by Regine Abel
HANDS OF FATE
Veredian Chronicles – Book 5
Regine Abel
Copyright © 2019
Other books by Regine Abel
THE VEREDIAN CHRONICLES
Escaping Fate
Losing Amalia
Blind Fate
Raising Amalia
Twist of Fate
BRAXIANS
Anton’s Grace
Ravik’s Mercy
DARK TALES
Bluebeard’s Curse
The Mistwalker
VALOS OF SONHADRA
Unfrozen
Iced
XIAN WARRIORS
Legion
Raven
OTHERS
Heart of Stone
Alien Awakening
Dark Swan
CHARACTER ART BY
Maroot Thanomluk
COVER DESIGN BY
Regine Abel
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and punishable by law. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This book uses mature language and explicit sexual content. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18.
This book is a work of fiction freely inspired by the Ant and the Grasshopper fable. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
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
EPILOGUE
MORE BY THE AUTHOR
ABOUT REGINE
HANDS OF FATE
Thirty years ago, Xevius defied his orders by refusing to assassinate the woman who would birth the future mother of the Veredian Titans. Today, his government demands that he atones for that failure by ridding the world of those children before they grow even more powerful. While on that mission, he feels the pull of the Tuning—the psionic call of his true mate. To complicate matters, his woman turns out to be the military leader and protector of the Veredians.
With tension rising between her people and the Xelixians, the last thing Kamala needs is a Korlethean assassin hunting the Veredian children. Attempting to eliminate him first should be an easy decision, except for the fact that he’s her soulmate. Swaying him to their side could be the key to solving many of their problems, but at what cost to him and his people?
As dire visions and prophecies multiply, Xevius is torn between his conscience, loyalty to his people, and his love for the woman who has captured his heart.
DEDICATION
To all the readers who have followed me since the beginning of this crazy adventure. To my wonderful beta readers who aren’t afraid to speak their minds and who love these characters as much as I do. To the amazing artists that have given a face to the heroes I’ve created.
To dreams come true.
PROLOGUE
Veredia started dying over a century ago following a violent solar storm and its radioactive fallout. The males died by the millions and those who survived were mostly sterile. Since then, not a single male child had been carried to term.
Ninety years after the disaster, the last male died.
Veredian females were beautiful and all possessed a psi ability, making them even more appealing to the slavers who swarmed Veredia. Although the surviving females fought back, they were soon overrun.
During that time, a young Guldan slaver named Gruuk captured dozens of Veredians and built himself a slaver’s empire. Depending on their abilities, the females were sold, kept for his personal use, or sent to one of his strongholds to be part of his breeding program. Gruuk discovered that mating Veredians with Korletheans yielded the most powerful psi abilities in the hybrid offspring.
Amalia was such a hybrid and, due to her hacking ability, one of Gruuk’s favorites. She also possessed a foresight ability, which she kept secret. During a slave delivery to the illegal Blood Houses on Xelix Prime, Amalia managed to escape and participated in the Fastening, a ceremony where females could select a lifemate among the many willing males presenting themselves. Thus, she met cousins Khel Praghan and Lhor Kirnhan who would become her mates and sire her twins.
The majority of Xelixian males are infected by the Taint, its toxins spreading dark capillaries beneath the skin, all over their bodies, and killing them at an early age. The only way to halt or reverse the disease was by absorbing oxytocin, a hormone released in a female’s bloodstream when she climaxes. However, Xelixian females were rare and only mated with untainted males, called Primes, or those displaying minor symptoms, called Norms. The true Tainted were considered second-rate citizens, forced to hide their Taint in public with hooded cloaks. They were desperate for females – a need the Blood Houses catered to.
Amalia’s First Mate, Khel, is the General of the Xelixian Army. With the aid of her mates, the army and Detective Behn Gravhin, two of the four Blood Houses on Xelix Prime were dismantled. But V, the mastermind, still eludes them. The alliance between Khel and the powerful Tuureans—a mysterious, cyborg-like species—led to Gruuk’s death. Together, they freed hundreds of Veredians from two of Gruuk’s strongholds on other planets, including Amalia’s great-mother Maheva. The allies swear to free every Veredian still held captive, and above all, to keep Amalia’s son, the first living Veredian male in over a century, safe from those who would enslaved them.
But V isn’t done. Realizing his Blood House business was on the verge of collapse, he shifted his focus to reproducing another Veredian male. V captured Valena and Zhul to see if they could succeed as Amalia had with her mates. Although his plans were thwarted, he managed to escape once again. Nevertheless, his nefarious interference allowed Valena and Zhul to conceive a pair of male twins, which helped Dr. Minh come closer to a potential cure for both the Taint and the Veredians’ fertility issues.
With the last Blood House dismantled, Veredians, Xelixians, and Tuureans are on the hunt to find the remaining fortresses, and stop V’s new venture of producing Bliss, a highly addictive recreational drug derived from the Xelixians’ Thylin venom.
An anonymous tip leads the allies in a trap in which Admiral Lee almost dies, forcing the Tuureans to reveal they are in fact Veredians in disguise, and that Lee is Aleina, Maheva’s long lost youngest daughter. The unexpected encounter with Mercy, Maheva’s secret child with Gruuk, leads to the discovery of a map of all of her father’s reproduction compounds, allowing them to finally free all of the captive Veredians and Xelixians. With the help of Mercy’s contacts, they track down and capture Varrek, putting an end to his Bliss business.
Amalia is reunited with her father, who takes on the training of the Titans to teach them control of their violence and rage.
