PROLOGUE

BEFORE THE DARKNESS SEEPED into my veins and fractured my heart, there was light. But now, all that I touch, all that I feel in the space between skin and bones, is power. Raw, unbridled power.

The kind of power that society fears. Uncontrollable. Wild.

Power that society leaders wish they could wield and use for their own gain. They think they have power. But it's pitiful and weak compared to my own, to the absolute species I have been made into. Power is nothing without a master who knows how to control it.

Only the Shadow Council and the Society of Shadows know how to wield it.

I have the life force of shadows swirling inside of me, wishing to be unleashed.

A hunger exists inside me to feast on the souls I'm asked to collect. The power that flows through me is unmatched. I've tasted the sting of it on my tongue, the soothing, sweet honey of its truest form.

Addictive.

Intoxicating.

Yet, despite the craving that has manifested inside me, I find the desire to consume human souls repulsive. Watching their life force drain from their body as they fade into oblivion, ceasing to exist. There is a part of me that still holds onto my human form and remembers who I am, and how I became this… creature.

A broken heart, a broken family, a broken life. So many things break in life, and for me, it became unbearable. I wanted to stop my suffering. But before stepping from the ledge, ending the human I used to be, something wrapped its icy tendrils around me. It prevented me from taking the fall.

You could heal , it whispered in my ear.

I didn't want death. I wanted to escape. The Shadow Council heard my soul crying for something more than this dreadful human existence.

A shadow appeared near me, whispering promises of something unheard of.

I struck a deal with the shadowy figure that saved me. I became like him. I became an essence of shadow, and so began my hunger.

An Umbra is what they called me—now governed by the Council of Shadows. A ruling government in the Shadow Realm. A place of dreams and nightmares. They gave me the power to live without my heart shattered. To never have to feel any of the hard human emotions breaking me down. In return, I fulfill a quota, draining souls of their life force. The power of nightmares and fear is what keeps the Shadow Realm alive. I traded one prison for another.

But now, there is power coursing through my veins, giving me strength.

And I am addicted to how it feels.

However, as I stand in front of the Shadow Council now, fear grips at the human traces of my heart. The spotlight burns me slowly, keeping me still. Their long semi-circular table curves around me. Everything is shrouded in shadow and darkness. I cannot see one other being, one other Umbra. No faces. No eyes. Only their whispers tell me they are here in this room with me.

I've not felt human emotion since becoming an Umbra.But I'm not so out of touch with what's left of my humanity that I've forgotten what fear feels like.

"Rook." One of the Umbra speaks in an icy voice. "You have been given a quota to fill. Yet you return empty-handed. What do you say for yourself?"

"I have not come across any soul that speaks to me."

The Council hisses and whispers to each other, then another member says, "To stay among us, the Umbra, you are to consume four souls before the start of winter solstice."

"Where will I find four souls?"

"Go amongst the humans; be in their realms. You've avoided the human realm more than any Umbra has this season. If you wish to live, you will consume four souls. Now be gone, and do not return until your quota is complete."

I'm cast into darkness; the spotlight that was burning bright on me is switched off. It's not going to be easy, finding four souls in the human world that I can manipulate.

But as I fly through the realm, an idea strikes me.

Maybe it won't be so hard to find souls if I already know of some that deserve to be trapped in their nightmares and consumed.

My past is a web of pain and misery. It couldn't hurt to use those who burned me, who inflicted such pain upon me—who are the very reason that I joined the shadows.

A wicked smile inches its way up my face.

It's time for revenge.