by Holly Martin
The Revenge
Book 3 of The Sentinel Series
Holly Martin
The Revenge
This edition published 2015
Text copyright © Holly Martin 2015
Illustration copyright © Scarlett Rugers 2015
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
All rights reserved
No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form other than in which it was purchased without prior written permission from the author.
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To all the amazing people that have supported, helped and encouraged me to make this book possible. I love you all
Contents
The story so far.
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The story so far.
There are four books in the Sentinel Series, with two being in publication so far: The Sentinel and The Prophecies. Below you will find an overview of the series, as well as a brief recap of what happened in the first two books.
Overview
Many years ago, the Oraculum, the nine most powerful men in the world, had a prophecy of the end of the world. Although they couldn’t see what caused the Armageddon, they did see a teenage girl with great power battling to save it. They could foresee that the girl had the special powers and abilities of the Donum, the healing powers of the Zeki, the strength of the Guardians and shapeshifting abilities too.
Knowing that such a person could never naturally exist, they set about trying to genetically engineer one. After many failed attempts Eve was born. Called the Sentinel, Eve was sent to watch over the world.
She was very sick when she was a baby, the cocktail of all these species didn’t react well together. So as a back-up plan the Oraculum created a second Sentinel, a boy called Adam. It seemed the cocktail of different species affected Adam badly too, though it didn’t make him sick, it made him unhinged and psychotic. Adam was thrown into a cell for almost his entire life while Eve was brought up with a family, went to school and had friends.
Book 1 The Sentinel
Eve has no idea about her destiny. The life she led was a lie, her family, friends, teachers were all Guardians, super strength beings sent to watch over her. They all have one thing in common; a single minded ferocity that she must be kept alive at all costs.
After a near fatal coach crash and later a fire in her home where her family are killed, her dog Quinn transforms into a human to save her. Understandably scared by this sudden turn of events, she runs away. Her best friend Seth explains the prophecies surrounding her true identity and the super strength she too holds. With her Guardians pledged to protect her, her closest friends ready to die for her, her own hopes and dreams are put on hold whilst she battles to control the amazing powers she has been bestowed with.
Her best friend, Persia, and her sisters Izri and Clementine train her in her powers. But those that seek to destroy her move ever closer. The Putarians despise anyone who is not pure human, and they believe their God, Putus, will use the end of the world to cleanse the earth of the different species. They must kill Eve before she can save the world. The Reapers who dissect those with special abilities would also be very keen to get their hands on Eve and see how she works.
There are several attempts on her life and Eve is even kidnapped. After her rescue, Eve and her Guardians flee to the fort in Tibet where Seth and Eve declare their love for each other.
Book 2 The Prophecies
Eve grows stronger and more powerful every day as she strives to ensure she is ready to face her destiny. But some of her gifts are unwelcome. She starts having dreams or prophecies of the future. She also keeps sliding in her dreams which gets her into all sorts of trouble.
Persia and Izri return home to England for their dad’s birthday but while they are there, they and Clementine get kidnapped by the Reapers as bait to get Eve to come. She hears their cries for help in her dreams and accidentally slides to them. Caleb goes to help her and gets killed. Seth goes too but the other Guardians get cut off from her. While Eve is strapped to a table, the Reapers torture and kill Clementine and Eve can do nothing to stop them. They move to kill Seth but then she finds a power in her so strong and she kills them all.
On her return Izri cannot forgive Eve for letting Clementine die. She returns to England filled with hate for her. The Oraculum summon Eve to their castle to account for her actions. She becomes aware of a rift between the council members that not only could endanger her life, but could put the whole planet at risk. This is due to a prophecy that the Oraculum had many years before where several members of the Oraculum kill each other at a meeting where Eve is in attendance. Helez, a member of the Oraculum, has a prophecy that Eve will kill him one day. Samuel also claims that he had a prophecy that Eve goes mad and it is her that destroys the world.
While the Oraculum continue to argue about Eve’s future, Seth and Eve get married in secret in Mexico. Eve also becomes a fully-fledged shapeshifter.
The Oraculum call her again and as foretold, Samuel, then Nereus, are killed. Eve is forced to flee to Scotland when all of the Oraculum’s Guardians in the fort turn against her after the Oraculum orders her to be killed.
Adam appears in her dream threatening to kill her and her loved ones. Eli tells her Adam is her half-brother, he was made in case she died before the end of the world comes. Adam is the spare Sentinel.
After she had left the fort, Zach, Seth’s half-brother and leader of the Guardlings, the trainee Guardians, kicks all the Oraculum’s Guardians out of the fort. Eve returns. When she goes down to thank him by the pool, she slips, smacks her head and tumbles in the pool where she falls unconscious.
