Soul of Darkness

By Jessica Roe

Three months ago, Talin finally accepted the power brewing within her. Darkness has haunted her ever since.
Now part of the resistance and with the weight of the world resting on her shoulders, she must navigate her ever growing power, and those hunting her because of it.
When a new threat arises, a man appears with a connection to Talin that she can’t deny, and her feelings for a short-tempered alien growing more confusing every day, she must learn quickly where to place her trust.
Not quite human. Not quite alien.
Can who a girl who isn’t either be enough to save the world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Roe
• Release date: Jan 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005977405

Jessica Roe

Jessica Roe is the author of The Guardians, the Fortunate and The Haven series/She's the mother of one sassy daughter, and two cats called Gus and Roman and fat rat named Dumbo. She's a lover of rainclouds, Gandalf and all things fantasy. Also chocolate. Always chocolate. When she's not writing, reading or gaming she works as a graphic designer.She loves to write, and especially enjoys creating a character and seeing where they take the story (because we all know authors aren't REALLY in charge).She likes strong, ready to fight, female characters who are just as capable at anything as the guys. She has a weird love for villains.Don't hesitate to get in contact - she loves to hear from her readers!Join her on:https://www.goodreads.com/JessicaARoehttps://twitter.com/JessicaARoehttps://www.facebook.com/jessicaAroeauthorhttp://jessicaroeblog.blogspot.co.uk/https://www.instagram.com/jessicaroe1305/She'd love to hear from you!

Book preview

Soul of Darkness

Haven

Jessica Roe

SOUL OF DARKNESS

HAVEN

JESSICA ROE

Copyright © 2021 Jessica Roe

Cover Art by Jessica Roe

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781005977405

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Other titles by Jessica Roe

The Guardians

Undone

United

Fortunate

Because of Him

Something Real

Falling For Him

Something True

Nothing Like Him

Haven

Heart of Fire

For Charlotte, who reads my books. I like that in a person

Table of contents

Translation Guide

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

Epilogue

Translation Guide

JHAREKIAN

Jharek – another world, similar to Earth

Jharekian – their version of human

Vorstoff – a Jharekian empire (the largest)

Vorstoffen – inhabitants of Vorstoff

Fane – the capital of Vorstoff

Morrfen Ard – a beautiful lake in Vorstoff

Onjhay – a mountain retreat in Vorstoff

Jhenn – another empire of Jharek (the second largest)

Earlanion – a race of travelers from Jharek, never settled in one place

Xarda – a Jharekian race

Xarden – the race of beings who come from Xarda

Fairhs – years

Rohl – a second

Ifelen – please

Tef – an insult

Nefor meht – forgive me

Hei rehelz – I am sorry

Tellev – live

Retmine – Vorstoffen technology – a holographic wrist device

Starziov – the bond that happens when two beings with similar abilities join as one

Ielaha – the bond of true love

Virren – husband

Xoren – wife

Perinthian – commander of armies

Nahlen – twelve immortal beings who came before the Jharekians. Each of the Jharekian races are traced back to one of them

The Nahlen –

Terratiti – the Nahlen of healing

Hegron – the Nahlen of beasts, and the ancestor of the Jhenn

Rona – the Nahlen of battle

Ior – the Nahlen of the elements, and the ancestor of the Vorstoffen

Sortif – the Nahlen of foresight

Analen – the Nahlen of dreams, and the ancestor of the Earlanions

Fus – the Nahlen of truth

Nordine – the Nahlen of beauty

Elza – the Nahlen of season

Jaffrahel – the Nahlen of judgement, and the ancestor of the GeishaHehn

Ondrel – the Nahlen of empathy

Yinda – the Nahlen of mind

EARLONIAN

Hearl Leh – safe travels

Chapter 1

Day 526

*

DUST CRUMBLED BENEATH my boots as I took a final step and came to a standstill, staring down the enemy ahead of me. I straightened my back, my fists clenching and unclenching at my sides. The late afternoon September sunlight shone down on me, but the air was cool.

