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Sun Page 89

by J. C. Andrijeski


  Looking up at him, seeing that smile, I knew it was over.

  It was really, finally, completely over.

  As we walked back to the others, still wrapped and wound around one another, so that we could barely walk, I saw that our small group had grown by two more.

  As we got closer still, I realized it was three.

  Stanley was with them now, laughing at something Cass said, right before he threw his arms around her in a hug. Next to them, Uye and Kali were watching us approach, their arms around one another as they watched me, Revik and Lily tread across the white sand.

  Looking at them, I felt another swell of gratitude, of love… of hope.

  It hadn’t escaped me that Feigran said only the Elaerian came here, and their mates.

  Jon wouldn’t be here, or Wreg.

  Most of our friends and family wouldn’t be here.

  Most of our friends and family had gone somewhere else.

  Even so, I wasn’t alone.

  I would never be alone again, not here. Not in this life.

  Revik squeezed me against his side, hearing my thought. Pulling me closer still, he kissed my temple, sending me a hot, liquid plume of heat and love, wound in with a flush of gratitude and relief that it was done. I smiled up at him, feeling a returning flood of emotions so intense it made my eyes close, pain clenching briefly in my heart as I sent it all his way.

  When he grinned back, kissing me again, I gripped Lily, hugging her more tightly against both of us.

  Turning my head, I looked briefly out over that crystal blue water. I saw birds winging there, singing as the light grew brighter.

  The sun was rising.

  I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

  Sending up a thought, a well-wish––maybe even a prayer, even though I’d never been the praying type––I hoped that all of our friends, wherever they were, would experience nothing but happiness and love, success and fun, beauty and good lives.

  It struck me, in something close to shock, that I felt certain, utterly certain, that they would have all those things. Maybe for the first time in my life, I believed, truly believed, that everything really would be okay.

  Wherever they were, I knew they would be okay.

  I knew they loved me.

  They knew I loved them.

  I knew they no longer needed me.

  Epilogue

  THE NEW WORLD

  JON LOOKED UP when he heard someone call his name, wiping sweat out of his eyes.

  Squinting against the bright sunlight, he set down his hammer, smiling when he saw who was climbing the ladder just below him. Sitting back on the brace beam where he was perched, he took the drink the other man offered him, leaning down to kiss him on the mouth before he took his first sip, dripping his sweat on him.

  “Gaos,” His voice and light exuded gratitude. “I needed this. Thank god I’m married to a seer.”

  Wreg smiled, looking over his handiwork.

  “It’s kind of a turn-on, you know, that you can build things, ilyo.”

  Jon grunted, looking at him, then down at the roof’s skeleton, a faint smile on his lips.

  “Turns out it’s a good thing,” he said wryly. “Since someone else spent all of his formative years learning how to kill things, and push people around with his mind… not how to build a house that won’t actually fall down when you look at it.”

  Wreg shrugged, unapologetic.

  “I don’t have that number one commidante thing by my name,” he said. “I’m just here for the free food. And the sex.”

  “And to kill things we need to eat,” Jon reminded him. “And you’re pretty good at building weird mechanical things, funnily enough, as long as no wood is involved and we don’t have to live in it. And yes,” he said, tugging on the collar of the other man’s shirt. “For the sex. A commidante’s got his needs.”

  Squinting into the sun, he frowned.

  “Speaking of which… where’s the other number one around here? She’s not off flirting with the cute seer boys again, is she?”

  Wreg followed his gaze, looking out over the valley from his perch on the ladder.

  “Dunno,” he said, frowning. “I thought I saw her with Loki earlier. Maybe he and Black Wing took her out to teach her tracking or something.”

  Jon frowned. “She’s supposed to be working with the other teenagers. She said she’d get them organized better… or at all, really. She’s got some whole system worked out for the irrigation she wants to try. I told her to put them to work.”

  He grunted, taking another long drink of the cool liquid before pressing the glass against his forehead with a sigh.