Chapter 1
My eyes snapped open. I knew I had been in danger before I had passed out, though I had no idea what that danger was, and whether it was over. In fact as I lay there in a room I had never seen before I racked my brains for what was the last thing I could remember, but there was nothing there. I willed my brain to clear, knowing it was the exhaustion that was filling my body which was stopping me remembering. I lay there still, trying to become familiar with my surroundings. I was lying in a tall room with a window that filled one wall. It was dark outside, but the room was well lit. Rain lashed against the window. There was a fire crackling nearby. The sound of hushed voices filled my ears, I tried to tune into them, without alerting them to my awakened state.
‘I don’t know whether to be mad at Zach for letting it happen or to thank him for being so quick and doing something about it,’ said a male voice, very close by.
‘You can’t be mad at Zach, it’s not his fault Eve’s so clumsy,’ a girl, young, maybe late teens.
‘I’d feel a lot better if we could get hold of Cassidy,’ said a soft voice, filled with authority.
‘Zach said she left once the fight broke out, it was just too dangerous for her and Freya.’
There was a fight? Was
that the danger that I had been in. Who had won? Was I now a hostage, a prisoner of war so to speak? My heart pounded furiously and as if in response to my increased heart rate, something moved next to me on the bed and I stiffened. A strange man suddenly loomed over me, grinning at me.
‘Hey baby, you’re awake, you feeling ok?’ he said, moving in to kiss me.
I wriggled out of his reach. ‘Don’t touch me,’ I said, scrabbling off the bed away from him. I looked round the room and was met with the stares of six faces, four men and two women.
‘Eve?’ said the man that had tried to kiss me, he reached out for me, but I was quicker and I backed away from him, until I hit the wall, behind me.
One of the other men, the youngest with spiky hair, was at my side faster than was possible. ‘Eve? Are you ok?’ he asked. I shuffled away from him. What was going on? Who were these people that were all staring at me? I was suddenly aware of these feelings in my head that didn’t belong to me. All I was feeling right now was fear, and a desire to get as far from here as possible. But in my head were feelings of concern, feelings of not understanding.
‘Lucas what’s wrong with her?’ the man on the bed, asked the young man next to me.
The man called Lucas, looked into my face, as if searching for some answers. ‘She doesn’t remember?’
‘Doesn’t remember what?’ asked a tall man, that seemed to scream muscles from every part of his body. He advanced towards me.
I inched my way to the door.
‘Anything, she doesn’t remember anything, she doesn’t even know who we are, she’s terrified,’ explained Lucas, somehow reading my exact thoughts from my head.
And he was right, none of these faces before me looked familiar. I had no idea where I was, or what had happened before I had passed out. The danger that I was worried about, the danger that I couldn’t remember was clearly this, being held prisoner for some reason, by people I didn’t know. Any one of these people staring at me could easily snap me in half, they were clearly very strong. I moved closer to the door.
‘Eve, baby, it’s ok, we’re not going to hurt you,’ said the man from the bed, getting up and coming towards me. I flinched back against the wall, in case he tried to kiss me again. He stopped in his tracks.
‘Am I a prisoner?’ I asked, my body trembling.
‘No,’ said the tall man.
‘So I’m free to go?’ I asked, moving closer to the door.
‘Yes but Eve you should stay, we can get a Zeki up here…’
I opened the door, not daring to turn my back on the room in case they attacked me.
‘Eve…’ the tall man started to protest.
‘Eli, let her go,’ advised Lucas. ‘She needs to be alone now.’
Eli nodded. ‘Eve, take a coat, you’ll get soaked.’ He held a coat out for me and I gingerly took it then opened the door and fled down the corridor. Somehow, in my head, I knew the man called Lucas was following me, with another man, a man Lucas knew as Isaac, a man that Lucas didn’t really think was a good idea to take along with him. I also knew that the man that had tried to kiss me, a man Lucas knew as Seth had wanted to follow me as well, but Lucas had told him not to. I wanted to get away from these feelings in my head as well as get away from the people. How could I find what I was looking for in my brain if it was filled with all these thoughts that didn’t even belong to me? The corridor outside was deserted, until I got to the end and two guards stood at the entrance. I approached them quietly, but they made no move to stop me so I ran on, Lucas and Isaac followed.
I ran down the stairs and caught my reflection in a window. I must have been about seventeen years old, my face looked bruised, and my eyes were filled with fear. I ran on. A man was running up the stairs towards me, carrying what looked like a bag of ice. Around his neck was a necklace, the face of a lion with jewels for eyes was so familiar, it jolted something in me. My head was suddenly filled with a memory of playing with a lion as a child, my hands buried deep in his mane, as I giggled and laughed loudly. It didn’t make sense, why would I be playing with a lion.