Ten, maybe fifteen feet away, the Jhenn smiled as his claws and teeth lengthened. Like the rest of his race, he was tall, broad, with hair and eyes as dark as a starless night. He was evil wrapped up in a beautiful disguise. They all were.

The neglected buildings of New York City towered above, surrounding us. They were all empty these days. Hollow. Just piles of brick with no life to fill them.

You look tired, little one, the Jhenn taunted. They’d taken on our language so quickly, but it sounded harsh and wrong coming from their mouths. He was telling the truth though; I was very tired. I’d been fighting on and off for days, or had it been weeks? It was all blurring together. How many of my kind have you killed today? Five? Six?

Give me a minute and I’ll make it seven.

He laughed at my arrogance. I think we both know you don’t have enough left in that itty-bitty body of yours. That much power usage in one day… He pretended to grimace. Ooh, that’s gotta be one hell of a burnout.

I shrugged. Guess we’ll find out, babe.

I should tell you though – I have a naughty secret. He cocked his head conspiratorially as he took a step towards me. Broken glass crunched beneath his shoes.

Well don’t you just know; the naughty ones are my favorite kind.

Another step closer. I…am not alone.

I’d already sensed the other two Jhenn coming up from behind me, but I allowed the worry to play across my face.

Tell me, little fish, what are you going to do now?

I grinned.

Kade sprung up behind him from where he’d been lying in wait down the side of a narrow alleyway. The Jhenn had been so focused on me, his grand prize, that he hadn’t bothered to sense if anyone else was out here. Superior species, my ass.

Guess what, Kade drawled, wrapping his Vorstoffen made whip around the Jhenn’s throat. She ain’t alone either, bitch.

Jhenn were invulnerable to human weapons, but not Vorstoffen made. The whip sizzled at the skin around his throat, and whilst Kade held him captive, I aimed a burst of power at him from my palm. The purple light hit him straight in the chest. Guess I have more power than any of you anticipated, I said to him, right before he disintegrated.

Now that is just disgusting, Kade spat, swiping alien dust off the black, tight fitting combat suit we all wore. The material was thin, but tough – another thing the Vorstoffen had gifted us.

I didn’t have time to apologize, because the two Jhenn behind me chose that moment to swipe for me with their claws. I ducked and rolled sideways, whipping out my two daggers in one swift movement. These daggers and I had history, and it wasn’t all daisies and roses. They’d been a gift from War, one of the four leaders of Haven. I had cherished them, and then they’d been used to torture me with for hours on end when I’d been kidnapped by Uren, one of the higher ranking Jhenn, and his merry band of psycho misfits. After I’d been rescued by Makail and taken back home to Haven, War had brought them back to me. Even though she’d cleaned them, for a while all I’d been able to see when I looked at them was blood – my blood – and we’d considered melting them down and forging something new. But I’d changed my mind and decided to keep them as a reminder of what evil was out there, and to use them in kind to repay what had been done to me.

I was still crouched on the ground when Joe and Trion, two more members of Team Alpha, threw themselves out of a nearby window to engage with one of the Jhenn. Vorstoffen weapons were scarce so they were sharing a sword as they fought him, throwing it back and forth with an unrivalled skill. Trion had been the first Vorstoffen I’d ever seen and he’d terrified me at the time. Now, he left me in awe.

David and Sasha, who had been hiding in a rusted, abandoned car, took on the other. I watched on with a grin as they fought the female Jhenn, using no weapons at all. They ducked her claws, attacking only with fists and kicks as they pushed her forwards, towards Joe and Trion.

Now! Sasha yelled, kicking her Jhenn into theirs so they were back to back.

Joe threw the sword to Sasha and with no hesitation, she rammed it straight through the two Jhenn, piercing them together. Gasping, the Jhenn clawed at the metal sticking out of their chests, but it was already too late. They dropped to the ground not seconds later, dead.

Sasha yanked out the sword, wiping off the blue blood on a bandana before throwing it to Trion, who sheathed it on his back. Tossing her waves of fiery red hair over a shoulder, she cocked a hand on her hip and smirked. And the kill of the day award goes to…

"You teffing kidding? Trion protested. Didn’t you see me throw that one into Talin’s blast this morning?"

