Destiny
A Seventeen Series Novel Book Six
A D Starrling
Copyright
Destiny (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Six
Copyright © AD Starrling 2017. All rights reserved. Registered with the US Copyright Service.
www.ADStarrling.com
The right of AD Starrling to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the author, excepting for brief quotes used in reviews. Your respect of the author’s rights and hard work is appreciated.
Request to publish extracts from this book should be sent to the author at [email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people (living or dead), events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factitiously. All other characters, and all other incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Editor: Right Ink On The Wall (www.rightinkonthewall.com)
Cover: Streetlight Graphics (www.streetlightgraphics.com)
Dedication
To my fans.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.
Thank you for being with me on this incredible journey.
Contents
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Prologue
I. Part One: Stolen
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
II. Part Two: Awakening
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
III. Part Three: Deliverance
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Epilogue
Afterword
Your Free Boxset And Exclusive Extras
Acknowledgments
Facts and Fictions
About the Author
Also by A D Starrling
Mission:Black Extract
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Prologue
April 2013. KOFA Range, Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
The man looked beyond the scorched plain at his feet to the dark peaks to the east. The burnt wreckage of a helicopter and the twisted shells of dozens of army vehicles dotted the landscape around him, the only evidence left of the devastating psychokinetic blast Olivia Ashkarov had visited on the men of the secret R&D base where she had been kept prisoner.
The bodies of the humans who had died in the firestorm had been removed from the site in the last twenty-four hours, their deaths officially put down to an unfortunate training accident. As for the Immortals who had perished at their side, their remains had long since been scattered by the winds coursing through the mountains and desert, bones and flesh turned to ash by the flocks of crows that had descended from the crimson skies the day before.
The only trace left of Jonah Krondike was the warped silver ring the man held in his hand. It was pure chance that had led him to it.
Although he had known that searching the buckled, black carcass of the helicopter would prove futile—that he would not miraculously find Krondike injured but alive inside—he had still done so. Agony and rage had flooded him at his failure to uncover any vestige of the man he had worshipped all of his life.
It was as he had slowly paced the area around the impact site, his carefully cultivated, dispassionate expression masking his fury, that he had stumbled upon the metal band. It had become wedged under a rock some twenty feet from the wreckage, its polished surface dulled by dirt and desert sand. The writing upon it was almost unrecognizable, the engravings distorted by the incendiary explosion that had engulfed the helicopter. Still, he had seen the ring enough times to know it belonged to Krondike.
He did not care about the humans and Immortals who had met their end during the intense battle that had taken place inside the Kofa Mountains and beneath the desert plains at the eastern edge of the Yuma Proving Ground. Nor was he unduly worried about losing the covert research facility and the US Army faction who had been working closely with Krondike for decades.
As for the death of William Gunnerson, the four-star general who had been in charge of the rogue group assisting them, he had ordered the man’s assassination himself yesterday morning.
There was only one thing that preoccupied him right now. One thing that ate at him, that gripped him to the point of obsession, that consumed him like little else had in all the centuries of his existence.
Jonah Krondike’s death.
He clenched his fist, the ring digging into his palm so hard it nearly cut his skin.
‘Are you okay, sir?’
The man turned to the Hunter who had spoken.
‘Yes, I am,’ he lied with a neutral stare.
‘We’re being called back to base.’ The Immortal indicated the mouth of a cave about a mile behind them.
‘Go ahead,’ the man murmured. ‘I’ll be right with you.’
He took a shallow breath, cast a final glance at the remains of the crumpled cage of metal where Jonah Krondike had met his end, and twisted on his heels. He headed for the Jeep where his escort waited, his mind filled with a single thought.
They will pay. I will make them pay for your death.
Part One: Stolen
Chapter One
August 2017. Balthazar Island, Pacific Ocean.
Lucas Soul studied the man and woman facing each other across the clearing.
Conrad Greene moved first, the double-bladed spear spinning in his hands, the snake birthmark on his left forearm dark against his tanned skin. Alexa King blocked his blows with her sai daggers, her movements swift and nimble.
They seemed evenly matched for several breathless minutes as they fought one another, spending equal time in attack and defense, the power of their thrusts almost identical, two deadly warriors in their prime.
Lucas was not fooled. He had sparred enough times with Alexa to know she liked lulling her opponents into a false sense of security.
