by Cara Carnes
Snow and the Shadows
Once Upon a Harem, Book Two
Cara Carnes
After Glows Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by Cara Carnes
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Published by: Davis Raynes Publishing Group, LLC
dba After Glows Publishing
PO Box 224
Middleburg, FL. 32050
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Cover by: Takecover Designs
Formatting by: Glowing Moon Designs
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
1. Snow
2. Snow
3. Snow
4. Zelig
5. Snow
6. Snow
7. Snow
8. Snow
9. Snow
10. Snow
11. Snow
12. Snow
13. Marden
14. Slade
15. Snow
16. Snow
17. Snow
18. Snow
19. Snow
About the Author
Note from the Publisher
Snow and the Shadows
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Princess Snow Cavell finds herself captured by her evil stepmother and handed over to seven ruthless men known as Shadows—the most feared assassins in the known galaxies. Snow’s link to the Cosmos is a threat, one that can no longer be tolerated if her stepmother intends to win the war and rule the Intergalactic Alliance.
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Their orders are clear—either execute her or deposit her on one of the slaver colonies to be sold. But the Shadows have other plans for the beauty, plans that will fracture alliances throughout the galaxies and shift the tide of the Intergalactic War. No one controls the Shadows. They’d sworn to remain neutral during the War, but all bets are off now that Snow’s life hangs in the balance.
1
Snow
My name is Snow. I was born a slave of King Cavell, ruler of the Skeron Empire. I am a byproduct of hatred, a remnant from a mighty, fallen empire. None love me, the bane of the king’s existence. Perhaps that was why he didn’t order my execution. There was peace in death—a peace denied by the curse of my Tezan blood.
Not yet.
Upon my mother’s death ten years before, the king relegated me to The Paradox with an old Skeron crone and three guardsmen. We drifted alone.
Banished.
Each day was a new hell—bitter isolation, desperate loneliness, and terrors too unfathomable to recall.
But I was Snow, the lone daughter to a woman without a name—not one she ever shared with anyone, especially me. She was simply Slave. She had thanked the Oracle for my birth every day. Now, years later, I did too. Each day gifted to me by the Oracle was a blessing.
I learned. Honed knowledge into the only thing I truly had.
Me.
That was my before. Before they arrived and my paltry existence on the fringes of the known galaxies was irrevocably changed.
2
Snow
Something woke me.
I blinked and focused a moment as I cast my aura outward and sensed…nothing.
Silence greeted my ears. Utter stillness, blacker than the inky void outside, grazed my aura, a thick, impermeable covering. I pressed my hand against the hull, which offered a warning with its deathly quiet.
We weren’t moving.
Ten years and we’d never stopped our slow trudge to nowhere. Slower than space trash, we crawled through regions so remote even pirates rarely bothered us.
I dressed quickly. Though each hour bled into another in a mockingly, unidentifiable way, my internal clock declared it was approaching morning. The hour where Yora rushed in and chided me about oversleeping, even though there was no reason to rise.
There was never a reason for most things I did, but I did them to have purpose, a reason to forge onward. Drifting within the bleakness of life.
I sheathed Roteran knives along my thighs, gifts I’d earned from Lazar, my primary guardsman. Fire sticks from Cruna fit snugly within my boots. Starth throwing stars slipped into pockets sewn into my tunic. Plasma blasters at my waist, I pulled the lone possession from my mother—a Tezan sword.
An unease weighted each move as I fled my chamber in search of the void. I inhaled the dewy stench in the air. A coppery thickness coated my tongue.
Death.
Anguish, strong and violent in its fisted fury, struck me hard, but I remained silent. I would not shame the guardsmen who sacrificed twelve hours training me every day. For ten years.
Lazar, Evon, and Vellis deserved more than tearful remorse and fearful regret. A warrior’s vengeance would be theirs. If they died in battle, then so would I. I’d take as many with me as I could—as they likely had.
My aura hunted, sought the invisible prey that had boarded my ship, killed my only companions.
I honed my anguish and rage into a weapon as my guardsmen instructed, and snuck down the long, icy corridor. Climate controls stopped working eight years before. I knew each creak, every crevice of my haven because it was my prison, which was why I scurried into the crawl spaces atop the ship and headed toward the cargo bay. Anytime pirates raided—a rare occurrence, as we never ran into anyone—they entered from there.
This wasn’t pirates, though. The certainty hummed in my veins, a sixth sense I couldn’t explain. The Paradox didn’t groan from the pressure of another ship mounted against its hull. I belly crawled until I could slide into the corridor leading to the cargo bays.
Shouting fractured the silence. Pressed against the wall at the turn, a Roteran blade in each hand, I waited for my quarry.
“Find the slave, bring her to me.” The woman’s voice punctuated the death-filled air with malevolence.
“Yes, my Queen,” two voices echoed the declaration in perfect unison.
