Ascension Saga, Book 7: Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga

by Goodwin, Grace

  Ascension Saga, Book 7

  Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga

  Grace Goodwin

  Ascension Saga, Book 7: Copyright © 2018 by Grace Goodwin

  Interstellar Brides® is a registered trademark

  of KSA Publishing Consultants Inc.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, digital or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any type of data storage and retrieval system without express, written permission from the author.

  Published by KSA Publishers

  Goodwin, Grace

  Interstellar Brides®: Ascension Saga, Book 7

  Cover design copyright 2018 by Grace Goodwin

  Images/Photo Credit: Period Images; BigStock: forplayday

  Publisher’s Note:

  This book was written for an adult audience. The book may contain explicit sexual content. Sexual activities included in this book are strictly fantasies intended for adults and any activities or risks taken by fictional characters within the story are neither endorsed nor encouraged by the author or publisher.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  The Ascension Saga

  Let’s Talk!

  Find Your Match!

  Get A Free Book!

  Connect With Grace

  About Grace

  Also by Grace Goodwin

  Prologue

  Queen Celene, Aleran Dungeon

  Days went by. There were no windows, so I could only tell the passing of time based on the delivery of my meals. My cousin, Lord Wyse, had not returned since his visit days ago, since my captors had transferred me here—wherever here was. He’d said I was no longer his problem, and I now believed it. Yes, he wanted royal power, a privilege that didn’t belong to him. He’d been bent on that for decades. But I had no idea his bitterness had festered and grown into such focused evil.

  He might have been the one who ordered men to Earth to kidnap me, drag me out of bed after nearly three decades, but he must not have been the only one involved in hunting me down. He couldn’t be. If he were, I’d either be dead, or he’d still be using me for his own purposes.

  Instead, he’d just… walked away.

  Then who wanted me here, and why? Had they known about my daughters when they took me?

  No. They must not have known. Otherwise, they would have killed my three girls: Trinity, Faith and Destiny. Or kidnapped them as well. Locked them up, as they’d done to me.

  Where was I, exactly? I could see enough to know that I was in a prisoner block somewhere. The guards all wore clerics’ uniforms. But there were only a handful, and they rotated four times a day. There was never anyone else. No foot traffic. I never heard them talk to one another or question who they were guarding.

  I wasn’t supposed to see any of them, the black hood they’d placed over my head had made that very clear. They’d shoved it over my head, blinding me, and then transported me, marched me, moved me so many times I’d lost count. By the time they’d shoved me into this cell and slammed the door, I had no idea if I was still on Alera or on the other side of the galaxy.

  The lack of buzzing and engine noise under my feet assured me that I was, in fact, on solid ground and not in a spaceship. But that was all I knew. Based on the cleric guard uniforms I could see—thanks to the gift I’d been blessed with by the citadel all those years ago—I assumed I was still on my home planet.

  And for some unknown reason, I was alive. They didn’t want me dead or they’d have killed me on Earth. Save everyone so much time and trouble. If they wanted me broken and destroyed, they would have kept the torture going. Instead, I was fully healed. Clothed, fed, kept in reasonably restful accommodations. I had a real bed. Fresh water. Food. Comfortable clothing and warm shoes. It wasn’t the Ritz, but I wasn’t suffering any longer either.

  Still, with every quiet slide of my prison door, I feared what might come next. Like now, when the Aleran I called Scarface entered. For the first time, he wasn’t alone. A cleric followed behind, his cape swirling around his knees. He was no one special. A low-ranking member of the guard. The insignia on his chest, which had not changed since I’d been gone, made that clear. But he came inside and remained by the door, which closed behind the two of them, locking all of us into the small space together.

  Scarface loomed in my tiny cell, the damaged skin on his cheek and along his jaw stark in the glaring light. I refused to rise from the bed, to give him any bit of respect. He’d earned none and he knew it. I lifted my chin, my hands folded in my lap.

  Waited.

  “I am sure you would like to hear an update regarding your family,” he said, his raspy voice lacking all feeling. Just like his soul. Black. Empty.

  I did. I wanted to see Trinity on the throne, ruling. A natural leader, she would be an amazing queen. It had been a dream for years, but was something now I feared I’d never see. Normally, she could only rule Alera if I were already dead or had officially stepped down. But my capture and disappearance was a loophole to that ruling I’d never imagined.

  And Faith. The poisoning inside the Jax house. There was a story there and I wanted to hear it. Desperately. Surely it wasn’t true. I’d spun possibilities in my head since Wyse had shared that bit of information. But it was all speculation on my part. I knew nothing.

  And Destiny. Wyse knew of her existence, knew her name. But did he know nothing else? Had she been discovered?

  I waited in silence and Scarface grinned.

  “I am sorry to report that there has been a death in your family.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Saw little white spots dance across the room. My palms began to sweat and I was hot all over. Scarface was speaking but I couldn’t hear him, blood rushing in my ears.

  One of them had died. Oh god! Who? When? How?

