Read Shadow's Awakening: The Shadow Warder Series, Book One (An Urban Fantasy Romance Series) for Free Online Page B

control that energy, usually through telekinesis.
    Most of them had specialized abilities like healing or empathy. A few were supposed to have more aggressive talents. He’d heard stories of Shadows who controlled heat with such precision they could boil the brain in their victim’s skull. Their natural abilities made them extremely powerful, but he could also see how it would make them ideal food for a Voratus. All of that energy drawn through their bodies and translated into fear and pain? It truly would be a feast for the creatures.
    “Fine. Okay,” Conner said. “I’ll get backup and we’ll go get her out. Where is she?” Conner didn’t have any doubt that Kiernan would be up for saving the girl and killing a nest of Vorati.
    “I don’t have her exact location yet. I’m working on it. As soon as I have anything solid, I’ll text you. It should be this morning.”
    “You don’t even know where she is?”
    “She’s close,” Zach said. “This isn’t an exact science, you know. I don’t get a perfect vision with a street address and rescue plan built in. We’re going to have to do our best with what we’ve got.”
    “Then text me when you know where she is and we’ll get her out and bring her in,” Conner said, preparing to hang up.
    “Wait,” Zach said. “There’s one more thing. After you get her away from the Vorati, you need to keep her with you for a few days. Somewhere safe.”
    “I can’t do that,” Conner said. “For one, I don’t have anywhere to take her. I have a job to do. I can’t babysit some Shadow kid. Protocol says I have to turn her in to my handler and she’ll make sure the girl gets to the Shadows.”
    “Inflexibility isn’t an admirable trait, Conner,” Zach said with exasperation. “If we didn’t need a choir boy for this, you’d be really annoying.”
    “Fuck off,” Conner said. “I’m not going against policies I believe in for some guy who calls me in the middle of the night and says he’s an Oracle. On the chance you’re not completely full of shit and there really is a girl being held by a nest, I’ll play along. But then I’ll turn her in like I’m supposed to. Take it or leave it.”
    “Look,” Zach said. “If you turn her in right away, she’s as good as dead. You have to trust me.”
    “I don’t even know you. We’ve got a long way to go before I trust you.”
    “Yeah, point taken. How about this. Promise you’ll call me before you take her in. Can you at least do that? Just call me.”
    “I’ll call you,” Conner said. This was a bad idea. It was only a phone call, but with his agreement to contact Zach before he turned the Shadow in, Conner felt the situation slipping out of his grasp. “Text me when you have her location.”
    Conner shut the phone and flopped back onto his bed. In a million years he never would have guessed a Shadow would call him, much less an Oracle. He thought of his earlier conversation with Kiernan and laughed. He’d said he wanted to talk to a Shadow. Then he’d been so shocked to hear from an Oracle, he hadn’t thought to ask what else Zach knew. Debating over the time for a few seconds, Conner opened his phone again and called Kiernan. He wasn’t surprised to find that Kiernan had just ushered out his evening’s company and wasn’t yet asleep. Conner filled his friend in on the Oracle’s phone call. Kiernan was in.
    Conner hung up and rolled onto his side, folding his pillow under his head. Looked like he’d need his rest. Tomorrow he was going to kill a dragon and rescue a girl. Conner smiled as he drifted to sleep.

Chapter Three
    The afternoon sun shone on the field surrounding the farmhouse, lending the scraggly grass a healthy green glow. Spring had come to the Carolinas. While it wasn’t yet hot, the air was warm and humid from the downpour the night before. Conner and Kiernan crouched in the woods across the field from the farmhouse. Sitting alone in the middle of several acres of grass