Black Orchid (Svatura) Read online

  black orchid

  Book # 4 of the Svatura Series

  by Abigail Owen

  Copyright © 2014 by Abigail Owen

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 978-0-9882272-3-1

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  To Jason.

  Thank you, my friend, for an entire series of gorgeous book covers and putting up with my down-to-the-pixel requests. You’re the best!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  All flowers have a meaning. In the Victorian era, people used flowers as symbols to express their feelings.

  black orchid: magnificence, love, beauty, refinement, reflection,

  great power and absolute authority

  Prologue

  “Lila!” Adelaide Jenner screamed the one panicked word into her sister’s mind.

  Lila was in the middle of explaining to the High Council her part in the most recent battle with their enemies. The debriefing had been going on for the past week. Technically, Adelaide wasn’t supposed to interrupt. The purpose of the meeting was to figure out how to defeat Maddox, an incredibly powerful dragon metamorph whose main goal in life seemed to be the annihilation of any Svatura who didn’t follow him. They’d fought him more times than Adelaide cared to remember and still they’d yet to defeat him, despite all the extraordinary powers on their side. Maddox always managed to stay one step ahead.

  But right now Adelaide needed Lila. To hell with the debriefing.

  “What?” Lila’s telepathic response was immediate.

  “Nate’s leaving. Something’s wrong. I know it,” Adelaide replied frantically. At the same time, Adelaide sprinted through the halls of the Vyusher castle to where she could feel Nate’s presence. He was trying to keep his mind closed to her but wasn’t entirely successful. And what she found in his thoughts made her sick.

  “I’m coming, Delia. Where?” Lila answered after a few tense moments.

  Adelaide flashed her sister images of where she was headed – a cell in the lower levels of the castle. Muscles burning, all she could hear was her harsh breathing and the slap of her shoes against the stone flooring as she sped around the final corner. There, in front of the room, were two guards unconscious on the floor. The sharp scent of blood filled the air.

  She skidded to a halt in the open doorway, and what she saw almost brought her to her knees. Nate Pierce was her best friend, her only love, her te’sorthene. The word literally meant a friend bonded by heart or sprit. For Svatura it represented a predestined bond between two people that was elemental, almost physical. But Nate stood beside three other women, all known associates of Maddox. She barely acknowledged their presence.

  Adelaide focused solely on the man who was being pulled away from her, like a wave being sucked back into the ocean by the tide. But she was the one drowning.

  “Nate?”

  She heard the pathetic quiver in her voice, but pride was something she’d gladly sacrifice if it meant saving him.

  Adelaide didn’t move any closer. Some sixth sense warned her that he could be dangerous if she did. She searched his face - his usually laughing, warm brown eyes – for any trace of the man she’d known for so long. But all she saw was a wall of hard, dark indifference. He said nothing. She felt the blood drain from her face as a rush of despair rode in on a surge of dizziness, swamping her vision.

  Just then Lila flew around the corner, followed closely by her own te’sorthene, Ramsey. They hurried to her side, and Adelaide vaguely registered Lila’s shocked gasp. With effort she struggled to keep from passing out, pushing her way through the darkness that threatened to consume her sight. She had to concentrate on doing something… anything… to keep from losing the best man she’d ever known.

  “Don’t do this, Nate,” Adelaide begged in a broken whisper. “Don’t go.” She held her hand out to him imploringly. She touched nothing but air.

  “Talia’s my te’sorthene,” Nate said as he took a step back. “I have to go.”

  Adelaide felt shaking start deep inside her. “I’m your te’sorthene.”

  “Are you?” A cruel sneer curled his lip.

  Oh, God. Please no. Adelaide quickly engaged her ability to see relationships. The glittering red line that had always represented their connection as te’sorthene was still in place. But just barely. It was faded and slightly frayed, but it was still there.

  Adelaide shuddered with relief, desperately holding onto this one remaining shred of hope.

  “Goodbye, Adelaide,” Nate said. And he was gone.

  With no warning the barely-there thread of the te’sorthene line connecting herself and Nate snapped in half. At the same time, Adelaide felt as if a wall of terror and heartbreak had smashed through and splintered her soul. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, the sound welling up from deep within.

  “No!” she choked as she fell to her knees, sobbing. “No! No! No!”

  Adelaide wrapped her arms around her stomach, rocking back and forth, trying to hold herself together as her body wracked with trembles. But nothing eased her torment. She turned to Lila with a look so tortured, her sister actually flinched. She felt a dreadful, uncontrollable something building inside her, deep in the hole Nate’s leaving had created inside her heart.

  Adelaide’s breathing came out in uneven pants. “I can’t… I can’t… Please help me.”