That one was definitely a steal, Joe said, offering a hand to help me up. I took it, feeling tiny next to him as I always did. Before the invasion, Joe had been a wrestler. He was a mountain of a man, almost as big and broad as the aliens were. He was also the sweetest, when he wasn’t pounding on aliens.

It was, I agreed, putting my daggers away. Sasha for the win.

Why, thank you. She gave a low, dramatic bow, sweeping one arm in the air to her side. It was a façade. Three months ago, Sasha had lost her lover. He’d been tortured to death and used as bate to lure us into a trap. Sometimes I could hear her cry at night, though she tried to hide it. It was on nights like that, that made being in a team full of males so difficult – Team Alpha was made up from the best of the best the rebellion had to offer, but when it came to a crying woman… On those nights, I would sleep next to Sasha and hold her hand. I think it helped her feel less alone.

Alright, you bunch of rambling eejits, Kade chided as he approached our little group, rolling his eyes at our antics. Y’all did a good job today. Gold stars all around. He pressed a button on his retmine, opening up our team’s comms. Okay, everyone. Regroup. Sending co-ordinates.

The rest of Team Alpha arrived from where they’d been scouting out other parts of the city, making us twelve again. We had been thirteen up until a month ago, when we had lost one of our men in an explosion. We’d all seen more death than any of us could ever imagine, but it never made it any easier.

Anything? Kade asked them.

All clear, Albon reported. His white blond hair was cut short, and his eyes a frosty grey. Like all Vorstoffen, when he used our languages, it sounded like a melody. I much preferred to it to Jhenn’s way of speech. That was the last of them today, I think.

Good job, Kade repeated. He was a Texan cowboy whose sarcasm rivalled my own and I wanted to punch him in the face most of the time, but he was a great team leader. He always made sure we knew our value. That puts us at eight Jhenn today. Highest number we’ve had so far since we’ve been out here. He glanced at me. You holding up, sparky?

A couple hours sleep and I’ll be good. I wasn’t being entirely honest. Already I could feel my store of power replenishing, without rest. The more I used this power, the easier it became. I worried that there was no end to it. It wasn’t normal. When I’d first began training with Makail, I’d thought my power to be a lot like the Vorstoffen. They had a well of power, and if used too much over a short space of time they reached the bottom and burned out until they rested and ate. But mine was appearing more and more so to be…bottomless.

I found us a place to crash for the night, Art told us. At only nineteen, he was the youngest in the team after me. Like with most people at Haven we’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but though he was as cocky and arrogant as any teenage boy, he’d grown on me these past few months. Couple of blocks south from here. There’s a department store with a secure storage room and only one exit.

Kade slapped him on the back. Then let’s set up camp.

***

Day 529

*

I was lost in a sea of darkness. True darkness. I couldn’t see my hands, my feet, anything at all. It surrounded me, consumed me.

No. The darkness wasn’t consuming me.

It was me.

I was the darkness.

Yes, a voice whispered around me. I had no idea where it came from. It seemed to be everywhere, but nowhere. You are the darkness. You are death. You like it here. You want to stay.

I jerked awake, my eyes snapping open as I inhaled a sharp breath.

A dream. It was just a dream. A nightmare. The same nightmare I’d been having for three months now. It had started not long after I’d been taken by Uren; the same night I’d finally accepted my powers as a part of me.

I continued to lay still in the dark for a few minutes, focusing on breathing in and out, chasing away the dread of the nightmare. This was a different kind of dark. I could see the sleeping bodies of my team around me, and their quiet snores soothed my soul. The storage room we were sleeping in was cramped, but I didn’t mind; it made me feel safe.

Feeling a pair of eyes on me, I turned my head. Kade was already awake, watching me knowingly. He tapped his retmine and aimed a thumb at the door. 2am. It was our turn to take watch.

***

Our team had been in the city for almost three weeks now. We’d been stalking the streets, searching for Jhenn. It had been a plan Kade and I had cooked up after I’d told him about the conversation Nat and I had overheard between Uren and the two other Jhenn the first day we’d met. They’d been talking about cleaning the city up and making a base here.

