause a
scene in the middle of the mall. People were already staring.
That
was all the action Lucas needed to get involved. He slammed one big hand down
on Leif’s shoulder and said as calm as could be, “I think you should release
her.”
Leif
did let go, which should have made me wary as he wasn’t the give up easy type,
but I was too busy rubbing circulation back into my arm to think about it.
Leif
spun around to face Lucas. “You can mind your own business. This is between her
and me.”
“You
made it my business when you laid a hand on her,” Lucas said, not backing down
an inch.
Side
by side the two were colored very alike, but that was where the similarities
ended. Leif had ice blue eyes and Lucas had warm blue, inviting eyes. Leif was
tall, thin, but wiry strong. Lucas was tall and bulky with evident muscles and
strength.
“You
don’t know what you are dealing with here,” Leif said and took a step closer to
Lucas. It was like he was daring him to engage.
Lucas
though, appeared calm and easy, no hint of aggression. “Yes. Actually I do.”
I
began to realize that Leif didn’t recognize Lucas. He really didn’t know who he
was. Leif didn’t have any special gifts other than begin a shadow walker
tracker. Why then was he being so aggressive?
A
wave of confusion crossed over Leif’s features for a moment. He stepped back
and regarded Lucas. “You a walker?”
“Among
other things. What’s it to you?”
Leif
again grabbed my arm, not quite as hard that time, but hard enough to make me
wince, and pulled me forward to stand almost next to him. “Then you know what
she is,” he said.
I
was getting a bit annoyed at being talked about like I wasn’t standing there. I
was also getting angry at being manhandled by Leif. Incidentally, the anger is
what caused me to pull in a bit of the energy from around us. I only grabbed a
small ball of it, but it was enough to concern me. Whether in small or large
amounts, energy was just as hard to control.
“Yes,
I do,” Lucas said.
Leif
leaned toward Lucas until he was just a few inches away from his face, glared
hard with half squinted eyes, and said, “They you also know she’s mine. I found
her. You don’t get to have her.”
That
was it. I didn’t care about the pain it was going to cause me. I purposefully
and intentionally, pushed out a zap of energy at Leif, where he held my arm.
Not enough to really hurt him, but it was enough to have him jerk his hand off
me in surprise and a bit of pain. Rage clouded his eyes for a moment as he
directed his gaze on me.
I
rounded on him with the full force of my own rage and completely ignored his.
“You!” I said and poked a finger into his chest. “Don’t get to own me! No one
gets to own me.”
He
took a step back. I stepped forward and poked him again. “I get to decide who I
want to be with and who gets to be with me.” Again he took a step back, and me
a step forward, and I poked him hard in the chest, hard enough to make my
finger twinge in pain at the abuse, but I ignored it. “I get to decide. Do you
hear me, Leif?”
“Sunny,”
Lucas said from behind me. “You have an audience.”
Without
taking my eyes from Leif, I swung an arm behind me with my hand up at him,
hoping that I conveyed with that one action, to shut up.
I
did lower my voice at least. “You had your chance with me, but you chose to
lie, to cheat, to keep me in the dark and at your mercy. You don’t get to
decide anything about me anymore.”
I
turned away from him and stepped back to my table, where I again began to
gather up the debris from lunch. “Go home, Leif. There’s nothing here for you
anymore.”
“Yes,
there is,” he said softly from directly behind me. I hadn’t heard him come up
next to me. Then even softer he said, “This isn’t over between us, Sunny. I’m
not giving up.”
I
glanced over my shoulder at him. The man before me was the Leif I knew. The
Leif I had fallen in love with. The ice was missing from his face and his eyes
and my heart felt the pain of losing him all over again. Why did it still hurt
to see him, to be next to him? “Leif,” I whispered. “Go home. Please.”
Without
regard to the people around us, he phased into the shadows and was gone.
“Sunny?”
“Yeah,
Lucas,” I said as I stared at the place that Leif had vanished. I was suddenly
so tired.
“You
okay?”
“Yeah.
I’ll live.”
“Um…do
you know that you have a slight glow of white around you?”
No.
I didn’t know that. I closed my eyes and sighed. “Great.”
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