The fatal move came when Conrad least expected it. He had just warded off the blade heading toward his belly and was twisting his spear toward her left thigh when she jumped and locked her legs around his waist. He gasped as she dropped into a backflip and sent him hurtling into the air above her.
The Healer landed hard on his back, air leaving his lips in a whoosh. Alexa followed him to the ground before he had time to draw his next breath. She trapped his arms and weapon t
o his sides with her thighs, and pressed the tip of a sai over his heart.
She arched an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on her lips as she crouched above him. ‘Say uncle?’
Conrad sighed and conceded defeat with a reluctant nod.
‘Wow. You got your ass whipped big time,’ Ethan Storm drawled where he stood next to Lucas.
He grinned at the disgruntled man lying in the sand.
‘I don’t want to hear that from you, Metal Boy,’ Conrad grumbled as the woman above him rose and pulled him to his feet.
‘Yeah, you’re the last person who should be spouting bullshit like that,’ Alexa muttered. Her silver stare shifted to Lucas. ‘You’re next.’
‘Yes!’ Tomas exclaimed, fist pumping the air.
Lucas looked over to where his son and daughter sat watching the matches, faces keen and eyes shining with enthusiasm.
‘If your mother knew how bloodthirsty you two are, she’d faint,’ he said drily.
Lily giggled, chocolate curls bouncing atop her slim shoulders, her mother’s sun cross pendant glinting at her neck.
Anna had stayed back at the house with Olivia Ashkarov. Neither of them was comfortable watching their cousins fight, even if it was just for fun.
Lucas resigned himself to his inevitable fate, collected his daisho from where it stood against a tree, and stepped into the middle of the clearing. He stared into Alexa’s deadly, gray eyes, the swords steady in his grip.
She came at him lightning fast, twisting as she dropped.
He jumped, missed her sweeping kick, and brought the katana down. Their blades clashed, sword against dagger, metal edges glinting under the dazzling sun. He blocked the second sai with his wakizashi, ducked beneath the roundhouse kick heading toward his left temple, and brought his right knee up toward her chest.
She evaded the blow, feet blurring on the sand and teeth flashing her amusement as she danced around him, the sais spinning in her hands. Lucas smiled back.
They engaged for another five minutes, their movements flawless as they sought an opening in each other’s defense, their blades locking time and time again.
A gasp sounded to his right when a sai touched the pulse in his throat. Lucas stilled, the daisho frozen in his hands, Alexa denting his skin slightly with her blade.
‘I guess I win this one too.’ Alexa lowered the dagger and stepped back.
Furious clapping sounded on the edge of the clearing.
‘That was SO cool!’ Admiration was painted across Tomas’s face.
‘My son hates me,’ Lucas told Alexa glumly.
She grinned and patted his shoulder. ‘They’ve just got a kickass aunt, that’s all.’
Ethan turned to Conrad. ‘You owe me ten dollars.’
The Healer muttered something under his breath and reached into the back pocket of his chinos.
Alexa narrowed her eyes at them. ‘You guys were betting?’
Ethan shrugged, unabashed. ‘We always bet. Besides, Conrad is convinced one of us will beat you one day.’ He grinned. ‘Well, one of us did, but you refuse to admit it.’
Alexa sheathed her blades. ‘Twisting my weapons into useless lumps of metal is called cheating. So is using your elemental powers to pin me to the ground.’
‘She’s right,’ Lucas said.
‘I agree.’ Conrad placed a fresh ten-dollar bill in Ethan’s hand and waved an admonishing finger under his nose. ‘This is why we banned you from these fights ages ago. You just can’t help yourself.’
A heavily pregnant woman strolled into the clearing. ‘Can’t help what?’
Conrad’s lips curved into a smile as she closed the distance between them.
‘Ethan can’t help using his powers to cheat.’ He dropped a kiss on her nose.
Laura Hartwell-Greene looped her arms awkwardly around her husband’s waist. ‘You’d think he would have learned his lesson that time Alexa almost drove Lucas’s sword into his heart.’
Ethan tut-tutted, the grin still plastered across his face. ‘Bunch of sore losers.’
‘Things okay back there?’ Lucas indicated the large colonial house under the trees farther along the beach.
Laura grimaced. ‘They’re better now that I’m not there. I can’t understand their fascination with frosting. The one time I made a cake, I almost poisoned Conrad.’
