Riven (The Illumine Series) Read online

  RIVEN

  | THE ILLUMINE SERIES, BOOK THREE |

  PRAISE FOR ILLUMINE

  BOOK ONE OF THE ILLUMINE SERIES

  “A fabulous YA read, full of many different surprises at every turn! You don’t know what, or who you’ll run into next!” - UNIQUELY MOI BOOKS

  “... Illumine is a fast-paced, action packed paranormal which will keep sinking its teeth into you until you’ve reach the last page!” - BELLEBOOKS

  “I will definitely be reading the next book in the series to find out more!” - BOOKSTACKSONDECK

  “Illumine? What is Illumine? I NEED ILLUMINE!” - THE READER LINES

  “... If you’re looking for a fast supernatural read, this one is perfect!” - I READ INDIE BOOK BLOG

  “If you like YA books about a little bit of magic, angels, and demons, I think you should give this book a try!” - SYNCHRONIZED READING

  “Can’t wait for the second book in this series set to come out this summer. Hurry up summer! I’ve got some reading to do!” - NAT’S BOOK NOOK

  “...[ESSALLIE & KAYDEN’S] witty banter, their smoldering hidden feelings, all of it meshed beautifully and I was smitten.” - HOPELESSLY DEVOTED BIBLIOPHILE

  “... The overriding story arc of a girl who has been kept in the dark as to who she is or what she can do and has to seek advice from a creature that has tormented her nightmares is compelling.” - READING THE PARANORMAL

  “This is surely to have a sequel that I myself will be looking forward to reading.” - JACQUIE TALENTO

  “Alivia Anders’ books must be read; they capture the reader from the start.” - LEIGH KERN

  “I really felt like Essallie was telling her story, the emotions and characters that were concentrated on only made me want to know more as I began to connect with them. The reality spliced with fantasy was the perfect mix for laying out in the beach sun and forgetting about reality.” - KATIE QUINN

  “If you enjoy Angels/Demons with various supernatural creatures thrown in the mix, you should enjoy this story!” - WILLOW CROSS, AUTHOR OF BIRTHRIGHT

  “PERFECT YA FICTION.” - ALEX RIMANY

  “Essie... Was great as a protagonist, and dutifully stubborn. Her personality made for an interesting story, as well as the personalities of the people closest to her... Illumine was a fun, quick read that besides leaving me anxiously awaiting the second in the story, left me smiling.” - MERA’S YA BOOK LIST

  “I absolutely loved this because even though it was a fast read, I never wanted it to end ever. The future can only tell what is in store with Essallie and where her journey will lead.” - SILENT T’S BOOK BLOG

  PRAISE FOR OBUMBRATE

  BOOK TWO IN THE ILLUMINE SERIES

  “Anders' managed to weave paranormal, romantic, and fantastical aspects into her novel with seemingly perfect balance.” - MERA’S YA BOOK LIST

  “I'll tell you what, I didn't know the first thing to expect with Obumbrate. Illumine was such a great read and the cliffhanger at the end had me thinking, "What else could be worse than this." Well, Anders decides to be clever and throw a love triangle, broken hearts, and deceit in the mix! It was hard to believe Obumbrate was a sequel, it was just so different--stronger, in a way--from Illumine.” - NADÈGE RICHARDS, AUTHOR OF THE BLEEDING HEARTS TRILOGY

  “[ESSALLIE] Love her, hate her, wanna be her … GUILTY!” - LM SMITH, AUTHOR OF THE CITIZENS

  “TOP NOTCH - PHENOMENAL.” - ANGEL ANNE REVIEWS

  “Alivia delivers for her readers once again in the second installment of the Illumine series!” - AMY CONLEY

  Also by

  ALIVIA ANDERS

  ILLUMINE

  OBUMBRATE

  OTHER BOOKS BY ALIVIA ANDERS

  A SHARD OF ICE (APRIL 2014)

  A BRUSH OF FIRE (JANAURY 2015)

  A BREATH OF LIFE (DECEMBER 2015)

  UNWANTED (JULY 30TH, 2013)

  PROJECT HALIELLE (2014)

  BLACK CROWNS (2015)

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, places, and events are strictly used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination.

