Orion Read online

  Orion

  lBook Onel

  Marked Like Me Series

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  Cyndi Goodgame

  Also by Cyndi Goodgame

  (Fey Court Trilogy)

  Deception

  Tainted

  Betrayal

  Guardian (Companion to Deception)

  (Goblin’s Kiss Series)

  Denial

  Yield

  (Marked Like Me Series)

  Son of Ra

  Scorpion

  Daughter of Anat

  Shadow Queen

  Protector (Companion Novella to Son of Ra)

  (Under Cover Series)

  Under Cover

  Over Darkness

  (Siphon Chronicles)

  Siphon

  ***

  Mary Never Had a Lamb, She Was the Lamb (Twisted Paranormal Nursery Rhymes)

  Gargoyle (Hyde Chronicles)

  © November 2012 Cyndi Goodgame

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Acknowledgements go to the various authors of classic fiction who wrote so eloquently that their words have become easy to quote in today’s written word. Without inspriration from you, one cannot hope to write their own ideas. Thanks goes to all those who made this book come together. You know who you are!

  ISBN: 1481018426 ASIN: B00A9LOZB0

  [1. Supernatural-Fiction. 2. Vampires. 3. Valkyries. 4. Werewolves. 5. Hunters. 6. Gods and Goddesses. 7. Constellations 8.. High School-Fiction]

  Email Cyndi at [email protected]

  You can reach Cyndi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/scgoodgame

  You can reach Cyndi at her website/blog at http://goodgamebooks.wordpress.com

  Follow Cyndi on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cyndigoodgameauthor

  Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/scgoodgame/

  Google+: http://gplus.to/cyndigoodgame

  Summary:

  Anastacia, or Stace, was marked from birth belonging to the Goddess Anat. Her mother launched a balanced plan to create five who would change the tides of the ongoing disputes among the supernatural factions trying to survive in a human world. A prophecy was created to unite them into peace and Stace has to believe she is the one to do that. And what happens when she is the last to know?

  Stace has spent her entire life as the Valkyrie faction court princess. Now sent into a den of Hunter lions by her own father, her goal is find the one who took her twin brother, the heir to her own court. Her obstacles seem few, but there are other cloak-and-dagger factors at work.

  Motherless since birth, no one to turn to, resolved to have answers, Stace accepts a Hunter’s aid. Stace’s brother is kept in what was thought to be abandoned warehouse, but soon finds out that the greater the plot thickens, there are more secrets around every corner. It’s guarded by the very Hunters she is now putting her trust in, her own father’s court, and the rumored heartless, evil plotted Vampire faction. Once she has the information she needs, she planned to leave the Hunters and begin a rescue mission, but that doesn’t even come close to the bigger plan she knows nothing about. She didn’t count on Calum Green getting in the way, nor making friends for the first time in her life with supposed enemy strangers who never hesitate to help her in her darkest moments.

  And…others are marked like her. A prophecy that holds answers and little advice but says she will guide them. What does it all mean? Weres? Vampires? She’s heard of their retributions if crossed the wrong way. Can she conquer this mission or just end up just playing out the fantasy prophecy she doesn’t understand anyway? Or will she uncover the greatest conspiracy the factions have ever held? And no one person chose.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One Like and equal…

  Chapter Two …are not the same thing at all.

  Chapter ThreeI don’t understand it…

  Chapter Four…and I don’t like what I don’t understand.

  Chapter Five I am no bird; and no net ensnares me…

  Chapter Six …I am a free human being with an independent will.

  Chapter Seven Do or do not do…

  Chapter Eight ...there is no try.

  Chapter Nine Denial…

  Chapter Ten …ain’t just a river in Egypt.

  Chapter Eleven This above all…

  Chapter Twelve …to thine own self be true.

  Chapter ThirteenOh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…

  Chapter Fourteen …When First We Practice to Deceive.

  Chapter Fifteen The Best Laid Plans…

  Chapter Sixteen …Often go Awry.

  Chapter Seventeen Sentence first…

  Chapter Eighteen…verdict afterwards.

  Chapter NineteenIf we did all the things we are capable of…

  Chapter Twenty …we would literally astound ourselves.

  Chapter Twenty One Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize…

  Chapter Twenty Two …how close they were to success when they gave up.

  Chapter Twenty Three The pen…

  Chapter Twenty Four …is mightier than the sword.

  Chapter Twenty Five Keep your friends close…

  Chapter Twenty Six …and your enemies closer.

  Chapter Twenty SevenAs if you could kill time...

  Chapter Twenty Eight ...without injuring eternity.

  Chapter Twenty Nine Happiness and moral duty…

  Chapter Thirty…are inseparably connected.

  Chapter Thirty OneWe cannot build the future…

  Chapter Thirty Two…without avenging the past.

  Chapter Thirty ThreeThe bravest people are the ones…

  Chapter Thirty Four…who don’t mind looking like cowards.

  Chapter Thirty FiveLife is such unutterable hell…

  Chapter Thirty Six…solely because it is sometimes beautiful.