Her husband groaned at the memory.
‘I hear you,’ Alexa said. ‘Baking sucks.’
Everyone stared.
‘You baked?’ Ethan said.
‘You can cook?!’ Conrad added.
Alexa scowled at their shocked expressions. ‘What’s so strange about that? And it was only the one time.’
Laura grimaced. ‘I’m almost too afraid to ask what happened.’
Alexa sniffed. ‘I set the fire alarm off. Big time. Zachary had to repaint the kitchen and everything.’
Lucas bit back a smile. Zachary Jackson, Alexa’s husband, had moved into her penthouse in Manhattan after they got married. He still held his title of Harvard Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology, but now acted as a visiting lecturer at the Boston university while working with Dimitri Reznak on his projects for the Crovir Immortal Culture and History Section.
Three weeks had passed since Tomas and Lily’s sixth birthday, and everyone had finally made it to the island for a late celebration, even Laura, now eight months’ pregnant. It was a tradition Lucas had initiated six years ago, when Alexa, the first of their remarkable circle of Immortal relatives, had entered his and Anna’s lives. Conrad and Laura had started coming to their home the year after. It wasn’t until four years ago that Ethan, Olivia, Asgard, and Madeleine had joined their ranks.
The gatherings were week-long affairs and filled with laughter. They lived thousands of miles away from each other, Conrad and Laura the farthest away in Brazil, and didn’t meet as often as they wished they could.
‘Dad?’ Tomas said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Can I have a go?’ Tomas’s gaze shifted to Alexa briefly. ‘At fighting Aunt Alexa?’
Lucas blinked. His son watched him with an expectant expression.
A sliver of nerves danced through the Immortal at the eagerness in the little boy’s eyes.
As he had done on innumerable occasions in the past four years, Lucas recalled Olivia’s words that day on Dimitri Reznak’s estate in Sumava, when he and Anna had been introduced to the last of their Immortal relatives. He had not doubted the truth of the Seer’s statements then, nor had he since.
He had known, just as Anna had, that their children were special from the moment of their birth.
Although he still remained skeptical about the higher power Olivia had spoken of and the divine beings Dimitri said Guru Rinpoche, the Lotus-Born Buddha, had mentioned in an ancient Nyingma scripture currently in the possession of a secret Buddhist order in Tibet, Lucas could not forget the time he had suffered his seventeenth death. The presence he had felt following what should have been his final demise still lingered somewhere inside him, a warm specter at the very edge of his consciousness, alien yet soothing at the same time.
He could also not deny the evidence of his own eyes.
Although Tomas and Lily were growing at a normal pace physically, their mental abilities and maturity far surpassed those of human and Immortal children their age. They had also started to manifest their gifts. And, as Olivia had predicted, Tomas and Lily each favored specific talents.
Whereas Lily enjoyed practicing her healing and psionic skills, Tomas relished his combat and elemental abilities.
Alexa and Conrad had been the ones who had convinced Lucas he should let the children engage in weapons training if they wished to do so. They had both been there with him last year, on the day Tomas and Lily first picked up swords and play fought each other in the basement of Dimitri’s castle in Sumava, where Alexa herself had trained as a child when she lived with her godfather.
The expression on his cousins’ faces had reflected Luc
as’s own wonderment as he watched the twins move across the fencing floor. Though he was loath to admit it, there was no denying that they were made for fighting.
Lucas glanced at Alexa. She dipped her chin, her expression calm.
‘Sure,’ he murmured to his son.
Tomas rose to his feet, green eyes sparkling with excitement.
‘Your weapon?’ Alexa asked the little boy solemnly.
Tomas looked around the clearing. His gaze settled on Conrad’s face.
‘Can I borrow your staff, Uncle Conrad?’
Conrad handed his gilded weapon to Tomas. He helped Laura to the ground and sat with his arm draped around her shoulders. Lily moved to their side and linked her fingers with Laura’s.
They watched Alexa and Tomas walk to the middle of the clearing. Despite the fact that she towered over him, Tomas faced her with an indomitable stance that caused a flash of pride to course through Lucas.
‘Aunt Alexa?’ Tomas said quietly.
‘Yes?’
‘Forget that I’m a kid.’ He straightened, his fingers gripping the staff weapon lightly. ‘I want you to fight me with everything you’ve got.’
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