‘Eve, you’re awake, I was just getting some more ice for your head. You’ll have a nasty lump there…’ the man trailed off at my look of fear. ‘Eve?’ he reached out for me, his familiar conker brown eyes filled with concern, but I flinched away from him and ran on.
I heard Lucas talking to him as he passed him on the stairs, I looked back and the other man was staring at me, anxiously. I slowed down, thrown by the worry on his face. No one here seemed to want to hurt me, in fact they all seemed genuinely concerned for my wellbeing and my safety. Lucas hung back when he saw me hesitate, but the other large man that was with him, Isaac, carried on walking towards me, advancing on me, his whole body seemed to exude anger, and I turned and ran on. When I passed other people on the stairs, they stopped and stared but made no move to stop me. I saw some large doors ahead of me and I ran for them, expecting them to be locked but they opened easily. Two more guards stood at the entrance, but they too didn’t try to stop me.
I ran outside, feeling better as soon as the cold night air wrapped around me. The tall man, Eli, had been right, the rain was torrential. I guessed from the murky light it was very early in the morning, though the storm clouds were making it darker than it should be at this time. I saw some trees up ahead and I ran for them. I just had to be alone, so I could think. Right now, my memories seemed very far away, like they were there but just not accessible. I needed time to find them again, without someone trying to kiss me or talk to me. As I ran into the trees, I knew Lucas and Isaac were not far behind, Isaac was closest though.
I had to get away. This Isaac seemed very threatening, just the way he walked after me was like he wanted something from me. His eyes were filled with a single minded ferocity to follow me no matter what.
I leaned against a tree for a moment, letting my head fall into my hands. I just wanted to be anywhere but here, just so I could have some time alone to process what was going on.
The colours on my T-shirt caught my eye, the rhinestones glinting in the early morning light. I pulled my T-shirt out to look at it, New York screamed from the top in blue rhinestones and a big yellow cab seemed to be driving out from the middle of it.
New York. Had I ever been there? Had I got this T-shirt from there? I remembered pictures I’d seen of Times Square. A big place filled with people and cars and lights. A place where people wouldn’t stare at me like they had in the bedroom. A place where I could easily get lost and no one would notice. I’d be a face in the crowd, I liked that. I so wanted to be there right now, a million miles away from the oppressive gaze and the strong men following me. I closed my eyes and pictured Times Square, just to give me something else to focus on rather than the fear and panic I associated with where I was now. Focussing on Times Square, pretending I was there just for a minute, meant maybe I could clear my head enough to find my memories, to find anything that would make sense.
I could see Times Square like a moving living picture, so real it felt like I could just step through. So I did.
A car horn, broke me from my reverie and I opened my eyes in alarm. A yellow cab had screeched to a halt just yards from where I was standing and the driver was shouting at me, gesticulating wildly for me to get out the way. I staggered onto the pavement in shock, as I looked around. Times Square was no longer an image, a picture in my mind, I was there, smelling, touching, breathing it.
My heart pounded furiously against my chest. What was happening? This was a hallucination, it had to be. My mind had conjured it up to give me some solace and some peace. Though the music thudding from a nearby bar, the people shouting and calling to each other on the street, the cars whizzing past noisily, the lights flickering from the tall buildings around me was not exactly the peace I needed. The only thing this hallucination had given me was the lack of the strong men after me, and it wasn’t raining here. Times Square was rammed with people, but not one of them paying me any attention,
not one of them was looking at me with that intense ferocity in their grass-green eyes.
I walked with wobbly legs to a nearby building, leaning heavily against the walls. How was I here? Was this real and the other place, the castle, the people staring, was that the hallucination. Both seemed so real, but they couldn’t possibly both be real. I couldn’t be in the woods one second and in Times Square the next. Maybe the other place was a memory, a dream, though my clothes were wet from the rain, how could they be wet if it was only a dream. I pressed my brain for more details, more understanding, but came up with nothing. A blank wall.
Suddenly a strong hand was round my arm, I looked up in alarm into the green, fierce eyes of Isaac.
‘Eve, what are you doing, this isn’t safe,’ he growled, holding my arm, painfully.
Instinctively I found myself punching him hard in the throat, knocking all the breath out of him, his grip lessened slightly, enough so I could wriggle free. I ran, but only got a few metres away before I slammed into another, hard body. Lucas.
‘Eve, please just stay calm…’ his hands were on my shoulders, but not restraining me, trying to calm me down.
I flinched away from him and darted across the road, cars honking loudly as they slammed on their brakes to avoid me. I cast over my shoulder and the men followed. My dreams, my memories from the other place, the castle, were now bleeding over into the waking world.
I saw two policemen up ahead talking on a corner and I ran for them. But Isaac was getting closer to me, even though he was only walking and I was running he was still catching up with me. He would reach me before I reached the police.