  EpilogueIf we could be miserable all the time…

  Appendix

  Marked Ones

  MARKED ONES LETTERS

  Questionable Villains

  Characters in Limbo

  Faction Symbols

  Prologue

  “We will rid the earth of our putrid mistakes. We can right this,” Anat pleaded her case.

  “NO! We cannot correct this.”

  “One chance. If it doesn’t work, they will be back to where they were. Aiming to end each other anyhow,” she asked of her superior.

  “ONE CHANCE Anat! ONLY ONE!”

  She was at work fast. RA’s descendant was willing to help. She wants the same as I. ORION’s descendant would help regardless. He would allow his daughter this task.

  With everything was set in motion she relayed her mission to the necessary aid.

  The Hunter by day will take with him, a huntress, unlike his own. She will bear the mark of Orion, as will he.

  The Hunter by night will take with him, a huntress, unlike his own. She will bear the mark of the sun. As will he.

  They will bring forth a mighty nation of all who come together. They will find Saiph at their right shoulder. Rigel and his stinging adversary will rule like no other. Cross will come between severed twins. Let who stands in the way of fate perish and be no more. In this great peril, the Anat goddess in human form will be the only light.

  This was the last dream though not the only one. I can’t tell my dreams from my imagination anymore. Somehow they feel real.

>   ℓ ℓ ℓ ℓ ℓ

  Gravity!

  It is what holds us here.

  Love!

  It is the gravitational pull that grounds us to the earth.

  Hate!

  It’s what pulls us apart.

  Destiny!

  It’s what decides our fate only after we accept that it was DESTINY in the first place.

  A Valkyrie.

  I was born into a life of luxury at a cost. I lost my mother due to my own birth. Valkyries are born warriors, able to sway men to their doing, and semi control the supernatural races that threaten to end one another. My father, the only male lord of the Valkyrie court faction, pampered and sheltered me too closely all my life under watchful eye as second place to my brother, the heir to the court. Yes, my father finally let me leave on missions involving the other factions in our supernatural world hidden by the humans to hold an invisible line of warning to the other factions. And he even let me enter dangerous missions, but somehow I’d always won. That made me more nervous.

  Yet, here I was.

  A Hunter.

  He was this gravity that kept my sanity aligned to the earth I was bound too. I wouldn’t have known it could come to pass, but it did nonetheless. My entire universe was realigned the day I met him. And I didn’t even know on that day I entered his Hunter faction school for my father under the false pretense of saving my brother, and as I said, the Valkyrie prince in line for the throne, that he’d become my light in a world of darkness until the sun appeared. And then...it was not reversible in the time continuum for the plan laid out for me.

  The Hunter.

  It was the first real guy who has ever been allowed to talk to me outside of a sparring ring, so meeting him was...overwhelming. He was more than just a Hunter too. Some type of sign was definitely there telling me to delve deeper! Something was coming. We had a draw to each other, and we both had more than one thing in common. For all of our seventeen years.

  A Vampire.

  The bane of my existence. Forever cruel and ruthless. Or so I’ve heard. I’ve fought a few in small battles, but the faction lord is said to be a cutthroat. I welcome anything he has to dish out assuming he can handle the wrath. My court avoids the dealings of their faction and they avoid us. At some point, we were destined to meet.

  The Vampire.

  He would change my life, and everyone around us, forever.

  The Were.

  To know nothing about the faction and to know it is avoided by my court says much. I have heard their attempts to “talk” in the past never went well and remain till this day...unresolved.

  ℓ ℓ ℓ ℓ ℓ

  Packed and ready, I headed to my place of destination, the Hunter court’s private school. I checked my bags twice and my pouch hanging across my side. I was a Valkyrie princess with the best aim in small weapons across all the factions— or so I told myself. I knew I was the best female Valkyrie. I’ve lived by the standard that nothing can penetrate the icy shell that made me harden years ago. My father has kept me from any and all society with the exception of my brother, my best friend Kassie who I see less and less, and one other boy who stayed at our faction for a little under two years and then left.

  Movies and books have been my only friends for the most part. And boys...boys were just sparring and weapons partners and shows on the television. Yes, I’ve dealt with their sarcasm and flirtatious natures when my dad wasn’t looking, but their fear of my dad kept them far away. Far away. So why was my father letting me go to the Hunter school? I wish I’d never asked.

  Then again, I wouldn’t have what I have now. Here’s what happened. I wouldn’t be able to say it was all led by fate if I hadn’t seen it myself. Here’s what happened.

  Chapter One Like and equal…

  If it were up to me all boys, guys, men, would come with labels to acknowledge their intentions. Hey, I’m a moron. Hey, I’m sensitive, but like to act like a total bad boy. Hey, I’m just in it for one thing. Hey, I’m a kick butt Hunter who left my manners at home.

  Do they not long for the same? But I was wrong! Mostly!

  But then again when he walked up…

  Little prickly waves were pulsing through my skin calling out to walk closer to him. He watched me. I inched closer. Why am I moving closer, I don’t know. Fear wafted off him in waves. Gold. No black. His eyes. They sparkled both colors, a demon within. A sexy demon.

