Darkening Chaos: Book Three of The Destroyer Trilogy Read online

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  Darkening Chaos

  Book 3 of The Destroyer Trilogy

  ***

  DelSheree Gladden

  Also by DelSheree Gladden

  Escaping Fate

  Twin Souls

  Book One of the Twin Souls Saga

  Shaxoa’s Gift

  Book Two of the Twin Souls Saga

  Qaletaqa

  Book Three of the Twin Souls Saga

  Inquest

  Book One of the Destroyer Trilogy

  Secret of Betrayal

  Book Two of the Destroyer Trilogy

  Wicked Hunger

  Book One: SomeOne Wicked This Way Comes

  Darkening Chaos

  Book Three

  of The Destroyer Trilogy

  By DelSheree Gladden

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2012 DelSheree Gladden

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2012 DelSheree Gladden

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For Ryan

  For making sure the ending

  didn’t fall short

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Linda Ulleseit, Angela Fristoe, and Rhonda Sermon for reading Darkening Chaos and for their support and recommendations. Thank you to the talented Kassondra Levesque for all her help with the book cover and promotion.

  Thank you to my husband, Ryan, for helping me make sure this book pulled everything together and gave readers an ending they wouldn’t forget.

  Thank you to Dalene Meek, for her support and friendship over the last few years. I am so grateful for her enthusiasm for my books and her willingness to tell everyone about them.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Jeopardy

  Chapter 2: Deadline

  Chapter 3: Captured

  Chapter 4: Human

  Chapter 5: Invincible

  Chapter 6: Time to Choose

  Chapter 7: Angry Hope

  Chapter 8: Haunted

  Chapter 9: Fair Chance

  Chapter 10: This One Thing

  Chapter 11: Specter

  Chapter 12: Evaluation

  Chapter 13: Inhumanity

  Chapter 14: No Second Chances

  Chapter 15: In My Pocket

  Chapter 16: Slow Caress

  Chapter 17: On the Brink

  Chapter 18: Back to Lying

  Chapter 19: Shatter

  Chapter 20: An Empty Place

  Chapter 21: Creative Uses

  Chapter 22: Death House

  Chapter 23: Wreckage

  Chapter 24: Redemption

  Chapter 25: From Truth

  Chapter 26: Faith

  Chapter 27: Morbid Curiosity

  Chapter 28: The Right One

  Chapter 29: Time Flies

  Chapter 30: Gateway

  Chapter 31: Strangest Thing

  Chapter 32: Combining

  Chapter 33: Trust

  Chapter 34: Alive

  Chapter 35: The Cost

  Chapter 36: One More Secret

  Chapter 37: Darkening Chaos

  Chapter 38: Life

  Sneak Peek of Wicked Hunger

  About the Author

  Also by DelSheree Gladden

  Darkening Chaos

  Book Three of the Destroyer Trilogy

  Chapter 1

  Jeopardy

  There have been very few times in my life when I thought I had everything figured out. The problem is that even when I think I have the puzzle solved, there always seems to be a piece missing, the one piece that will make the difference between utter failure and complete victory. This is my last chance to get it right. Now more than ever, failure means death. And not just for me this time. For everyone.

  The men who want to kill me are right behind these double doors. I am well aware of that fact, but I open them anyway. Their cameras have been trained on me since I reached the compound parking lot. So, the pack of rabid-looking Guardians filling the lobby is no surprise. Neither is them being completely unarmed. They don’t need any weapons to kill me. They are weapons. Faster than any animal, stronger, too, and every inch of their bodies is honed to murderous anarchy. There are dozens of them glaring at me, probably close to fifty. Thank goodness this is a relatively small compound. I can pick out which ones are Seekers, Guardians with Vision to see what’s about to happen, and a vindictive pleasure rises in me as I see their faces screw up in confusion. The only thing that does give me pause is the look on Captain Linden Blackwood’s face.

  Barely restrained ecstasy glares at me from his eyes. The pure, red hot hatred roiling off of him doesn’t do a whole lot to steady me, either. Sometimes I really hate having Perception. There are plenty of times I would rather not have to feel everyone else’s emotions. I have to tap my Naturalism talent to control my muscles and keep them from quivering in the face of his raging desire to slit my throat. Blackwood is the one who gave me the ultimatum. I could either turn myself in, or save my own skin at the price of eighty-one Ciphers losing theirs. It was an easy choice. He knew it would be.

  No one says anything, as if none of them really believes I, the most hated person in the world, the prophesied Destroyer, has just turned myself in to them. I take advantage of their shock, and frantically scan the crowd. Foolish hope makes me search for him. My eyes touch every face, but he isn’t here. Part of me is relieved. The rest of me is terrified of what that might mean. It might mean they haven’t turned him into an assassin aimed at my throat, yet. There may still be hope to rescue him. Or, I could be completely wrong, which wouldn’t be all that surprising, really. He may have already been twisted, and they’re simply holding him back to deliver the final blow in the most devastating way possible.

