Contents
The Secret
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
I.
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
II.
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
III.
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
IV.
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
V.
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
VI.
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
VII.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Letter from the author
Acknowledgements
About the author
Also by Elizabeth Hunter
Praise for the Irin Chronicles
Only when the darkness falls can you see the light of the stars.
THE SECRET
Irin Chronicles Book Three
For thousands of years, the scribes and singers of the Irin race have existed to protect humanity and guard the gifts of the Forgiven. They have lived in the shadows. They have kept their secrets.
But the Irin aren’t the only race with secrets.
Ava and Malachi have survived the darkness, but will they ever discover the light? A powerful cabal of the Fallen may hold the answers, but to surrender them, it wants the Irin race to finally face their enemies. Both those coming from the outside and those raging within.
The Secret is the third book in the contemporary fantasy series, the Irin Chronicles, and the conclusion of Ava and Malachi’s journey.
THE SECRET
Irin Chronicles Book Three
ELIZABETH HUNTER
THE SECRET
Copyright © 2015
Elizabeth Hunter
ISBN: 9781941674031
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art: Damonza
Edited: Victory Editing
Formatted: Elizabeth Hunter
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For my mother and father
Thank you for showing me what love
Looks like
Sounds like
And acts like
Every day of my life.
They took and brought me to a place in which those who were there were like flaming fire,
and when they wished, they appeared as men.
They brought me to the place of darkness,
and to a mountain, the point of whose summit reached to heaven.
And I saw the places of the luminaries and the treasuries of the stars,
and of the thunder,
and of the uttermost depths.
The Book of Enoch, Chapter Seventeen
Prologue
SHE WALKED AS SHE always walked in these dreams. Slowly. With no thought of where she was going. She only knew that, within this forest, a dark angel walked on her right and her mate walked on her left. Sometimes she could smell the soft damp rot of the forest; sometimes she couldn’t. Sometimes she could hear her footsteps as she walked over leaves. Often the birds chirped and called, but this night they were silent.
She might see his shape, but often the angel was only a presence lurking on the edges of her mind.
This night, her mate was beside her and the angel’s dark form walked at her side, his presence tangible. His power muted.
“Why do you visit me like this?” she asked him.
“Because I want to.”
“There is another reason.”
“If I am here, then the other cannot be.”
She glanced at the warrior beside her. “But he is here.”
“He belongs here. The other does not.”
A tendril of anger threaded through her dream. “I don’t understand you.”
“You will.”
“Why can’t he hear you? See you?” She glanced at the warrior. In the low light, his talesm glowed with a silver sheen. He didn’t touch her, but she felt his presence as if the whole of him were wrapped around the ephemeral thought of her, anchoring her mind to her body.
She would drift away without him.
“Your mate is not mine as you are.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You will.”
“When?”
The dark angel paused. “Soon. You will know soon.”
They walked, and the night grew darker. Colder. She shivered, and her reshon reached out, taking her hand in his. That was all he did, but the cold fled and she was drawn into his light. The mating marks on her arms lit. Her shoulders grew warm, and the fog that surrounded them grew thinner.
The angel stopped, so she did too. He stepped closer, until his face was lit by the light that glowed from her body. Her own marks. Before her, he grew. And he was not a man. He was more, but she was no longer frightened.
“This is how it should be,” he said, one hand hovering over her rune-marked shoulder. “Thousands of years, and I finally understand.”
She felt her mate draw closer, but the dark angel held up a hand. He was forced to retreat. The scribe said something she did not hear because her eyes were locked on the familiar gold gaze of a man who was not a man.
“I want you to remember now.”
Remember what?
He sent an image to her, but it was not one of the visions that were familiar and frightening. It was a narrow room, and two men were there with a woman. With her. One sat next to her. The other in a corner.