Table of Contents
The Dragon’s Mate
Copy right
Mandela effect:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
From the desk of…
Where to find me
Other books by the author
The Dragon’s Mate
Ancient Dragons
Book One
By
Serena Simpson
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The Dragon’s Mate – Ancient Dragons - Copyright © March 2019, Serena Simpson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
Cover Art by Peri Wolford
Published by Serena Simpson
Mandela effect:
This theory states that you remember things wrong like the name of that popular show was Sex in the City when the real name of it was Sex and the City. You remember it wrong because on a parallel world that was actually the name. Somehow the two worlds touched for a few minutes making us believe something that wasn’t true.
Welcome to a parallel earth
Don’t blink too slowly or you might run into something you thought was true…
Chapter One
The last thing Kisame wanted to do was walk into her father’s office. They already had this conversation—argument—more times than she wanted to remember. She didn’t need a refresher on it before she was about to enter The Interior. What she wanted or needed didn’t matter to her father, it never did. All that mattered was that she was his employee. Straightening her shoulders, she knocked on the door in front of her.
“Enter,” her dad’s deep voice called out. She longed for the days of her youth when she tricked herself into believing that voice was filled with love.
“Mr. Ecksen, you wanted to see me?”
“You can call me father when we’re alone. You know that.” He was tall with broad shoulders and dark wavy hair. Her hair had come from him. Her height and build came from her mother.
“Sorry, father. You wanted to see me?”
“They tell me you are scheduled for a solo run into The Interior.” He stretched out his hand offering her one of the chairs in front of his desk.
His office was grandiose, no other way to describe it. It took up half the top level of the building. There were different sections. One where he greeted friends and family. She never seemed to be considered family when they met in his office. The next section was where he greeted the people he felt were his equal in business. Then there were the chairs in front of his desk. This is where he greeted employees that meant nothing to him. At times it hurt to remember that she fell into the last category. It was worth remembering if only to keep her heart safe.
“No one else is willing to explore that section of our world. It has to be done.”
“Could it be that they do not wish to bring home the disease from the aliens that invaded our planet so long ago?”
She rolled her eyes as her father paced back and forth in front of his floor to ceiling windows. This was how the argument started. The first time she could clearly remember the argument was when she was sixteen summers. Tuning her father out she thought of what she might find in The Interior and it wasn’t aliens.
“Kisame are you listening?” He asked in his military voice.
“Yes, sir!” She straightened in the hard chair realizing she had drifted and allowed herself to try for comfort. At some point in his life, she believed her father had served even as he told her that it was only in her imagination.
“I want proof that the invaders existed. You are also to come back, not to disappear. I don’t have employees to spare to come after you.”
“I understand, sir.”
His face had a sneer on it as if he was talking to a child with no knowledge of the world.
“You understand nothing. I don’t know how I went so wrong with your education. Thank God for your brother, without him I don’t know what would become of the family or the business.”
“I thank God repeatedly for him.” The sneer on her father’s face was now a mask of fury.
“You only have to do one thing. Bring back proof that our world was invaded by aliens. I don’t care how or where you get that proof. Get it, bring it back. Do you understand?” The harshness of his voice was deadly to the few last fragments of the child who wanted to be loved.
“Sir, yes sir!” She saluted and stood up. “I need to get ready to leave.”
“Did you say goodbye to your mother?”
“I did,” she tried to keep the softness from her voice. Her mother was taken by an illness the doctors still didn’t understand. She was in a coma had been for years. Some days she wondered why her father didn’t let her go.
“You’re dismissed.”
She turned and left his office without a backward glance. Long before either she or her father were born, there was a war on the planet. The records from that time were destroyed. As best she could figure out was that it was some type of genocide. They were trying to purify the race. Her father believed and has always believed that they were attacked by aliens.
That answer was a little to pat for her. Why destroy all the records? Not just the records of the war but the records of life before the war. What were her forefathers trying to hide? She took the elevator to the bottom floor. Where the explorers like her gathered.
“Oh, look, Kisame’s here,” Jen said in a teasing voice. “The explorer of The Interior, fierce with no fear.”
Ha! If they only knew how much fear she had.
“That’s me,” she took a bow. “I’m looking for company. I hear the nights get cold, but with the right person they could be H.O.T.” She eyed a few of the guys as well as one or two of the females. They all averted their eyes.
