Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) Read Online Free

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    He clenched his fists, unwilling to arm himself with his three-pronged sai until he knew it was time to fight. Too many brutal lessons had stripped him of his desire to strike a lethal blow unless he had no other option. Unfortunately, in his line of work, he didn't get his first choice very often. As a member of the Order of the Blade, an elite group of Calydon warriors tasked with the mission to protect innocents from Calydons who had gone rogue, his job required him to cut down men who had once been sane, some of whom had once been his friend or teammate. Sometimes, he'd even been responsible for killing the women who had driven them to such insanity.
    He hated it all, but he saw no other alternative for what he needed to accomplish.
    Right now, he wasn't on duty to hunt rogue Calydons. His only job was to find a way to save the life of his teammate, Thano Savakis, and that's why he was here in this jungle, swatting at bugs and prostrating himself to a team of Calydons he knew he couldn't trust.
    Moments ago, his team had been in a wooded forest in southern Washington, fighting for their lives against deadly beasts outside the entrance to the nether-realm, the doomed, deadly realm that bred creatures worse than demons. They'd been fighting side-by-side with a group of unknown Order members, led by Rohan, a powerful warrior Zach knew from many centuries ago, a Calydon he didn't trust for one minute. Rohan had not appeared to recognize him, but Zach didn't believe it, which had made him even more suspicious of the situation.
    Shit had gone down, and Thano had gone rogue, descending into the maddening hell that stalked every Calydon at every moment. It was a hell from which there was no recovery, to which the only answer was to slaughter the male before he could kill too many others. No rogue had ever reclaimed sanity in a thousand years. To go rogue meant the complete destruction of one's humanity, and the utter, irreversible capitulation of one's soul to pure, merciless evil.
    And yet, Rohan and his crew had claimed they could save Thano. Zach and his team had allowed them to take action—which had resulted in Rohan's crew almost killing Thano. He was alive now, but unconscious, trapped in the thrall of the magic that Rohan and his team had used against him. Even unconscious, he was still consumed by the deadly insanity that stripped him of all humanity, the curse of going rogue.
    Rohan had said they would take Thano to heal him, and Zach had followed when they'd begun to vanish into thin air. There was no chance he was leaving Thano's life in the hands of the man who had betrayed his own leader so many centuries ago.
    And now, it appeared that Rohan had taken them to a tropical jungle, one that Zach had never been to, and he wasn't liking it one damn bit. With his instincts screaming in warning, Zach moved closer to the massive black stallion on which his unconscious teammate was strapped. He readied himself in a protective stance as Apollo and Thano finished materializing, shimmering as they completed the transformation from incorporeal to living flesh. Their grounding was barely complete when four other Calydon warriors appeared out of thin air.
    A split second later, as if he'd delayed his appearance to arrive last, the leader of this other Order materialized. Rohan shimmered into flesh, his hooded cloak obscuring his face, while the dark brands of swords almost glowed on his skin. He was taller and broader than the others on his team, pulsating with energy that seemed to ripple outward from him and coat the atmosphere with magic...the kind of magic that would slither into a man's bedroll while he was sleeping and strangle the life from his soul without ever awakening him.
    The five Order members dominated the clearing with their bulk and strength, and Zach's weapons burned even more fiercely in his arms. Usually, one against five were odds that didn't make him blink an eye, but these warriors were Order, like