  Copyright 2012 by Alivia Anders

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact the Special Sales section email at [email protected].

  This author can be brought to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact to the Events email at [email protected].

  Photographs copyright 2012 by Alivia Anders

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design by Alivia Anders

  The text for this book is set in Adobe Garamond Pro

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Summary: A race against the clock puts half-angel Essallie Hanley in the midst of a dangerous foe determined to capture her.

  Please respect the hard work of this author. If you have downloaded this from a third party or file sharing website, please delete it and purchase a licensed copy available at all major ebook outlets.

  RIVEN

  | THE ILLUMINE SERIES, BOOK THREE |

  ALIVIA ANDERS

  For Mom & Dad,

  Your belief will carry me through.

  PREFACE

  HIDING

  Thunder sounded off in the distance, a faint reminder of old tales on how each time lightning struck, it was an angry and wrathful god seeking redemption or vengeance. Lorena privately shared a dark laugh; the only vengeful god she had ever met had been a woman who dealt with dark magic beyond her control. A woman who only sought to corrupt and swallow every person within her grasp.

  A flash of light briefly illuminated the small hospital room, Jessica's pale face glowing amongst the dark. At first glance, she appeared peaceful, like a coma patient submerged in the confines of a peaceful dream. Upon closer inspection, the set of her muscles showed she was not lost under the ocean of her mind, but was fighting to stay underwater. Fingers twitched as they wrapped further into the white sheets, knuckles nearly blending with the over-bleached fabric. Eyelids fluttered as small, panting gasps sounded through barely parted and cracked lips.

  Lorena reached forward, her hands only inches above that of her daughter's. Yet, she couldn't press further. To touch her unprotected could bring a wave of sharp hallucinations- premonitions of anything from death to life, love to loss. Even the smallest gesture of comfort without a barrier of gloves or clothes could render her only daughter frozen with the knowledge of her Mother's death.

  "Mother?"

  Lorena startled in her seat, hands flung backward in a show of palms. She hadn't heard Jessica move, hadn't noticed the slow movement of her head as she turned to face her Mother fully before asking the question with her rough, shaking voice. Her fingers continued to linger, thin pianist hands extended towards the place her mother's hands had previously rested.

  "Jessie darling," Lorena's breath came in a startled gasp, clearly caught off guard. "Is everything okay?"

  Her daughter reached out further, delicate fingers hovering inches before her mother's eyes. She made a sweeping motion with her fingers, mimicking the crescent shaped bags under her mother’s startled, yet shatteringly beautiful blue stare. "You haven't been sleeping." She phrased it almost like a question, voice light and eerily detached from this world. "What's troubling you?"

  Lorena hesitated, lower lip pulled into her mouth as her teeth nibbled on the already-raw flesh. In her mind she had been playing over the options on what she would say in this moment, how it would
turn her already unstable world even more shaken, until like wet sand drying out, it fell out between her heartbroken grasp.

  “She’s gone, Jessie. Essallie is gone.”

  She was unable to meet her daughter’s gaze when she heard the sound of a small, yet undeniably sharp gasp of breath in the room. Lorena could feel the pressure on her tested body as she sat there, as if the weight of Charon had been deposited on her in one fell swoop. But it vanished just as fast as it arrived, the same time her daughter’s unmistakable laughter broke the tenuous silence that had wedged between them.

  Looking up, Lorena stared in shock, eyebrows lost high in her frazzled hair. “You’re laughing?”