“Aww come on. It’s just The Interior. What are you all afraid of?” she sighed no one was going to change their minds, and she knew it. Maybe she caught the alien bug already. At least, that was the theory going around the office.
“Kisame have you gone through your pack for the last time?” Director Davis asked her.
“No, I’m taking it over to the field office now to get it done.”
“See that you do. You’re scheduled to leave in two hours. Happy hunting and come back safe.”
“Thank you, Director Davis, I will.”
The walk took her about ten minutes giving her enough time to get her head back in the game. Thirty minutes later all her electronics, as well as weapons, had passed their final check. Now th
ere was nothing to do except wait.
“Kisame,” Rob walked into the room where she was staring out the window.
“Rob, what do I owe this pleasure to?”
“I came to talk.” She opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. “Just listen, please. Give me one chance to make my argument.”
She nodded and waited for him to sit down in the chair next to hers.
“I don’t know why you want to do this. I’m not going to pretend I understand.” She bit her lip when he stopped to take a deep breath. “I’m not even going to plead with you not to go. We’ve done that, been there. I need you to know I worry about you. I don’t care that we are over. I don’t care who your father is, I worry about you Kisame. No one in their right mind will go to The Interior and you’re going to go on your own.
“They won’t send anyone after you if you’re in distress. The bastards. They’ll write you off like you were never born.”
“They won’t know Rob. I don’t expect my communication devices to work in The Interior and I don’t expect my weapons to keep me safe.” They both turned to look out the window. The scene before them was marvelous. They were on the coastline of a large lake. Watching the water move peacefully as people boated was calming.
“Don’t you wonder Rob? Someone somewhere is hiding something from us. Don’t your nerves tickle and your stomach get nauseous when you realize that you’re blindly following the leader? There is a section of our world that no one goes to. We went to the desert. We went to the Amazon. Hell Rob,” she turned to face him. “We went to the moon! But this section of our own planet called The Interior we stay away from like the plague.”
“Because you can get the plague if you go there,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Who do we have to believe about that? Where are the reports? Rob everything is missing. Don’t you get it, I’ve studied this for years. Not only is there no credible report on the supposed aliens that came to our planet, but everything about our way of life before that war was destroyed. Everything! That’s impossible since the planet was not destroyed. I can’t find one book or paper dating before the war. Someone knows what’s happening. The only way I’ll find out is if I go in.”
“Why is it so important? We have a nice life. I’d even go out on a limb to say we have a great life. Why rock the boat?”
Hell, she’d asked herself that more than once. Why couldn’t she be content like everyone else on the planet? Was she trying to make her father pay for not loving her? Huh! Like that would do any good. Every time she tried to be content, to be normal she felt that itch under her skin telling her she was missing something.
“I wish I knew Rob. What I do know is that there is something in The Interior and it’s not aliens. I have to discover what it is and how it touches our lives.”
“Then I think you should know this. You’re not the first person to explore The Interior. Others have and either they don’t come back or they fall into a coma, like your mother. What kind of life is that?” His brown eyes pleaded with her to rethink her mission.
She blinked deep purple eyes at him. For a minute she wished she could find her home in his arms, but they had tried that. It had failed before it really began. She got closer to him anyway allowing him to draw her in for a hug. Rob was strong and there was something about how masculine he was that always turned her on. It just hadn’t been enough for them.
“Sometimes with your dark hair and those purple eyes, I think you’re the alien,” he murmured in her ear.
She laughed. She heard it all as she grew up. Purple eyes were normal on earth, but it was a recessive gene. Thing is, it was more common than most people thought.
“If it turns out I’m the spawn of an alien, then my trip will be over sooner than we both think.”
“You’ll be gone a month before we even think to look for you. Anything can happen in that time.” He let her go sliding back into his chair as he watched the lake again.
She wished she could have been what he needed. She pushed that thought away. According to her father, she wasn’t what anyone needed. Her future was to grow old alone that is, if she ever came back.
“When I come back, I’ll share my findings with you. Just don’t pretend that you were there and try to take credit for them.”
His laughter rang out in the room making the atmosphere lighter. “Everyone in their right mind knows I would never step foot into The Interior. Your balls are definitely bigger than mine. Heavier too, I think they’re made out of titanium.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes when there was a knock on the door.
