Table of Contents

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

Chapter 42

Chapter 43 The

Underworld

Jessica Sorensen

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011 by Jessica Sorensen.

First Paperback Edition: July 2011

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

For information:

http://jessicasorensensblog.blogspot.com/

Cover Photo by Shutterstock

Cover Design Jeanie Malone

The Underworld—Book 2 of Fallen Star Series Chapter 1

I wasn’t sure whether I was dead or alive.

Perhaps alive in the sense that I was still breathing, but was I even breathing? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything.

Blackness swallowed me whole, and not the kind of blackness that comes from being in a dark room. No, this darkness was heavy and thick, and it wove into my body making my skin damp, and my limbs heavy.

Where this dark place was, or how long I’d been here, I didn’t know. I might have been here for years, month, days, or even just a few seconds. Time felt nonexistent.

After awhile, I started to convince myself that I must be dead. That the memoria extracto—or whatever the heck that memory removing rock Stephan had used on me was called—had taken my life, instead of wiping away my mind. But how could I tell for sure if I’d died, or if I was still thriving? I mean was there really a difference between death and losing every ounce of who you are?

The only problem with my “I was dead theory” was that if I was dead, then why could I feel pain blazing in my leg—the exact leg Stephan had stabbed me in?

Was feeling pain possible after you died? But if I wasn’t dead, and instead my memory had been erased, along with my emotions, then why did my heart ache from Alex’s betrayal?

The ache hurt so bad that I thought my heart was going to actually stop beating. How could Alex do this to me? Yes, I knew what the circumstances were, and I knew what I was—a girl who had gotten stuck harboring a world-saving star’s energy inside her. But this wasn’t just about the energy; it was also about Stephan, the leader of the Keepers, coll aborating with the Death Walkers and quite possibly with Demetrius, a man who wants to let a portal open on December 21, 2012. A portal that, if opened, would release hundreds and hundreds of Death Walkers, causing the world to end in a sheet of ice. And yet, despite all of the previously mentioned facts, Alex still let Stephan attempt to wipe my memory away. No questions asked.

Betrayal.

I knew all too well how much the feeling hurt.

But how could I feel the hurt?

How could I still feel?

It didn’t matter how many questions I asked myself, because no answers ever came to me. All I had to pass the time was the blackness that suffocated me.

Nothing but me and the darkness.

I was alone.

The pain in my leg shot up a notch, taking a toll on my ability to stand. So as carefully as I could, I lowered myself toward the ground, but a sharp pain fired up in my neck, and I froze. I let out a whimper as my fingers brushed the back of my neck, reminding me of when my Foreseer mark had appeared, and how Alex had kissed me. Then right after the kiss, he’d betrayed me.

I sighed as I sank down on the ground, wondering if this was how it was always going to be. If I’d always be trapped in the dark, alone, just like when I couldn’t feel. Although I may not have been surrounded by darkness back then, I was as lonely as I was now. The only difference now was that I could feel emotion.

Scared, nervousness, pain—these were just a few things pouring through me at the moment.

And then, suddenly, my head began to hum, and my skin felt as if it were sparkling. I gasped as I was yanked backward. Something was dragging me through the blackness, leading me to…I had no idea. I kicked and tried to throw my weight forward, but it was useless. My heart raced as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for whatever was coming next. The disappearance of my mind? My death?

And then I felt it; a faint, electric spark kissing at my fingertip. But wait. No. There was

no way I could be feeling that.

There was no way I’d feel that again.

Was there?

Chapter 2

Buzz….buzz….buzz. My eyes flew open, and I was instantly blinded by a bright light. Light everywhere. Radiating throughout the room.

Room…Huh?

My head was buzzing as I shot upright in the bed. A bed? I was now in a bed, with a blanket draped over me. Pale purple walls surrounded me, and there was a small window next to the bed where I could see colorful lights flashing all over and strange shaped buildings that stretched up toward the sky. Wait…I know this place…it was….Vegas?

“What the…?” I squinted my eyes toward the outside window, not believing what I was seeing.

Vegas? How could I be in Vegas? I’d been in Colorado when I’d…well, I wasn’t sure what had happened to me yet. Maybe I was dreaming or something. Perhaps my mind was creating this room as a sort of comfort from being trapped in the dark.

I did my classic pinch-myself-to-see-if-I’m-awake thing and, yep, it hurt.

So I was awake.

The buzzing in my head dropped down a notch, now only as loud as a faint whisper. Hmmm…so what was I supposed to do? There was a door on the wall right in front of the bed. Should I get up and go see what was out there? If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that there was no such thing as being too careful. For all I knew I’d opened the door and a thousand Death Walkers’ would come swarming in, their yellow eyes glowing with the hunger to kill me. Or even worse than Death Walkers, what if Stephan came in?

On my “Things That Terrify Me List,” Stephan now held top rank—one step above the Death Walkers.

Shows you how scary he is.

I decided the best way to approach the situation was to get up and go over to the door. Perhaps when I got close enough, I’d be able to hear something that would give me a clue as to what was out there. And if I did hear anything that sounded threatening or dangerous, like say a deep voice belonging to a man with a very distinctive scar grazing down his left cheek, then I’d move on to my next plan. And that was to escape out the window. It was going to be a little tricky, though, since it looked like I was up on the second floor of the building. But I could always try the whole

tying-the-sheets-together-and-making-a-rope trick.

Sucking in a deep breath, I tossed the blanket off of me and slid my legs off the edge of the bed. I was no longer dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing back in Colorado. I had on a pair of plaid pajama shorts and a tank top. Both had pink on them so there was no way they belonged to me. Across the top of my leg—