  Leave it to the Guardians to want a dramatic finish.

  The only thing I do know for sure about Braden is that he’s still alive, thanks to our connection as Spiritual Companions. That one thought gives me enough strength to keep from trembling and showing my utter terror at being here. He’s still alive. The man I love, well one of them, is still alive. Even in this moment of being so scared I can barely move, I am struck with how screwed up my love life is right now. Somehow, I managed to fall for two guys at the same time. Milo, for loving me when no one else would, and Braden, for bringing happiness back into my world. But even worse, one of them hates me for the necessary lies I fed him, and the other one is probably working out the best way to murder me right now. World’s best girlfriend I am not.

  My heart starts pumping harder as the Guardians begin to shift, whisper.

  I can’t think about my monumental list of mistakes right now, so I focus on Braden instead. I can feel his life force pulsing inside of me. I wish I knew whether he’s hurt or where he might be. I won’t know until I am faced with him, until he
either kisses me, or tries to kill me. I’m really hoping it’s going to be the first one, but I know how unlikely that option is. He knew what his brothers would do to him if they ever found out he betrayed them to help me. And judging by the ferocity in every one of their expressions, I don’t doubt him. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on him, though.

  Finally, the spell of having the one thing you have worked for your entire life being dropped into your lap finally wears off, and Blackwood steps forward. “You came,” he says.

  Well, duh. I want very much to smack him and call him an idiot for mouthing such an obvious statement, but I don’t. My heart is racing and my mind is fighting to keep control of my building fear. It is a concentrated effort to look calm and in control. I face him squarely and say, “You knew I would.”

  “Yes, I did.” He knew I could never let eighty-one people die when I had the chance to save them. Some Destroyer I am.

  “Where are they?” I demand.

  “Your pets?” Blackwood asks in his most disgusted tone. “Where do you think they are, Libby? In their cells, where they belong.”

  He is such a creep. Anger starts seeping into my body, slowly overpowering the panic and fear. My hands ball up into fists at my side. Blackwood sees the movement and snorts derisively. The Ciphers, once talentless freaks they hunted and locked up in the spirit world where they had no hope of escaping, are still their prisoners after our rescue attempt didn’t quite work out the way we were hoping. My friend and teacher, Mr. Walters, betrayed our plans at the last minute and left them all trapped here. Mr. Walters only did it to save his daughter and her family, which I understand completely, but it still left me with the responsibility of rescuing them for a second time.

  “Bring them out here, now,” I demand.

  Blackwood oozes toward me, a snaky smile showing the perfect white of his teeth. “Now why would I do that?”

  “We had a deal, Blackwood! I turn myself in, you let the Ciphers go.”

  He stops right in front of me. I can see his cronies behind him. Knowing, sickening smiles creep onto their faces. “Libby, Libby, Libby,” Blackwood says as he shakes his head sadly, “you should really work on your listening skills, little girl. The deal was, you turn yourself in, and I don’t kill the Ciphers. I never said anything about letting them go. That’s much too dangerous.”

  Rage boils around me. I can feel my face turning red. “Let them go, Blackwood, or you can kiss my surrender goodbye.”

  For a moment, I can see and feel the doubt in him. It bursts through him like a party balloon stuck with a pin. Unfortunately, it clears just as quickly. “Refusing to surrender will get them killed, Libby. You will practically be killing them yourself, then. At least if you turn yourself over to me, they will stay alive. And you can die knowing your precious little pets won’t be harmed.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I snap. “You’ll kill them right after you kill me.”

  Blackwood tsks at me and shakes his head. “Given how Braden and Walters both betrayed their promises to you, I guess I can see why you would doubt me, Libby, but even you cannot doubt this.”

  I watch as he presses the first two fingers of his right hand against the emblem on the Guardian blade strapped to his left wrist. My breath freezes in my chest. A Guardian promise is unbreakable. Nobody really understands it, but something physically binds you to a promise made on your Guardian emblem. But he has to speak the words. Hope that I haven’t come here in vain makes me lightheaded as I stare at him.

  “I promise that I will not kill even one of the captured Ciphers after I have killed you, Libitina Sparks,” Blackwood says plainly. He waits for my sigh of relief, but he doesn’t get it. Milo’s continual paranoia about the Guardians has taught me better than that.

  “What about the rest of these goons?” I ask. “Do you promise none of them will kill the Ciphers, either?”

  Blackwood’s jaw grinds against itself. I can actually hear the grating enamel. I hope his teeth all break in half and fall out of his pretty little head. I give him a full ten seconds to assure me that his promise actually means something. Silence.

