Echo Into Darkness: Book 2 in The Echo Saga (Teen Paranormal Romance)
Read Echo Into Darkness: Book 2 in The Echo Saga (Teen Paranormal Romance) Online
Authors: Skye Genaro
Tags: #Teen Paranormal Romance
Echo Into Darkness
Book Two in the Echo Saga
Skye Genaro
Also by Skye Genaro
Echo Across Time, Book 1 in The Echo Saga
After the Dance, an Echo Across Time short story
Four First Kisses, an Echo Across Time short story
Anything She Wants
Supernatural Summer
Copyright © 2014 by Skye Genaro
In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at [email protected], or http://skyegenaro.com.
Thank you for your support of the author's rights.
This story is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
This book is also available as a print book.
First edition published December 3, 2014. V9
Cover designed by: Carol’s Cover Designs
Carolcoverdesigns.com
Cover photo, Witch's Castle at Night by: Ben Hugeback
Interior designed by:
Brighid Publishing
Echo Into Darkness summary:
So close to death that he could probably taste it, Connor
set his gaze on his hidden audience. At a moment when most prisoners would lash out in panic, he stared down his tormentors.
Behind that stormy, warring face, was tenderness that only I knew. A devotion that ran so deep, he had risked everything to search for me: his family’s wrath, his position in society, and a return to his own time
.
Now, his life was in my hands.
As Echo tries to piece her life together after the devastating separation from her soulmate, she finds herself in a cat-and-mouse game with bewitching criminals whose paranormal terrorism threatens to take over society.
Her one ally, the enticing and arrogant Jaxon, has escaped persecution in West Region for crimes he swears he did not commit. He vows to help Echo but he seems just as determined to drive her crazy—one minute, he's trying to seduce her; the next, he's infuriatingly aloof.
When Jaxon's lust for danger leads Echo closer to the faction's secrets, one thing becomes evident: Jaxon's got deadly secrets of his own.
Echo Into Darkness
is a story of power, passion, and deceit that will keep you turning pages and leave you breathless.
For Val and Christy.
When they tried to break you with Darkness,
you held fast to the Light.
*******
Power is not a means, it is an end…The object of persecution is
persecution. The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.
-George Orwell
When the power of love overcomes
the love of power, the world will
know peace.
-Sri Chinmoy Ghose
Prologue
I felt like I was in a horror movie, the kind where I was locked in a room and the monsters kept multiplying until they surrounded me and my death was just a matter of time.
But it wasn't my life that was at stake. That, I could have accepted. It was your blood they shouted for. My beloved soulmate's. The most powerful person I had ever known.
When they turned on the light in your cell and I saw you through the one-way window, bruised and bleeding, it nearly broke me. I was thankful you couldn't see beyond the glass, couldn't see the fear building behind my eyes.
If you could, you would have watched me fight for your life with everything I had. You would have seen them laughing and cheering as if they were watching a sporting match, instead of a grisly duel where your life was the prize.
They were placing bets that I could not save you.
I was terrified they were right.
It was ironic that these monsters would test my strength, my ability to destroy beautiful things, when all the time they were tapping into the very depths of my love. That was the key to everything worth living for, wasn't it? The power of love to overcome the darkest of fears? It had to be.
While they shouted to see your blood spill, love was the one thing that pushed my paranormal gift beyond its boundaries. It was the key to keeping you alive.
If I lost this contest, then they would have to take my life, too. I'd push them so far they would have no choice. Then you and I would finally be free to live out our destiny, together.
Chapter 1
There's something about the week between Christmas and New Year's that I've always loved. Presents have been opened and school is still out for winter break. The whole neighborhood smells like Christmas trees. Holiday lights brighten up every block. It's one big joy-to-the-world fest while everyone rides high on eggnog and sugar cookies.
I blew warm air on my hands and thought maybe I could enjoy the crisp winter night if I dropped the sarcasm. This was my first trip out of the house since the start of holiday break, and let's face it, no way would I be walking through my neighborhood alone at night except my stepmom, Kimber, had handed me Tito's leash and ushered us both out the door.
Staying inside was safer, but Kimber didn't know how my life had dramatically changed during fall semester. She knew nothing about the incident at the mall, when Solomon, a man from Connor's time, had tried to kidnap me. She'd never found out about the night when I nearly fell three stories to my death.
