Read Online The Silver Siren by Chanda Hahn - Free Book Online Page A

I was thrown into the
dark shed. The heavy wooden door creaked shut behind me. My lip
stung. Somehow in my struggle I had been elbowed in the lip. I
raised my hand to touch it and winced. I should be panicking,
pacing, screaming in suffocating heat that was my
prison.
    Instead, I sat down, crossed my legs,
and waited.
     

Chapter 10
    One
of the hardest lessons I never learned was patience.
    My clan was certainly not known for
it. I despised it as well as the craziness that comes with being
idle for long periods of time. I decided it was worse torture than
splinters under my nails.
    I counted to ten thousand—twice.
During that span, I felt the air around me become
cooler.
    It was time.
    I stood up and stretched out my arms
and legs, did a few squats, then headed to the locked door. I had
listened very carefully over the last few hours, and I didn’t hear
anyone outside guarding my little shed. I could only hope it was
because Alba hadn’t suggested more precautions against me. My
father had a saying about people that assumed things.
    Leaning against the door, I brushed my
fingers over the chilled metal lock and felt around it for the
dense wood frame. My hand grew warm, and I bit my lip as I
concentrated. I was phenomenal at destroying things in big showy
explosions, or anything that I could just let loose on. Smaller
tasks that required more thought, more tact, and more skill were
beyond my training, except for healing. That was just encouraging
the body in what it already wanted to do—protect and heal
itself.
    Sweat trickled down my forehead, and I
shifted my weight. I was trying to break open the lock quietly. If
I had a set of lock picks or Joss’s ability to teleport, I would
probably have been better equipped. Instead, I kept my focus on
breaking the wood around the lock.
    The beam grew warm and I could feel it
start to warp under my hand. I heard the first faint creak followed
by a crackling noise as the wood buckled. I waited a few seconds
for someone to give a cry of an alarm, but there was silence. I
continued my attack on the frame, slowly. As I pushed more power
toward the wood, the strain on the wood intensified, and it
cracked. The large lock fell off and the whole door shifted down.
Jumping back, I waited in case the door fell off. It slowly swung
outward.
    Creeping forward, I peeked out into
the night and gently pushed the door forward enough that I could
slide out and duck into the shadows. Someone grabbed my arm and
pulled me into the night. Their arm wrapped around my throat,
pressing my back against their body. My mind went through all of
the drills Kael had taught me, and I reached for a pressure point
on the attacker’s hand.
    I heard a cry of pain, but I didn’t
stop. I grabbed his wrist and twisted my own body, forcing his body
weight to the ground. By controlling his arm, I controlled his
whole body, but I needed to silence him before he called out for
help.
    Part of me wanted to kill him, but I
restrained myself. I picked up the large iron lock from the ground
with my left and swung it at his temple. On contact, the guard fell
forward and didn’t move. Quickly, I dragged his body into the shed
and gently closed the door. From a distance it wouldn’t look like
it had been broken open.
    I just prayed no one would take a
closer look.
    Where to next? I had to find Kael. I
don’t care what he said—or in this case didn’t say—about the
SwordBrothers, I was not going to leave him to their machinations,
but first things first.
    I needed a weapon.
    I kept to the shadows and stayed close
to the buildings. The streets were empty except for a stray cat. I
looked along the rooftops of the buildings and could see
silhouettes and torches. When a silhouette moved, I knew it was a
sentry. I could see similar torches along the valley’s walls. A
door opened down the road, and two figures stepped out of a
building, walking toward a tall tower.
    I followed close behind and listened
to what they were