  Why was I safely tucked in this stupid prison cell while my babies were in danger? Why?

  “He was no longer any use, and so he was eliminated. A risk. Gone.”

  Scarface spoke in sentences but I only heard words. I could barely process, barely think.

  One of my girls was dead.

  But then I realized Scarface had said he.

  With numb lips, I said, “He?”

  “Your dearest cousin, Lord Wyse, is dead.”

  Relief coursed through me so quickly I became nauseated. A laugh bubbled out of me. Escaped.

  Scarface’s dark brow winged up, but he said nothing.

  I was smiling. Broadly. None of the girls were dead. Thank goddess. “He deserved whatever happened to him,” I replied. “I assume whoever is keeping me here wanted him dead.”

  Scarface nodded.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked. Coburt was nothing to me but the memory of a skulking, somber boy from my youth, and more recently, my captor. A traitor. He was less than nothing to me.

  “Lord Wyse was the Inspector Optimi, father of Radella, the reigning royal, prior to your daughters’ return. He was powerful. Connected. Cunning.

  “He’s dead. All that means is he was a puppet, nothing more.”

  His smile turned coy, as if I’d figured out something important. “Yes. A pawn. As are you,” he replied. He may have acted in a deferential manner to Lord Wyse when he was alive, but it was now obvious he’d held no true allegiance to my cousin. That was v
ery clear.

  So much melodrama. Why bother telling me that Lord Wyse was not the mastermind behind my abduction? He’d been a boy not much older than me when the attack had occurred at the palace. We’d both been little more than children. So, what was this really about? “What do you want? You know I don’t care about Lord Wyse. I’m not afraid of you. But you, on the other hand, should be very afraid of me.”

  His laugh was cold, so cold it made me shiver. “We have plans for you, my queen.”

  “You mean your real master has plans for me.” I stated it as fact. I’d been sitting in this cell long enough to figure that out, and he knew it. “So take me to him. Or her. Let’s get this done. Why keep me here?”

  “Your usefulness will have a time and place,” he replied. “When the k—”

  The sound of ion fire filled the room. Scarface’s sneering lips opened in shock as he fell to his knees, then onto the floor.

  He never finished his sentence. The cleric, who I’d completely forgotten since he’d stood so motionless until now, lifted his arm. The long sleeve fell back to reveal the ion pistol. Before I could even blink, he had shot Scarface in the back.

  My mouth fell open as my torturer, my warden since I’d been kidnapped, rolled on the floor. His eyes remained open and fixed on the ceiling, unseeing. Dead. Blood slowly pooled about him. No ReGen wand or pod was going to save him.

  Belatedly, I gasped, the shock catching up to me. I stood then, slowly, watching the cleric as I did so. I had to be next.

  But instead of firing, he lowered his weapon, the sleeve hiding it once again as if it had never happened.

  “His usefulness had a time and place. And it is over.”

  The cleric’s voice was slow and deep. Calm. He was no cleric, at least no peacefully minded student of the order that I’d ever met.

  Coburt Wyse was dead. Scarface was dead. Lord and Lady Jax were dead. Someone was getting rid of loose ends. Killing off everyone who knew about me, or the ultimate plan here.

  Who was the puppet master?

  As I watched the cleric drag the dead body out of my cell, I had a feeling I would find out soon enough.

  1

  Destiny, Cleric Fortress, Mountains Near the Capital City of Mytikas

  Back home, on Earth, they call midnight the witching hour. But here, inside the walls of the clerical order, it’s more like the chanting hour. In almost every room up and down the long hallways there is a gathering of clerics—either in training or not—chanting. They just didn’t shut up. And when they did, the meditating started. Clerics stayed up late, their bodies somehow becoming in tune to the shimmering glow of moonlight on the Aleran flowers that grew outside the citadel. It was all very communal and hippie-like. Irritating as all hell for those of us who didn’t do very much communing in life. They had more patience in a pinky finger than I did in my entire body.

  But since Faith had announced herself to the world, there had been less chanting and more gossiping, and that was just what I’d hoped for. A bunch of introverts finally letting it all out. Discussing the miraculous return of the royal princesses Trinity and Faith, and speculating about the third newly lit spire and the location of their queen.

  What was actually bonkers was that the third princess they were all gabbing about was me. If I were caught right now, I’d be in their dungeon before I was given a chance to explain. Or dead. It was possible they’d just kill me on sight.

  Breaking into the elder cleric’s office was strictly forbidden.

  I’d heard—again from all that pent-up gossip—that a few hundreds years ago, the offense was punishable by death. Since no one had been caught since, I had no way of knowing whether they’d updated their policy or if no one had ever tried.

  “Guess I’ll just have to be very, very careful.” I whispered the words to no one in particular as I clung to the vines that grew along the tallest tower within the fortress walls. I was like Romeo seeking his Juliet in the high school play.