  “That’s what I thought,” I say. “I’m not as stupid as you think I am, Blackwood.”

  “You won’t let them die,” he says through his teeth.

  “Why? Because Braden told you I wouldn’t?” I’m still terrified, and angry as anything, but my fight to not run away screaming lessens dramatically as Blackwood’s facial expression starts to change. I push a little more.

  “Braden thought he was playing me, seducing me to win my trust.” Not at all true, but I’m not going to tell Blackwood that. I smile and shift my stance from scared and defensive to just a little bit seductive. “Didn’t you ever even consider that I might have been playing him, too?”

  His dark eyes harden into the mahogany they resemble. Fear that he is about fail is wrapped so tightly around him, I’m not sure how he can even breathe under the pressure. Blackwood is ambitious and immoral. Killing me and claiming the glory and prestige that will go along with it are all that matter to him. And I’m putting all of that in jeopardy.

  The slow change in his demeanor from furious to smug sets me on edge. His emotions are still boiling with rage, but there’s a steady stream of pleasure riding the wave now. “Whether you were playing him or not, you’re already in my hands, on my turf. There’s no getting away from me now.”

  I don’t miss the subtle flick of his right hand, but even if I did, the host of Guardians moving into a circle around me would have given away what he was thinking just as clearly. I can’t help flinching back into a worried posture. Blackwood steps closer. I don’t move a muscle, and neither does Blackwood. We are locked in an infantile staring contest as his men cut off my escape.

  Or at least they think they have.

  Blackwood watches me, but his hungry expression doesn’t fall away until I rise from my defensive crouch and smile my very best smile at him.

  Chapter 2

  Deadline

  Two Days Earlier

  The second we step into the mansion, Ciphers surround me. Most of them are hugging me, thanking me for freeing them from their prison. Even through their jubilant welcome, I can see him standing at the back of the room, silent, grieving. I want to push my way through the crowd and tell everyone else to back off. That would hardly be helpful. So, I patiently endure my friends’ attention until the first wave of excitement begins to wear off. Then I turn them over to Lance.

  None of them know Lance personally, since he has no Spiritualism that would let him enter the spirit world with me over the past several months leading up to the rescue, but every one of them knows who he is and that he is my friend and someone I trust very much. Despite the fact he once tried to kill me. We’ve both gotten over that, though. They also know Lance is a brilliant tactician. It was his relentless work on the Guardian compound schematics that got them out to safety in the first place. He didn’t do it alone. Braden, Milo, and Mr. Walters helped him, but he was definitely the driving force.

  I leave Lance to explain the next stage of my plan for them, which is sketchy at best. He manages to explain the simple act of beginning real talent training in a way that makes it sound so much more exciting than what it really is. I sneak away from the main group to the elderly man waiting for me in the corner.

  As soon as I come within reach of him, he takes my hands in his and asks, “What happened to Braden, Libby?”

  The control I held all through the Ciphers’ reception threatens to buckle. “I don’t know, Daniel, but I’m going to find out.”

  “He’s alive?”

  I press my hand to my chest where I can feel his presence and nod. He sighs in relief and squeezes my hand a little more tightly. Daniel is Braden’s oldest friend. Braden’s grandfather introduced them to each other. The death of his parents and brother left Braden alone at an earlier age, except for his grandfather, but even that could not last for very long. His grandfather’
s health problems caught up to him when Braden was only eleven years old. After that, Daniel became his surrogate grandfather. I know he is hurting as much as I am right now.

  “Libby,” he asks, “what are you going to do? You know Braden doesn’t want you going after him. You know the Guardians will turn him against you. Are you really willing to risk rescuing him?”

  “Would you let him stay there?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but he’s not going to try to kill me if I do rescue him, either.”

  No, just me. When he first told me about the way the Guardians can turn an Oath of protection into a twisted, forced command to kill, I tried to tell myself that even if he was subjected to such torture, he wouldn’t be able to hurt me. I’ve opened my eyes since then. The Guardians are willing to kill eighty-one people just to get to me. And that’s not counting the dozens, maybe hundreds of people, they’ve already killed in the hopes of stopping me from tearing down their corrupt empire. Whatever they do to Braden, it will be effective. They don’t do anything halfway.

  “Daniel, I won’t abandon him.”

  “Neither will I,” he says. “Just tell me what to do.”

  I knew I could count on him. That makes two. Lance, surprisingly enough, has already offered to help me, and now I have Daniel. It won’t be much, but what I’m planning is going to depend more on secrecy and careful stepping than brute force or numbers.

  “Okay, then. You’ve already been filled in on what happened in Albuquerque, right? The Ciphers there didn’t get out, and the Guardians are holding them as bait. They want me to turn myself in to them.”