  She was barely aware that Lila had knelt and wrapped her arms around her. After a small moment, Adelaide felt tendrils of serenity start to move through her. She realized that Lila was doing the one thing in her power to help her sister— using her ability to heal emotions. Gradually Adelaide’s body relaxed until her sobs stopped and her head lolled on Lila’s shoulder. She was subdued but still lucid.

  Lila whispered to Ramsey, “I saw what losing his family – his te’sorthene – did to Maddox. It turned him into a psychopath. Adelaide’s mind…her spirit…might not survive this.”

  “Maddox didn’t have anyone to help him. He lost his entire family. Adelaide has us. We’ll help her,” Ramsey said.

  But I don’t want to survive this.

  And then darkness claimed her.

  Chapter 1

  Six months later…

  Escaping from the constant cold was impossible these days, even inside the walls of the castle. But Adelaide didn’t feel the bite of the chill anymore. She was too numb to feel much of anything and had been
for months. Ever since Nate had left and Lila had turned off Adelaide’s emotions completely.

  It had been a desperate attempt to save her sanity… to block out that horrible instant Adelaide had lost her te’sorthene. She still relived it any time she had even a second to herself. Logically she knew that losing Nate was the worst moment of her entire life, the worst thing that could happen to any Svatura.

  But emotionally, she felt… nothing.

  “Hey, Delia. You ready to go?” a soft female voice interrupted Adelaide’s thoughts.

  She’d been sitting in one of the common rooms of the Vyusher castle, staring, unseeing, into the fireplace. The Vyusher were a tribe of wolf metamorphs who’d once included Maddox among their members. Now they were the main target for his ultimate plan to destroy all Svatura.

  Adelaide glanced up to see Ellie standing in the doorway. The pixie-like girl was Adelaide’s sister-in-law. Sort of. Ellie had recently married Alex, Adelaide’s adopted older brother.

  “Ready,” Adelaide said. She tucked a strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear and stood up. Inwardly she sighed. All they did these days was train.

  Ellie must’ve caught Adelaide’s thoughts with her telepathy because she gave her a lopsided smile as they headed out of the room, and said, “It’s necessary.”

  This time, Adelaide didn’t bother to hide her sigh. “I’m well aware. Maddox is still very much a threat. To all of us.”

  She had more cause to hate and fear him than most. Maddox was the reason Nate had severed their te’sorthene bond, But, at most, she felt a sense of purpose to bring him down. Training and preparing to fight him, or at least being able to defend against him, gave her something to do.

  Ellie nodded her head seriously, her long, dark ponytail swinging. “He is a threat,” she said. “But more than that, the last time we fought Maddox and his forces, we were uncoordinated and that cost us. If the four of us had done anything to prepare ahead of time, that battle could’ve turned out much differently, and this war could even be over.”

  They let themselves into Ellie’s bedroom, where Lila was waiting. Adelaide shivered at the chill in the room.

  “What are you talking about?” Lila asked.

  Adelaide shrugged. “All our training.”

  “Ah.” Lila looked back out the open window she’d been facing when they’d come in. “We’ve got to figure out how to defeat that bastard. If Ellie can’t take him on when she’s a dragon, then the only chance we have is the four of us working together.”

  In the last battle, Maddox had revealed that he was a dragon metamorph of incredible power. He’d come close to killing Ellie, who was the only other dragon morpher they knew of.

  “Besides,” Lila continued. “We’re not just fighting Maddox. We have an entire contingency of his people to deal with. All of the Vyusher are training together. But with our unique set of abilities, it’s important we be just as ready.”

  Adelaide held up her hands, tired of the lecture. “I get it.”

  Lila and Ellie exchanged glances just as Selene entered the room. She paused to check that the hallway behind her was empty before she closed the door.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” Ellie said to Selene.

  As Queen of the Vyusher, Selene was always insanely busy. “This is too important to skip, and my High Council understands that. We have to be ready,” she said. “What’s the plan today?”

  “We’ll spend the first half doing solo attack-and-defend,” Ellie said. “After Lila was almost taken out by that condor morpher and then those lava bombs in the last fight, we need to improve how we perform in the air when we’re on our own. With no one there to watch our back.”

  All four girls nodded.

  “Is it clear out there?” Selene asked Lila.

  Lila leaned forward to make one last check and then nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Without further delay all four girls morphed into their falcon forms. They each shimmered briefly, appearing to be shrouded by mirage-like waves of light as their bodies silently changed shape.

  They hadn’t always all been falcon metamorphs. Originally only Ellie’d had that power. But now, thanks to a freak accident almost two years earlier, morphing was a shared ability.

  Lila, Ellie, and Adelaide had once joined forces to try to help Selene. Her soul had been scarred by her experiences with Gideon, her twin brother. He’d once ruled the Vyusher and had brainwashed them into doing unimaginable horrors.