I maneuvered to the balls of my feet, ignoring the bloody carnage beneath my boots. My guardsmen may have fallen, but they took many with them.
Lazar. Regret filled my thoughts. He had warned me we were in danger, but I’d refused to listen. Queen Vilma, ruler of the Crunan Empire and wielder of the Summoner’s Well, had married my father, King Cavell. The union aligned two of the mightiest empires involved in the Intergalactic War.
I hadn’t expected the union to be of any significance to me. I was a slave, hardly worth the effort to seek out.
You are one-half Tezan. She will want you tested with the Summoner’s Well.
I should have listened to Lazar. Maybe then he and the others would still be alive.
The Well was the bane of my lone existence, a constant hum within my veins that I didn’t understand or want. But it tugged, an insistent compulsion which proved harder and harder to ignore.
Boot steps crunched and squished. I struck, slicing necks open until their life’s essence sprayed forth, bathing the deck with a warrior’s vengeance for my guardsmen.
Two more appeared. Our gazes locked from opposite ends of the corridor. My throwing stars buried in their throats before they pulled weapons. Rather than retreat, I surged into the melee and vaulted forward. They tumbled back with the impact of my boots against their torsos. A dagger to each throat ensured their death.
A sword against mine promised my death if I moved.
Four. I’d killed four, one for each they’d killed. I glared up at the black-
hooded menace before me. He had appeared from nowhere.
No. He had waited until I foolishly looked down to admire my handiwork. Lazar would be ashamed of me.
The stranger exuded an aura so strong that mine crumbled beneath its intensity. The distinctive, purple etchings on his thin, black armor killed any thought of fighting.
A Roteran Shadow.
One of the fiercest warrior factions within the galaxies, Roterans had remained neutral within the Intergalactic War, declaring the Oracle had not given orders on who was the rightful Summoner of the Well’s energy. Their presence reinforced what I suspected. My father and Queen Vilma were close to winning the war.
The sword tip pressed into my throat, but the warrior’s stillness prevented a nick. I longed to plunge my jugular on the sharp point, end my life so my father and his new mate wouldn’t get the pleasure.
But warriors died in battle. I wouldn’t shame Lazar, Evon, and Vellis’s sacrifices with weakness.
Not now.
Not ever.
I was never a warrior, nor would I be. But they had insisted otherwise, and pacifying their need to train me passed time, made the horrid isolation tolerable for them. And me.
I glared into the turbulent black gaze of the Roteran Shadow. I couldn’t see anything more than golden flecks from his eyes. They were the only hint he was more than a void. Though his aura overwhelmed mine, I sensed no emotions. Nothing. He was the psychic silence blanketing the ship. I had no idea someone could wield an aura as a weapon.
“Bring the slave in here,” Queen Vilma ordered. “Really, you could have fetched her earlier and prevented all this mess. No matter, we were razing this vessel anyway.”
The Shadow hoisted me up and threw me into the area as though I was lighter than air. I stumbled but refused to fall. He kicked the back of my knees. With one move, he forced me to kneel with such ease I knew Lazar would mock me if he were there.
These were his people, the phantom legends he regaled me with when the bleak nights proved too long or terrifying to conquer through sleep. Roterans were a hierarchical society run via a council. Shadows were the second highest warrior faction. Only Dark Guardians were more revered. The people they protected feared both groups. I didn’t understand how that could be.
Thanks to the altercation in the corridor a few moments ago, I understood.
He exuded lethalness like a second skin, a natural instinct I doubted few wielded so easily.
“You allowed her a sword and weapons?” The Queen’s shrill voice grated my nerves like the bark of a Crunan tree.
“It was her mother’s. I allowed her mother to keep her father’s sword as long as I could press it against her throat whenever I rutted between her legs. She was a feisty one.” The fat toad atop his throne laughed. My stomach churned.
I fisted my hands and focused my attention on the Roteran rather than my so-called father’s words. The fact his blood coursed through my veins disgusted me almost more than the vile bitch beside him.
Queen Vilma sat upon a raised throne as if she were in a royal court rather than the cold cargo hold of a barely functioning ship. Her blood-red locks curled around her head like kraken tentacles. The hue shone brightly from her painted lips and dripped off her fingertips. Gold and white material so sheer it glinted in the pale lighting wrapped around her generous curves.
The Roteran Shadow appeared in my field of vision as he stood beside six equally massive bodies I’d mistaken for real shadows. A shiver rippled along my aura, as if someone had punctured it with a pin.
I strengthened the psychic defenses around me, but my temples throbbed.
Eyes closed, I ignored the call of the Summoner’s Well. Even though I craved the healing touch it would provide, I didn’t dare chance its use with Queen Vilma there. She’d declared herself the true Summoner. She alone held the right to wield the Summoner’s Well and its power.
What a joke.