  “She says she’s sick of doing everything the ‘stupid and slow way,’” Jon added, quirking an eyebrow down at his mate.

  “Good,” Wreg said. “So am I.”

  Leaning a muscular arm on the side of the house, he smiled up at Jon.

  “Although,” he admitted. “This isn’t such a bad life, is it? I mean, apart from all of the humans running around…”

  He laughed when Jon smacked him, and they kissed again.

  “No, brother,” Jon said, raising his head and gazing back out over the valley. He looked contentedly over the sprawl of houses somewhere in the process of being completed, the river reflecting sunlight in the distance, winding alongside their fields.

  “No,” he repeated. “It’s not such a bad life.”

  For a moment they only stood and sat there, gazing out over their new world.

  Jon followed the lazy curves of the glass-clear river with his eyes, watching it wind its way towards the distant mountains. His gaze paused a few times, seeing flying creatures wing over the rushing water, diving down to catch fish and other water creatures before they popped back up in the air, then disappeared into the tall, purple-leafed trees. The two stars hung only halfway in the sky, so it wasn’t even the hottest part of the day yet.

  Jon didn’t even stare at the twin suns anymore.

  He stared at some of the animals they encountered here still, and the strange plants, and the trees, and the odd creatures they found in the river… but the suns no longer confused him, or shocked some part of his mind when he looked up at them.

  “Do you think wherever they are, it’s as pretty as this?” Jon mused, taking another drink.

  Wreg grunted, leaning a thick arm on the brace-beam beside Jon.

  “Knowing Nenzi, it’s prettier,” he said. “He always was a picky shit.”

  Jon laughed.

  Tilting his head back, he took another few swallows of the sweet and sour drink, gazing up at the suns, watching the clouds float past them, high in the sky.

  The kids had named them… the suns, that is.

  They called the smaller, bluish one atsilí, which meant “brother” in Navajo.

  They called the bigger, yellow one hádí, which meant “sister.”

  Jon grunted when he’d first heard it, partly because he knew it was a not-so-subtle dig at him.

  Somehow Dante got wind of the joke about him being Allie’s younger brother, after years of thinking he was the “big” brother. She thought that was positively hilarious, and told the Navajo kids the story the first chance she got, since she babysat them sometimes while their parents were out hunting and working with Loki and the others.

  So he would be immortalized forever on this world, as the runt.

  Revik would have loved that.

  Next to him, Wreg grinned. “Well, they won’t forget you, brother.”

  Jon smiled back at him, picking up his hammer.

  “They won’t forget her, either,” he said.

  Looking up at him, Wreg pulsed warmth at him, laying a hand on his thigh.

  Jon smiled back, tilting his face up towards the twin suns.

  No, it wasn’t a bad life.

  It wasn’t a bad life at all.

  * * *

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  Forensic psychologist Miri Fox has an uncanny sense about people. When police think they've nailed the "Wedding Killer," she agrees to check the guy out, but the suspect, Quentin R. Black, isn't at all what she expects. When he confronts Miri about the nature of her peculiar insight, she is drawn into Black's bizarre world and a game of cat and mouse with a deadly killer who just might be Black himself. Worse, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Black, a complication she doesn’t need with a best friend who’s a homicide cop and a boyfriend in intelligence.

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  THE BRIDGE & SWORD WORLD is a dark, unique and gritty apocalyptic world and alternate history of Earth. It features a young woman grappling with her role in bringing about the end of one world and the start of a new one. Follow Allie Taylor and her antihero partner in crime, Dehgoies Revik, as they fight terrifying enemies and one another in a passionate story spanning centuries, and filled with unpredictable twists, turns and betrayals.

  QUENTIN BLACK MYSTERY WORLD encompasses a number of dark, gritty paranormal mystery arcs with science fiction elements, starring brilliant and mysterious Quentin Black and forensic psychologist Miriam Fox. For fans of realistic paranormal mysteries with romantic elements, the series spans continents and dimensions as Black solves crimes, takes on other races and tries to keep his and Miri’s true identities secret to keep them both alive.