We were sick of constantly being on defense. We wanted to throw them off guard; we wanted to attack them, and since we knew they would likely be here, it had been a good place to start.

It had been a sound plan. For almost three weeks we’d been fighting every day – mostly Jhenn, but some of the humans who worked with them too. We’d find a safe place to catch a couple hours sleep, and then we’d hunt them down and fight some more. The system worked, thanks to the mark on my arm. I’d gotten it when I’d been caught up in a blast on the first day of the invasion, and it grew warm when Jhenn were near, alerting us to their presence. It didn’t work on humans, but we’d survived them too.

Thank God, Timothy heaved out dramatically when Kade and I arrived to switch watch shifts. Despite the early hours, he leapt to his feet with the grace and ability of a gymnast athlete. Need to catch me some z’s.

Edan, about twenty years Timothy’s senior and not half as spry, but with skills that could give Jason Bourne a run for his money, raised his brows at Kade as he rolled to his feet. Please don’t put me on watch with the kid again - he makes my brain hurt, he said, ambling back to the storage room.

I like Timothy, I commented midly as Kade and I took seats against opposing walls near the window. Timothy had been free running most of his life, and he reminded me of Spiderman. He said he’d teach me to hop buildings.

Well for the love of mercy, don’t tell Makail that, Kade said with a grunt. Kade, I had learned, was even grumpier when he didn’t get a full night of sleep. And out here, away from the safety of Haven, a full night of sleep didn’t exist.

We fell into silence after that, shadows and the moon outside our only company.

That’s our third day with no encounters, Kade spoke up after a while. What do you think?

I stared through the dirty glass window down to the empty streets below; to the rubble, the destruction. I think we’ve chased them away for now. That last fight - they sent more than any other day. I think that was the last stand for the city.

Yeah, I don’t wanna call it too soon, but I think we might just have won this one. There was a small smile on his face. With no bathing facilities and only bottled water to clean ourselves with, we were all on the wrong side of nasty by this point. Kade’s usual dark blond scruff had grown out into a full beard, and he scratched at it as he thought. They backed down.

A win would be nice.

We could start sending our own people here, Kade mused out loud. Begin making it habitable again.

We fell back into a comfortable silence for the next hour, staring vigilantly out of the window for any sign of movement. There was none.

You wanna talk about that nightmare you’ve been having? he asked eventually, not looking my way.

My muscles froze up, and it took a whole minute before I could open my mouth to answer him.

Kade and I had instantly disliked each other when we’d first met. Partly because him and the rest of Team Alpha had kidnapped me and held me prisoner, but mostly because we were both stubborn assholes who rubbed each other the wrong way. We were still stubborn assholes who rubbed each other the wrong way, but a trust had developed between us; and, though I would never admit it out loud, a friendship. These days, I trusted Kade more than most, because I could always guarantee on his honesty, even if I didn’t like what he had to say. But even still… Same old, same old. Nothing special. Regular, run of the mill alien apocalyptic fun.

He looked down at the shotgun resting on his knee, then back at me. You know, in my experience, when something’s haunting you… You fare better against it when you ain’t alone. He turned back to the window then, and I knew our conversation was over. That was Kade’s way of letting me know he was there for me when I wanted, but he wouldn’t push

I smiled.

***

At 4am precisely, Avery and Morgan came to release us from our two-hour shift.

You gonna grab another couple hours shut eye? Kade asked around a yawn. He looked how I felt. Rough.

I pulled a face. You know the drill.

With an amused snort, he ruffled my hair and shuffled back to the storage room. I took a turn in the opposite direction, heading for a quiet, secluded corner behind a set of shelves. Far away enough that no one could see me, but close by so that they could hear if I called out for aid.

Sure enough, at 4.05am to the second, my retmine beeped. Sitting cross legged on the ground, I accepted the call and watched as a life-size, holographic copy of Makail appeared before me, sat in the same position.

I missed him. This transparent, blue tinted version of him that I couldn’t touch just wasn’t enough.

Are you ready to begin? His deep, lilted voice was still soft from sleep.

Good morning, Talin. How are you today? I grumbled petulantly, folding my arms across my chest. I made my