  Using their combined abilities, all four girls had healed that scarring inside Selene, but their powers had tangled up in the process. Since then, one by one, each had started manifesting the others’ special traits. Now all four were falcon metamorphs and telepaths. There were a few other skills mixed in there, but those were the only two that all four women shared. So far, at least.

  Lila flew out of the opened window first, followed closely by the other three. Thanks to regular practice, all four birds gained altitude, turned north, and then split up. The idea was that during the first part of their training session, they fought each other, working on individual skills. After they did that for a while, they’d move to coordinated attacks and formations. They were careful never to fight directly over the castle for fear of being spotted by someone who shouldn’t see them.

  As soon as Adelaide reached her desired location in the sky, she soared high, her wings spread wide as she rode the currents of the wind. She used her sharpened vision to search for her intended targets. For a brief moment, she appreciated the tranquil silence that happened when she was able to just be still and observe the world below.

  When Adelaide had first learned the falcon morph, she’d hated flying. She’d gained the ability just before they’d fought Maddox’s forces that last time, so when she’d been called upon to use it, she’d really struggled at first. When she was human, heights gave her vertigo. But now, she’d not only gotten used to it but had come to trust her new form and her own ability to control it. Ellie had helped her a lot, and so had the frequent training sessions. Now, flying was the one thing that gave her any semblance of joy.

  But that wasn’t saying much, and now was not the time to savor this sensation.

  Aerial sparring with the girls was serious business. Adelaide pulled her focus back to the moment and swooped in ever-widening circles, riding the currents of the wind, as she searched. The other three were somewhere in the expanse of blue sky.

  Ah… There!

  A flash of bright white. Selene. Finally she spied prey, and, even better, she hadn’t been spotted yet.

  Adelaide tucked her pale yellow wings in close to her body and dove. She reached dizzying speeds as she dropped through the air. Pulling up only at the last second, she flared her wings and attacked with her feet first. Her sharp talons flashed gold in the sunlight as she hacked at her intended target. Selene was taken by surprise but managed to pull away and then plunge downward.

  Damn, Adelaide thought as she followed.

  But no matter how streamlined she made herself, pinning her wings tightly back, she couldn’t catch her quarry. Of the four Selene was the fastest when she moved into a stoop. Adelaide would’ve been clenching her teeth in frustration if she’d been in her human form. She needed to go faster.

  She had to—

  WHAM!

  Adelaide felt the impact as Lila plowed into her from the side.

  “Nice try, but a bad idea to risk wrestling with me,” Adelaide telepathically chided her sister before twisting in her grasp.

  The two birds twisted and thrashed as they plummeted, beating at each other with claws and wings and snapping with their sharp beaks. Neither one could get a good shot at the other. Finally, Adelaide saw her chance. She managed to snag the top edge of Lila’s wing with her talon. She curled her sharp talons like a fist and ripped a gash open, pulling feathers out with her vicious attack. She felt the hollow bones of Lila’s wing snap with satisfying ease.

  Lila’s sharp cry pierced the a
ir. Adelaide let her go, allowing her sister to fall away into the empty space below. She took a moment to halt her own fall, splaying her wings wide to catch the air. Then she drifted for a moment and watched with almost dispassionate curiosity as Lila dropped away.

  “Help!” Adelaide heard Lila’s call.

  Suddenly, Lila morphed back to her human form. She flailed through the air as she found no way to halt her free fall.

  Finally, some small spark of regret and worry pushed through the frozen void that surrounded Adelaide’s heart. She tucked in her wings and dove after her sister with very little chance of catching her. And no idea what she’d do if she did.

  Chapter 2

  We won’t be able to save her!” Selene’s voice echoed in Adelaide’s mind. “Ellie, do something!”

  Silence greeted the call.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Adelaide caught a flash of brilliant white as Selene dove for Lila beside her.

  “Ellie?!” Lila screeched, clearly panicked. Adelaide flinched at the sound of Lila screaming her head off as she plummeted, but there was no sign of the midnight black falcon anywhere.

  A string of swear words assaulted Adelaide’s mind. Lila was moving from panic to pure rage. Not good. One of the morphs that all four girls seemed to possess was the dragon – a very unusual creature to be able to shift into. Not that they’d ever tested it. They all assumed only Ellie could control the dragon. The other three girls, Adelaide included, had never dared access it. But the beast could potentially be triggered by strong emotions.

  But before anyone could catch Lila or try to help her keep the dragon leashed inside, her body started to shimmer. She blurred as she shifted. Her skin turned to scales, glittering golden in the sunlight. She thrashed her wicked tail around wildly as she tried to find purchase in the wind, despite having a broken wing.

  “Oh my God!” Selene’s horror came through with the thought.