  Jessica nodded, the laughter leaving her gasping for air. Of course, she had known for the last two weeks that the half-angel had been captured, along with her demon lover-pet thing, and had been stowed in the high tower quarters while her body betrayed itself as the Queen’s blood did unspeakable things to her. She knew, because she had been the one who told the Queen it would happen, just as it had all been planned since Essallie’s birth. But Essallie going free had not been part of her vision, nor the Queen’s, and she now understood why her mother was so nervous; the Queen’s failed plans meant she would be returning to Jessica, and punishment would surely follow. Between shallow inhales, she managed to ask. “How... did she get... free?”

  “It doesn’t matter how she got free,” Lorena snapped, her voice rising and falling like the Berlin Wall. “What matters now is how soon we leave.”

  “What happened to lying low and staying quiet?” Jessica bitterly asked, mimicking her mother’s low tones with mock. “Wouldn’t moving your precious daughter ruin that?”

  Lorena bristled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, child. This is a change of plans, nothing more.”

  “Oh shut up,” Jessica spat, all traces of humor vanished. Under the mask of illness and exhaustion, a burning fire of rage and anger flared. “When are you going to admit it? That this, all of this hiding and stalling was for nothing?” She waved a pale hand around the room with a jerk. “It’s time you face facts, and let me go. I need to find Essallie, we need to find Essallie-”

  “No!” Lorena screamed, then quickly clamped a hand tightly over her mouth. When she lowered it, her voice had returned to the silence, shaking noise it was before. “I will not allow you to put yourself in the Queen’s hands like that. What’s done is done.”

  A growing irritation colored Jessica’s sigh. “We can’t keep doing this, Mama.”

  Lorena forced her gaze down to the edge of the bed, staring at the off-white sheets with increasing interest. “I’m not quite sure what you mean, dear.”

  “Liar,” her daughter retorted, breathing labored. Pinches of pink colored her cheeks. “You think she doesn’t already know where we are? As if she isn’t keeping tabs on us. The Queen will find us eventually. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but she will come.”

  “She will not!” Fear brought a high-pitched quiver to Lorena’s voice.

  “She will!” Jessica shouted back with fever. “Unless you choose to forget the day she branded me.” When Lorena didn’t answer, Jessica yanked the thin sheets back, exposing her pencil thin legs. Black shadows ensnared them, caressing the skin as gently as a twisted vice could. With each tremble of Jessica’s skin, the shadows moved, re-grouping over her feet and lower legs exactly as they had been on the Queen’s. “Do you remember now?”

  For a split second, Lorena could feel it all slipping away, her life and world no longer in her hands. Unsteady eyes found her daughter’s, and she stared bleakly at the child she had brought into this world with the hopes of seeing her thrive, not struggle like she had. And now it was too late for them, too late to find the sun within the shadows, to savor the breaths of life they had left. “I will not her have you, used like some toy in her pretty treasure chest. I refuse to let her use you until-”

  “Until what, Mama?” Jessica’s voice remained low, an eerie tone of calm making her words carry more weight than her mother’s screams. “Until I give her exactly what she wants? Until I tell her where her incubator half-angel has ran off to, where the last piece of her puzzle rests?”

  “She will not have those things.” Lorena hissed in fear, eyes wide and brimming with tears. “We’ll keep moving you, stay low as long as we need-”

  “When are you going to learn?” Jessica said with growing exasperation, hands relaxed and no longer white knuckled. Her eyes had opened, two beautiful orbs of color brimming with the vitality one as young as her should have had everywhere. But her eyes were the only source of her youth, the rest of her body having fallen prey to the crippling effect of her growing supernatural power. “All of this is going to happen, no matter what you do or say. The prophet warned me, warned you, that keeping us from Essallie would only bring about the end to us all. Now look where we are, exactly as she predicted. I am servitude to the Queen, our last hope is running in the unknown, unaware of what will befall her, and yet you continue to believe in the madness that if you hide me from it all, that it will vanish.” Her words turned sharp as ice, bitterly cold with truth. “Is that what you desire?”

  Jessica’s words acted like a loaded gun placed over her mother’s heart, safety off and all. Lorena turned her watery gaze to the glass behind her, staring unseeing at the brewing storm, its violent mauve and oil black clouds a classic painting of warning to an oncoming disaster.

