Betrayal's Shadow Read Free Page A

natural vocal inflection. The tone was grated and rough from lack of fluid, or worse. Perhaps he was guilty of unspeakable crimes, though the stone cell, the chains, and antiquated door didn’t resemble any form of humane justice. That she was here with him curbed her sympathy. At least until she arrived home safe in her own bed.
    To his credit, he left her alone. She couldn’t gauge whether he physically couldn’t move or just had no interest, but he didn’t say another word.
    Need to wake up, Mia. She pulled back again and buried her head against her knees. Her ears alert for any movement from the man, she scrunched into the smallest ball she could make, wrapped her arms around her legs, and counted her breaths.
    Focus on the inward breath, hold and release slowly.
    Dreams didn’t last forever. Right ? Whatever reason her mind created this image, this cell, this man, she’d seen all she needed and more than she wanted. It was all her illusion. Whatever the man represented, her dreams couldn’t harm her. She could maintain control.
    She fought to regain the gray mist that had ushered her into this nightmare and continued to count her breaths, waiting.
    Moments? Hours? She couldn’t tell, yet in spite of her awkward pretzeled position, her limbs expanded with a sense of lightness. She lost count and the darkness took control.

 
    CHAPTER 2
     
    Ansgar spun a chair around to straddle it in front of the thick oak desk in Leonis’s office. Arms crossed on the back of the chair rail, he waited for the old man to finish his scrutiny of the ancient parchment.
    Fine, take your time . The conversation they were about to have was one Ansgar would rather avoid. If he were smart, he’d have taken longer to get back to Eden’s Sanctum. Long enough to cleanse the nightmarish images that continued to play in his brain from this last assignment.
    With a brief tilt of his head, Ansgar acknowledged Kamau as the man entered the room. Panther at his heels and hawk submissive on the broad, leather-clad shoulder, Kamau radiated Nubian prince as if born to the role. The trio settled beside Ansgar.
    The sleek, black feline shifted moss green eyes toward her master. With a ripple of muscle, she sauntered over to Ansgar, and rubbed her head against his leg for attention.
    Ansgar worked his fingers in the short, soft fur of the panther’s head until loud purrs rumbled through the windowless granite room. The skull was twice the size of his palm, yet the dangerous and wild creature sat docile and eager beneath his ministrations. He envied Kamau his power, a talent paired with companionship. Animals didn’t talk back, an added benefit. Then again, to a master of beasts they probably had their own way of mouthing off.
    At least his power didn’t carry the responsibility of additional lives.
    “Two more minutes,” Leonis said without a glance.
    Ansgar perused the stacks of fragile books and yellowed parchments tumbled across Leonis’s desk, littered on chairs, and piled on the floor. The tomes covered almost every inch of the sterile, cold room hewn from the rock of Eden’s protective bowl of mountains.
    The golden glow from the cylinder of memory crystals on the desk provided the only warmth in the room, besides the heat from the panther’s head beneath his hand.
    Leonis’s finger traveled down the ancient pages. Flashes of glowing script illuminated briefly between the written lines of human text. The shimmering bits constituted history hidden by Ansgar’s descendants and secreted into the ancient human documents. With a brief swipe, Leonis gathered the luminescent script, lifted it into the air, and dropped it into the solid glass cylinder housing the crystals. Light sparkled. The script swirled inside the cylinder, searched until it reached some predestined section of crystal, then condensed, and disappeared.
    Ansgar shook his head. Human computers handled data storage and retrieval, but Guardians had possessed the intrinsic skill