Tezans were the true Summoners, which was why Crunans slaughtered my mother’s people at the start of the Intergalactic War.
Power.
The entire war was fought for the Well’s energy, which could do anything the Summoner commanded.
“Why did you never test her?” Queen Vilma stood.
A column beside her opened. A golden stand with a jeweled reflection bowl rose from the center.
A Summoner’s Well, a far nicer one than I’d ever seen. While only the queen could wield its power, most followers had a Well. Possessing one offered them a chance to scry and learn of the Oracle’s commands as summoned by the queen. Its energy sang within my veins, demanding I touch its source. Sweat dripped blood down my face. The fact it wasn’t mine hardly mattered.
I’d die soon enough.
“Tell me what you know of the Summoner’s Well, slave.”
“I know Tezan royals are the only true Summoners. They are the chosen conduits for the Oracle—the true possessor of the Well’s power. Only the Oracle commands it fully. Your vile reign over it is a mockery.”
Pain shot along my head as one of the queen’s guardsmen punched me. My father’s laughter echoed.
“Bring her forward,” the queen ordered.
I struggled as the guardsmen towed me toward the Well. The queen dipped her fingers into the thick liquid. I held my breath, waiting for the concussive thrust of power through the room. An eerie silence loomed. I blinked and bit the inside of my cheek to remain unaffected by the lack of response from the Well. The queen’s lips thinned. She plunged her entire hand into the thick liquid. The lack of response quickened my pulse.
Please, please respond to her.
As if answering the plea, the liquid pulsated, turned gold. The pale light flashed through the room. The queen purred in response.
“Only a royal bloodline can control the Well. Few of us exist.” She looked over at me. “Every slave with Tezan blood is required to be tested with the Well. Tezan royals must be purged from existence.”
I gulped. A guard wrapped his meaty hand around my arm and dragged me forward. I stumbled, slammed against the pillar holding the Summoner’s essence. Sweat dampened my palms. My head throbbed. My insides ached from the strain I exerted to contain the instinctive, almost primal, impulse to heed the Well’s call. My blood burned.
“This is ridiculous, Vilma. Her mother was a street urchin, a whore. She was no royal.” My father spat on the floor. “I tire of this nonsense.”
“We will be done soon.” The queen nodded.
I fought the guard as he forced my hand toward the liquid.
No. No. No.
I’d once touched the Summoner’s Well with an index finger the first solar cycle I’d been aboard The Paradox. The fallout had imploded the area and left me knocked out for days. Yora had explained it was because I was part Tezan. My mother’s bloodline was a conduit between the Well and its true commander, the Oracle.
Send the power to me, female. Relax and accept the queen’s will or you will die. Send the power to me.
The voice in my head was deep, husky. Steely like the blade of my sword.
One of the Roteran Shadows. I recalled the history Lazar had offered. When Tezans reigned over the Summoner’s Well, they voiced the Oracle’s Will. Roterans enforced the decisions. Roterans were a noble race who’d chosen to remain neutral in the Intergalactic War. They were fiercely private and feared by all. The purple color denoted the Shadow hierarchy.
Send the power to me, female.
I can’t. It’s too much. I thought the response, though I was no telepath.
Send the power to me, female. The psychic push was too much to resist. I succumbed, channeled the power the Well offered, and hurled it toward the voice.
The thick liquid encompassed my hand. My insides burned, my body trembled. Pain coursed through my veins, singed my blood as though my entire body was about to explode.
Send more, female, the second male voice commanded. Too weakened from containing the Well’s power, I obeyed.
“Well, it’s as you suspected. She is a common Tezan whore.” The queen waved her hand. “Do as you wish with her, guardsmen. I tire of her presence.”
The men laughed and jeered as they hauled me away. I punched and kicked. “Touch me and you die.”
I shouted the warning again and again as the men dragged me backward. I knew what guardsmen did with slave whores. I’d heard enough stories, remembered the horrors from my father’s home world.
“I thought you wished her sold at the market.” The stranger’s voice boomed within the room. One of the Shadows stepped forward, his gaze flashing disinterest as he regarded me. “We don’t trade damaged goods, Queen Vilma. You know better than to waste our time.”
“Yes, clearly my information was incorrect. My apologies. I expected the slave to have at least some royal Tezan blood. She’s not worth the effort of hauling to the slave market. My guardsmen will have their fun, then snap her neck. I have no need of your services after all. You shall have another opportunity to prove your loyalty to the new Crunan Skeron Empire.”
“I’m afraid you owe us a boon for traveling here, Queen. I must insist. If you don’t wish to waste credits, give the female to us. I assure you she’ll be taken care of in a manner befitting her station.”
“I’ve heard you Shadows are quite sadistic.” The queen smiled. She raked a long, talon-like nail down the man’s torso. She looked over at my father. “What say you, husband? Do you have a preference for how your slave’s child dies?”