“Are you two ready?” The redhead of a tech whose name she couldn’t remember eased its way around the door.
“Surprise I’m going to accompany you to the start of your journey,” Rob told her.
“Thank you.” As far as surprises went, she’d take this one.
Chapter Two
“This is the last relay station,” Rob told her.
What he meant was it was her last chance to change her mind and go back home. They spent two days getting here. They could have done it faster, but he wanted to give her a chance to think over her decision. Travel was done through a system of relays. It was easy on the body as well as being fast. Still the longer the distance between relays the more tired you were at the end of the day. So, they made one long relay into several short ones.
“I guess this is where we part.” She could already see the vehicle that was being provided by the natural science division she worked for. It was an older model land crawler, it was older than her, which meant it may hold up well. Nothing new or top of the line would hold up in The Interior.
“Kisame,” Rob’s large warm hand went to the side of her face. She arched into it for a minute looking for a connection with a man she never could find.
“I have to go. This place is calling me, it's been calling me since I was a child. I need to know why.”
“Maybe, when you get back?”
She smiled even as she lied to him. “Maybe.” They were never going to be even if that meant she died alone and lonely.
He smiled back, but the truth was in his eyes. “I need to go.”
“Yeah,” her voice was gruff as she gave him a full body hug before jogging over to her vehicle. After storing her gear, she got in and waved at him. She took off refusing to look over her shoulder, she knew he wouldn’t leave until he could no longer see her. One last look into the rearview mirror at his proud frame, then she crossed over into what was officially The Interior.
She was here. It had taken years of petitioning to even get a hearing for her to be considered for this mission. Her father had shut her down every time she tried. Now she was here, and all she felt was alone.
Picking up a little speed she drove deeper in. Her vehicle was equipped with a detection sensor. It could pick up anything within a hundred miles of her barring things like caves or volcanoes. She turned it on. All she could see was her own signature letting her know it was operational. As much as she wanted to get out and explore the first day was for driving. She wanted to get deep into The Interior before she started exploring. The deeper in she was the more unlikely someone would try to pull her out.
None of what she was seeing made any sense to her. The Interior was supposed to be like the desert, nothing but sand and maybe an occasional pyramid. This looked like an old city. Some of the walls were caving in and covered with ivy, as well as other brands of plant life she was unfamiliar with, were winning the war of man vs. nature. Still, there was a beauty, a symmetry to the buildings. Most of which shot high into the sky. How was it that their satellites couldn’t get pictures of them?
One more mystery. She drove until the sun went down. The vehicle worked on solar power as well as old fashion gasoline. She could have kept going but didn’t want to chance it in the dark. There were no signs of life forms other than hers, still better to be safe.
The first night was the hardest. Never in h
er life had she been surrounded by this kind of silence. She had to calm herself and listen for her heartbeat to reassure herself that she was still alive. Then there was the darkness. It was inky black, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She craned her neck up to look for a sliver of the moon but saw nothing.
Curses and aliens didn’t make any sense to her practical mind, but in the dark, she began to wonder. Where were the lightning bugs, and the birds? Hell, right now she’d even go for a spider… nope, no way, not even. No spiders allowed.
She ate her rations cold afraid to start a fire. Then she climbed into the back seat of her vehicle suddenly glad it was an older model that made it a larger model and went to sleep.
The next day was much the same as she went deeper into The Interior. She had to laugh at herself. In some remote part of her mind, she was sure she’d be the next Indiana Jones. Just like the swashbuckling woman from the movies she’d find a treasure and hungry cannibals hell-bent on protecting it.
Never mind, those were just movies. She was here to do real research. She spent the second night much like the first night. This time she took the time to thank the gods that be that she was still alive, and she turned on her diary to make oral notes in case she should die and someone found this sometime in the future.
Day three she needed a change. She was far enough into The Interior not to worry about anyone having the balls to come after her. It was time to explore. A cave was what she was looking for, but in this old city, she doubted she’d find one of those. This had to be a city nothing else made sense. If finding a city in The Interior could be called making sense.
She stopped her vehicle wondering where she should go. She got out and pulled out her kit along with her walking stick. Well, it was a duel stick, she could use it for walking as well as for protection. Leaving her vehicle parked while she walked down the street made her stomach ache, but eventually, she had to leave the comfort of it behind.
The Dragon's Mate (Ancient Dragons Book 1) Page 1