  Glancing left and right to make sure no one saw me… or for maybe one last moment before I did something execution-worthy, I opened a window and pulled myself up, slung my leg, then knee, then the rest of me, through the opening. The office was at least three stories off the ground, but the vines were thick, and I was small. They almost made it too easy.

  I landed with barely a sound on the thin carpeting and noticed the room was still nice and warm. The old woman who ran the show had old bones, and she did not like the cold up here in the mountains that surrounded the royal city. But then, with the fortress built eons ago, she didn’t have much of a choice but to deal with the weather. The clerical order had formed when the royal bloodline did. The first queen recognized by the citadel had accepted the oath of the first cleric, and so it had begun. Generation after generation, the clerics had served Alera in the matters of law and protection for the realm. They were the scribes and record keepers, and trusted with knowledge known only to a few. Both the clerical order and the royal bloodline were linked to the citadel somehow, but each chose to keep their secrets. The clerics had served the royal family—my family—for millennia.

  “Bunch of fucking traitors.” Not all of them were bad. I’d been training with them, eating with them, pretending to be one of them for two weeks now. I was a novice. A new initiate. And they’d welcomed me into the fold. Most of them were good, solid people. Kind. Friendly. Supportive.

  But not all of them. No, someone—or someones—within was rotten to the core. Yeah, there was a really bad apple spoiling the whole dang bunch. And I would hunt down the traitors if I died doing it. They still had Mom. They’d tried to kill Trinity and my twin, Faith, more than once.

  If they knew who I was, no doubt they’d try to kill me as well. It was obvious we were wanted dead. I grinned, thinking our arrival on Alera must have totally fucked up their plans. Ha!

  Moving forward swiftly in the dark, I stubbed my toe on an unexpected outcropping from a chair. I hissed and hopped about. “Damn it.” The words were barely more than a grunt, but I heard something move in answer outside. Below me. On the ground.

  Then a rustling.

  The vines.

  Oh, shit.

  Someone was climbing the vines. Romeo, himself, this time? I was no Juliet waiting to be whisked away. And fuck it all, they were moving even faster than I had. I didn’t have time to go anywhere, and the room’s door—which normal people used to come in—would be solidly locked. I had to hide and hope whoever was coming would lead me to another clue about my mother. I knew the clerics had her. Somewhere. The rumor mill was buzzing with whispers and speculation about a very top-secret prisoner. It had to be Mom, or to Alerans, Queen Celene. It just had to be.

  Because if it weren’t, I’d run into a dead end and we were all screwed. Mom would die. And I just couldn’t live with myself if that happened.

  Hobbling on my aching toe, I dashed to a corner so dark with shadows it looked black. There I stood, immobile, and waited to see who my unexpected visitor might be. What were the chances of there being two snooping initiates?

  The waiting was an agony all its own. I was in tune with my body, keeping my breathing quiet, to try and still my racing heart—yeah, right—and stand as still as possible. The Aleran half of my DNA had decided last week that it was a good time to go into full-blown Ardor. I knew what it was because Trinity’d had it when we’d arrived. Every inch of my skin was sensitive. My nipples ached, the lobes of my breasts felt too full and heavy. They were small, which suited me just fine for fighting. But they felt double their normal size. My pussy was constantly wet and my hearing seemed to have kicked up into some kind of superpower level annoying. Like I was the Bionic Woman all of a sudden. The horny Bionic Woman.

  I could hear insects crawling in the walls. Conversations all over the fortress; that was why I knew every bit of gossip that had been circling about. My own heartbeat had sounded like a conga drum inside my head until I’d learned how to ignore it and somehow, that had h
elped me figure out how to pay attention to what I was hearing when I wanted to, and feel somewhat normal the rest of the time.

  Trinity hadn’t mentioned super-hearing as being part of her Ardor, but she’d been pretty distracted with Leo, as in naked and having screaming orgasms. Stupid Ardor, screwing with me. It was as if I had no control over my own body any longer. And I wasn’t getting off. Damn it.

  I was so horny I was close to coming by just rubbing my thighs together. And I heard everything that went on in the place. Everything. Including a few rather sexy encounters that had me squirming and wishing taking care of things myself would actually work. But no. Every orgasm I gave myself just made it worse. I’d quit after two and curled into a ball for a few hours, waiting for the need wrecking me to back off.

  It didn’t. But I’d been coping. I wasn’t sure how much longer I would last before I went insane with lust.

  Which was why I’d decided to take this last, desperate chance and break into the elder’s office. If I didn’t find anything, I’d have to go to the palace and find one of those consort men to take the edge off. Right now, I just needed and I was nearly to the point that I didn’t much care whose cock I was riding as long as it was hot, hard, and lasted all damn night. Oh yeah. Hot and hard.

  I was panting when two large, very masculine hands appeared on the window ledge. Nice hands. Long, thick fingers. Inside me. Rubbing me. Fucking me.

  Shit. I had to get myself together.

  Focusing on my breath, I slowed things down and waited. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, so I watched the intruder slide through the window like a cat.