  THE ALIEN APOCALYPSE SERIES is a dystopian new adult romance about a tough girl named Jet Tetsuo who grew up on Earth following an alien invasion. Forced into living among her conquerors, she has to navigate a treacherous world full of enemies who pose as friends, even as she becomes their most famous fighter in the Rings, a modern day version of the coliseum.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JC Andrijeski is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes paranormal mystery, along with apocalyptic and cyberpunk-y science fiction, often with a metaphysical bent.

  JC has a background in journalism, history and politics, and currently occupies herself by traipsing around the globe and reading whatever she can get her hands on. She grew up in the Bay Area of California, but has lived abroad in Europe, Australia and Asia, and from coast to coast in the continental United States.

  She currently lives and writes full time in Bangkok, Thailand.

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  SUN

  Bridge & Sword Series #10

  by

  JC Andrijeski

  Copyright © 2018 by JC Andrijeski

  Published by White Sun Press

  Cover Art & Design by Damonza.com

  2018

  Link with me at: http://jcandrijeski.com

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  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  SYNOPSIS

  PROLOGUE: Deifilius

  ONE: Rescue

  TWO: Knights of the End

  THREE: Two Men

  FOUR: Fatherly Advice

  FIVE: Sunrise

  SIX: Reception

  SEVEN: A New Religion

  EIGHT: A New Agreement

  NINE: Anomalies

  TEN: Hard Truths

  ELEVEN: A Hard Line

  TWELVE: The Last to Know

  THIRTEEN: New Mexico

  FOURTEEN: The Last People

  FIFTEEN: Family Dinner

  SIXTEEN: Future Visions

  SEVENTEEN: Doors to the Other Side

  EIGHTEEN: Another Lie Explained

  NINETEEN: Marriage Therapy

  TWENTY: Bounty

  TWENTY-ONE: On the Road

  TWENTY-TWO: Old Wounds

  TWENTY-THREE: Dubrovnik

  TWENTY-FOUR: Old City

  TWENTY-FIVE: Pink Hearts and Buddha Stars

  TWENTY-SIX: Foundation

  TWENTY-SEVEN: Game Face

  TWENTY-EIGHT: Claustrophobia

  TWENTY-NINE: Misgiving

  THIRTY: Four Lights

  THIRTY-ONE: The Dark Water

  THIRTY-TWO: Bad Blood

  THIRTY-THREE: The First Door

  THIRTY-FOUR: The Silver Womb

  THIRTY-FIVE: Military Decision

  THIRTY-SIX: Bread and Circuses

  THIRTY-SEVEN: Ultimatums and Requests

  THIRTY-EIGHT: Freeing Lions

  THIRTY-NINE: Apocalypse

  FORTY: Sacred Land

  FORTY-ONE: Tiger

  FORTY-TWO: Coming Down

  FORTY-THREE: Pariahs

  FORTY-FOUR: America the Beautiful

  FORTY-FIVE: The Secret Door

  FORTY-SIX: Night Walk

  FORTY-SEVEN: Cave of Dreams

  FORTY-EIGHT: The Last Time Alone

  FORTY-NINE: The Final War

  FIFTY: Bonded

  FIFTY-ONE: Past Wronged

  FIFTY-TWO: Blood

  FIFTY-THREE: Revenge of the Gods

  FIFTY-FOUR: Diggers and Stingers

  FIFTY-FIVE: The First Wave

  FIFTY-SIX: Winning and Losing

  FIFTY-SEVEN: Strange Lights

  FIFTY-EIGHT: Cave Painting

  FIFTY-NINE: Bridge of Light

  SIXTY: The End of the World

  SIXTY-ONE: The Last Door

  SIXTY-TWO: I Will Return

  SIXTY-THREE: Time to Go

  SIXTY-FOUR: Sun

  EPILOGUE: The New World

  MORE BY JC ANDRIJESKI


  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CREDITS

 

 

 


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