Return of the Ascendant (The Ascendant Series) Read Online Free PDF

the lights went out.

Chapter 5
     
     
    Kyra froze as the hallway was doused with darkness. She heard Sam curse under his breath. Avana gasped. Her friends were really hamming this up.
    She still couldn’t believe the lengths they had gone to for her twenty-first birthday. All this time, she had thought they planned on taking her into town to the local tavern to get her drunk enough to have her first hangover. That had seemed a more than sufficient way to celebrate her right to drink. This surprise party was seriously over the top, but she loved them for it.
    And the entertainment…dear heaven! If Ty was a stripper, she definitely needed to hit an ATM on the way to the party. From what she could see in his outfit of a black T-shirt, jeans, and boots, the guy had the body of a god. He had to be an actor, too, she decided. He hadn’t dropped his character yet. He was so good, in fact, that she was more prone to believe that he was some alien bodyguard than an exotic dancer. But what did she know, really?
    As much fun as she was having now that she understood what was up, she couldn’t help but think that the power outage was overkill. One of them was likely to take a header and break their neck, possibly taking someone else down with them. Maybe that was why Ty had made her take her shoes off. She parted her lips and drew in a breath to ask them to skip this part of the dramatics.
    A warm hand clamped over her mouth before she could say a word. Light flashed behind her. She realized Avana had lit up her cell phone. Ty was the one who had silenced her. As he had done before, he placed a finger to his lips.
    She shoved against the hand covering her mouth. This was too much for her. She didn’t care how much Sam and Avana were paying this guy, she was about to cut his night short.
    Then an odor reached her…something foreign, yet familiar. Repugnant, like stagnant brine water. The darkness moved behind Ty. Kyra choked on a scream.
    The next thing she knew, she was shoved to the ground and Avana was beside her, clinging to her. Avana was larger than her by a couple of inches and at least thirty pounds. She tried to cover Kyra with her body. Her arms shook.
    Violently.
    That was the moment when Kyra started to believe.
    The cell phone went dark as it fell from Avana’s hand. Bright light quickly filled the stairway. Sam and Ty now held long, sword-like objects made out of light. They reminded Kyra of light sabers, but the light was white rather than colored and she couldn’t see a base or handle like the ones in the Star Wars movies.
    There was no noise outside of the rustling of Sam and Ty’s clothes and the occasional grunt as they fought off attackers that Kyra couldn’t see. She realized with increasing alarm that their weapons were hitting something. Dark, gritty stuff flew through the air, landing on her and Avana. She had no idea what it was, but something visceral reacted within her.
    Remains , the deeply buried part of her consciousness told her. Shelvak remains .
    Bile rose in her throat. It made a nice companion for her thundering heart.
    “This isn’t a joke, is it?” she whispered into Avana’s ear, too afraid to move.
    “No. I’m so sorry, Ma’jah.”
    Kyra didn’t have the luxury of being upset with her friend. Avana had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it. Now, her resistance to the truth could cost all of them their lives.
    Lifting her head from beneath Avana’s arm, she saw that Ty had progressed down almost an entire flight of stairs. The darkness in front of him seemed alive, silent shadows writhing to fight him. Kyra shuddered. Behind them, Sam was pushing the rest of their attackers back up towards the landing on the floor above.
    “We’ve got to move down the stairs and try to get out of here,” Kyra told Avana, getting unsteadily to her feet. It was a challenge to ignore the rain of black filth spouting on them from above. “We should stay close to Ty.”
    “No,”