If it were up to me, I would have forgotten that entire incident, including the part about Connor coming to my rescue. Would have pretended he hadn't left for good the next morning. Ignored the constant feeling of vulnerability, like a chill I couldn't shake even when I burrowed beneath the heaviest of blankets.
Connor could have put an end to that chill. I'd felt secure when he was with me, protecting me. Also, his body ran a little warmer than anyone else I'd hugged, and the electric stream beneath his skin, well, that made me warm in a very different way.
Now I hunkered into my fleece coat, on the lookout for some nondescript faction people who would seriously mess me up if they found me. Connor had known my life was in danger, but he hadn't been able to point the enemy out. He only knew that factions in my city were rounding up gifted people like me, and forcing them to use their abilities to commit violent crimes.
A band of faction members were stationed somewhere in Portland. They lived in secrecy, running companies, raising families, blending into society. This was fertile ground for my recent nightmares. I didn't know where these guys lived, what their names were, or how to find them. All I knew for certain was that my gifts—the telekinesis, the levitation, the whole crazy lot of it—put me in serious danger. I was walking around with a target on my back.
I shuddered and forced my attention back to the cheery atmosphere. The red and green lights decorating Becca's house across the street blinked, faded, and came on again, forming a snowflake pattern. The decorative electric reindeer at the end of the street bobbed up and down like they were excited to see me. I actually waved at them. That's what happened when you spent your entire winter vacation in self-imposed solitary confinement—you got desperate for friendship.
A couple of hardcore joggers ran by and I immediately clicked into aura-reading mode. I felt the damp heat of their determination, the clarity of their focus. They sprinted up the hill, giving no indication they saw me. I almost relaxed, but then I picked up another faint vibration in the air—something tentative and leaden. Just as quickly, it was gone.
I wrapped Tito's leash around my gloved hand and waited while he peed on everything that didn't move. My side ached a little bit, and I pressed my arm against my coat. Connor had healed my ribs after Solomon broke them, but they still nagged me when the weather got cold. I didn't mind. It was a sweet reminder that my soulmate existed out there somewhere. He had been gone for weeks but the sting of our last few seconds together had never faded. They never would. You didn't just forget about a supernatural guy with tropical green eyes who taught you how to levitate and push your hand through solid objects.
At the West Vista Bridge, I gave Tito a backward tug. My toes were numb, and he was shivering beneath his red and white Santa coat.
Tito strained toward the bridge and barked.
"Quiet, Tito. Come on, let's go home."
The West Vista Bridge spanned a ravine and highway, connecting my neighborhood to downtown Portland. Constructed entirely of molded cement, it resembled a relic from Gothic times, especially when the majority of its lights were burned out.
Tito's oversized Chihuahua ears twitched. A whimper came from somewhere on the bridge. A chill ran down my back when I realized the sound was human, not animal.
Tito pulled us down the sidewalk. There it was again, a broken sob, so short and soft that the night air seemed to steal the life from it.
Where was it coming from? The entire stretch of sidewalk was empty, and beyond the railing? Nothing but a hundred-foot drop.
A rubber sole scuffed against concrete and I looked up. A few feet above my head a slender figure stood on the bridge railing and clung to the rough stone column.
"Omigod. What are you doing?" I asked.
The girl's mouth formed a surprised
O
. Her hair stuck out from under a striped knit cap and a reddish smear soiled one side of her blue nylon coat. My sixth sense told me the stain was blood. Hers. Her cheek pressed into the column, delicate features mottled by pale moonlight.
"Leave me alone," she whispered.
She turned her tear-streaked face to the drop-off. When her weight shifted, her nylon coat scraped against the stone like a scream.
"Wait! You can't do this!" I reached for my phone to call 911. It wasn't in my pocket.
"I don't have a choice." Tears garbled her words. "You don't know what I'm going through."
"It's not as bad as you think," I answered. It sounded horribly cliché, but what do you say in these situations? I scrambled for the right words. "Come down and talk. Tell me what's wrong."
The girl laid her haunted eyes on mine. My skin went taut and I felt my aura bend outward. Her energy prodded it, testing its strength. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