  Minutes ticked into the silence, Lorena’s eyes still watching the twisted braids of clouds and shuddering trees outside. “She will use you until you break,” her voice sounded faint. “Use you and throw you away like she has everyone else. You mean nothing to her.”

  “I mean more to her than I do to you.”

  Lorena whirled back to face her daughter, and in one swift move, struck her daughter across the face.

  The effect was instantaneous.

  Jessica’s eyes flew open wider than possible, irises melting to a clouded white. Her hands slammed against her mother’s chest, fingers digging into the slippery silk of her clothes in a grasp of violent desperation. A wild, uncontrollable scream tore from her throat as the flashes of red, white, and black burning into her mind, forcing her to watch the newest way her mother was set up to die.

  “Jessica!” Lorena shrieked, clamping onto her daughter with fear. Arms wrapped about Jessica’s writhing frame. “Oh god, Jessica stop, please stop!”

  “Let me go!” She cried out between screams, the images coming faster as her mother continued to hold onto her. Flashes of Lorena holding a knife, pressing the sharp blade against the soft flesh of her wrist. Lorena standing outside the Queen’s castle, chanting in defiance of her while a guard takes aim with a bullet of black fire from a castle window. Claws, crossbows, swords, poison, fire, glass, water; they all blended into one, crowding Jessica’s mind as she screamed in unrelenting agony, the visions beginning to split her levels of consciousness into different realities.

  Jessica jerked back in a jolt of pain, Lorena’s hands flying off her as she rocked back into her chair with a sharp thud. She watched, knowing in horror that she had broken the very rules she had set in place to protect the fragile relationship she had with Jessica. For a moment, the frail girl sat upright and frozen, screams pouring from her throat. It was all Lorena could do but hug her daughter and cause more pain.

  Minutes pass as the frozen, soul screaming madness continues. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, Jessica collapsed back onto the bed, whiter than the sheets surrounding her, barely breathing.

  Her mother barely spoke. “Jess-”

  “Don’t,” her daughter cut her off, exhaustion running deep in her veins. She no longer sounded like the bright, jittery teenager having awoken from a nap, but of a woman fractured by the stretch of time. “Please, don’t.”

  Lorena ignored her, pressing on. “Don’t you see? She has done this to you, done this to us. Jessica, my baby, my only daughter, you’re mean ev
erything in this world to me. Please, don’t let her take you away.”

  “You mean like how Rinae is all Essallie has? All she will ever have in the end?” Jessica lamented with sorrow, the weight of her knowledge insurmountable. “But she’ll never know just how important Rinae will be to her, not with you continuing this useless play against fate and destiny.”

  A voice drawled softly. “Now, I wouldn’t say that.”

  Something colder than ice froze in Lorena's veins, the breath extinguished from her lungs. Her eyes swiveled around the room, landing on the darkest corner that seemed to rebuff any light. She knew the voice from anywhere, and knew that it would only be a matter of time before the owner of the voice would try and come for her daughter.

  Shapes formed from the dark, stretching out in a flowing river on the ground before rising to the ceiling to take shape. A body, with lean shoulders and a sleek black dress, formed from the darkness. Waves of midnight black hair framed a petite, sweetheart shaped face, two eyes black as coal standing alien against pale skin.

  Blinking her dark almond eyes, the Queen gave a rich, malicious smile of sharp teeth. "Lorena, what a lovely surprise. Counseling your child to do right to save her skin?"

  Lorena froze, all sense of what to do vanished. Before she could think, she reached for her daughter with a cry, hands flinging out at the cotton sheets with a fevered desperation.

  With a flick of the Queen's hand, Lorena stopped, shuddering in mid-grasp. Lucretia let her dangle for a moment before tossing her against the wall, listening to her body collide against the plaster with a sickening smack before dropping to the ground, unconscious.