  Guys didn't just walk up to me at court so not noticing him would be as hard as turning down chocolate.

  He was now leaning against the doorframe that held the Hunter symbol, arms folded, grinning at me. Dressed in gray Levis, black all-laced up boots, and a gray t-shirt, his fair-haired Greek-god status was giving off stabbing jibes at me and he knew it. I attempted to look away, hugging my books to my chest since I forgot to bring any sort of bag, but the black molten magnets held my feet immobilized. When I looked at him, I simply saw fear. But not the sort of fear I knew from an enemy. A boy from my schooling back home had the same kind of fear. Still, I couldn’t figure it’s reasoning other than I was a girl and all males seem to exhibit the same type of related fear when I neared them. The kind that emitted from them when I or one of the other girls at my own court would cause by simply acknowledging them. I always like to think it’s because they had their own fears of rejection like us, but who would want to get inside a guy’s brain to find out?

  Boys at court were my only familiarity to weigh on for experience in interacting with them. Oh, I’d interacted with many a hot male species on a one to one basis, but my father made sure that they stayed their distance. I only ever sparred them in a weapon’s ring and nothing else. On occasion, one would flirt and try to gain my attention, but my father somehow knew and he’d disappear from the ring and never return to fight me again. I feared always my Valkyrie heritage was persuading them to like me, but I'd learned how to rein it in and watch them like me on their own. I hated the ability to do it anyway, but it came in handy—on occasion.

  There was one boy who came to live in our court who was allowed by my father to tutor, spar, and hang out. And then he moved.

  Bringing my thoughts back to the present, the Hunter guy arched his broad chest and stood. For a second I thought he would come towards me, but he turned and walked away. But when he looked back, his smile was all devil and begged to be followed. That wasn’t going to happen unless he professed he was the enemy.

  The spell was released and so was my frozen feet. I picked them up, one at a time heading to my destination. I was in control here. No one else. So why did I not feel in control at the present moment in this indecisive boy Hunter’s presence? Dang it! I would never be the prey.

  I finally departed the empty grounds to my next class in a half stomp half march. Weapons training. Child’s play.

  Hunters had to be ready for any creature’s skills and capabilities. They were the most vulnerable of the factions. At least my court kept their faction on the know about others and how the factions evolved. The Valkyrie court was the most honorable in my eyes. The Were and Vampire factions were silent, but easily swayable allies in question if my father would allow them. At the moment the factions were in turmoil and far from friends. It wasn't always like that. Not since the elves revolted and a male leader took over my faction. I understood give and take. But the vampires refused to give and the Weres were all too eager to talk so that made my father leery of both.

  I walked alone across the grounds. It was a beautiful day. I could easily hide in the trees towering above and wait for nightfall to watch the stars. Stopping by the side of the building, I caught the sight of someone ahead of me who seemed to have the same idea, but actually entering and vanishing in the trees.

  I followed. What else could I do? I was here on a mission, not merely a schoolgirl. This is what I had been born to do. The other factions in our supernatural world may be to blame for this evil plotted farce, but the only lead I had was that the Hunters were involved. They knew someth
ing and refused to tell. So my father sent me in to find out.

  When I reached the edge of the woods, I was immediately flanked by a dark figure. Seeing the boots coming behind me that I recognized so easily from just minutes before, I curved with my throwing knife readily hidden behind my books and stood in a ready stance, my arms pulled tight.

  He chuckled at my nervousness as I replaced the knife. Whoever I was following would get away now.

  Dang it! I tucked my sleeves back over my shoulders where they’d ridden up as he watched. He folded his arms, cocked his head sideways and said nothing. A grin traced his lips like he had an agenda and I first on the menu.

  I stood taller and risked a shaky voice by clearing my throat, “Don’t walk up behind someone if your intentions are not to be a sneak.” Haughty and harsh, but usually effective.

  “Sneak! I merely wanted to see your reaction. I rather like them. They call to me and whisper in my ear things a guy like’s to hear." He was baiting me and I didn’t want to add to the fire, but I couldn’t let him get the best of me. He barked out a absurdly long, humored laugh to hopefully throw me off my guard. Nada!

  “Clever words. But not affected.” I made myself adjust to look less interested in anything he did. I could deal with Hunters. And he’s about five degrees short of on my last nerve.

  “Clever comes later.”

  “Mediocre.”

  “No you met him earlier. I’m plain awesome.” He just stared after that, too much. His eyes raked over me. Dark eyes. No, not dark, but what? Very hard to read. But not fear this time. I can’t read other emotions other than anger, but he seemed amused. Mr. Hyde anyone?

  “Are you done gawking?” I tried to sound bored stringing my fingers through the long blonde trail of hair pulled across my front left shoulder.

  “You lost?” He waved his very large outstretched hands to the each side, not that I noticed or anything. He tried to present himself as dark and ominous, but he was far more full of sun-kissed humor and sarcasm. He was bright with that humor and I wanted to feel calmed by him, but uncertainty played on my mind.