During those adventures, Aleina becomes pregnant with Ghan’s child. Through them, the cure for the Veredian infertility is found at long last. Bu
t the cure for the Xelixian Taint remains just out of reach, with all evidences pointing at the Korletheans potentially holding the missing ingredient.
CHAPTER 1
Eryon
I could barely contain my frantic pacing as I listened to the painful screams of my trueborn daughter. Although muffled by the closed master bedroom door, they rang far too loud in my ears. Helpless to aid Amalia through her labor, I watched over her first three children—Vahleryon, Zharina, and Rhadames—who were playing a Xelixian board game on the carpet of the family room. I glanced back down the hallway to their parents’ bedroom as another shout rose. I shouldn’t worry so much. After all, both my daughter’s mates—Khel and Lhor—stood by her side and her grandmother, Maheva—one of the most powerful healers in the galaxy—oversaw the delivery of the twin girls she bore. And yet, a growing sense of unease had taken over me and wouldn’t let go.
I turned back towards my oldest grandchild. Vahl did a great job of keeping a neutral expression on his little face, but the stiffness of his back revealed his tension. Zharina—his fraternal twin—and his Geminate—Rhadames—didn’t succeed at all. Despite their obvious worry and distress at their mother’s suffering, they still psychically sent soothing waves to their big brother.
Little Vahl was not only a Titan; he also was the apex alpha. When I first came into their lives, a little over eighteen months ago, I had doubted my ability to bring him true peace, to teach him how to keep in check the rage, violence, and territorial nature of those who, like him, had inherited extremely powerful psi powers. But he had exceeded all of my wildest expectations with self-control. And his siblings had done wonders appeasing him when his more violent nature took over.
Titans had been the result of genetic manipulations the Korletheans—my people—had performed in order to make our species almost god-like. That arrogance had nearly caused our extinction with our Titan offspring turning against us as they considered us inferior. The years spent hunting and exterminating every last one of them had left our planet in shambles and our people weakened.
And then, in the most improbable twist of fate, my daughter had given birth to the first new Titans in thirty years, every one of them even more powerful than any we’d seen before. Since then, many more Veredians like her have given birth to similar offspring to the greatest dismay of my people. Despite my complete loyalty to the Korlethean Empire, I became an outcast to protect my grandchildren and provide them with the necessary guidance to keep them from becoming the abominations we believed they would be. But even now, as I awaited the birth of my new granddaughters, fear gnawed at me that they would be the real monsters.
“I see her head! Push, Amalia! Push!” said Maheva’s muffled voice through the door.
The children all turned their heads towards the hallway, eyes wide, holding their breaths like I was. Any second now, once the little girl made her entry into this world, as her relatives, we would all feel our blood bond settling, like a strange ache in our chests. It bothered me that they should be within hearing range of all this, but it was Xelixian custom. Anyway, the children wouldn’t have had it any other way, protective as they were of their mother.
Amalia emitted a long, drawn out scream-growl, followed by silence.
I took a couple of involuntary steps towards the bedroom, straining my ears to catch any sound of conversation. But nothing, not even the lusty cries of a newborn.
But even as the blood bond constricted my chest, I felt a wave of aggression slam into me, almost malevolent in its nature rather than animal. I barely had time to shield my mind before the psionic attack struck me. It had been meant as a killing blow, but the young mind—although incredibly powerful for a minutes-old baby—didn’t yet have the focus and understanding of an adult mind’s weaknesses to be lethal.
Vahl jumped to his feet, a predatory expression of his face. His claws sprung out of his fingertips, and his fangs descended. While Xelixian males didn’t normally get their fangs before eleven or twelve, and their venoms only at the start of puberty, as a Titan, Vahl and his siblings were beyond precocious. At his current age of five, Vahleryon’s venom could kill within seconds.
“Vahl, peace!” I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice.
He ignored me and began to prowl towards his parents’ bedroom. From the troubled look on his siblings’ little faces as they watched their older brother walk away, I doubted the newborn had attacked them. But there was no question she had attacked Vahl.
“What the fuck do you mean it’s a boy?” Amalia’s voice exclaimed. “What do you mean there are no twins?”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and my heart dropped to my feet.
A Shadow! Goddess protect us!
I reached for Vahl to stop him from going in with the intent of dragging him away from here. But he casually raised his left hand towards me, and I froze dead in my tracks, paralyzed. As a biokinetic, my grandson could control any living tissue, from forcing a person to walk, to depriving his target of the ability to use one or more of their limbs, to making them levitate, or to flat out stopping or squishing his victim’s heart.
Vahleryon could mass-kill with a thought.
His siblings followed in his wake, both of them casting me an apologetic look as they walked past me. As soon as Vahl opened the bedroom door, a feral hissing sound greeted his entrance.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Amalia said in a trembling voice.
The invisible shackles holding me dissolved. I didn’t question why my grandson had chosen to release me, but I rushed towards the bedroom.
“Son…” Khel said, in a cautious, but warning tone, while tightening his hold on the Shadow boy in his arms.
The baby, struggling to hold his head up, was hissing at Vahl with a murderous glint in his eyes, the same dark purple as his sire’s, Khel, and his oldest brother’s.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” Vahl said in stunningly controlled voice. Territorial as he was, I’d expected him to have instantly retaliated against his sibling… in the most extreme way. “I’m not going to hurt him even if he’s trying to kill me.”
“What?” Lhor whispered, staring at the boy.
“Kill you?” Amalia asked with a horrified expression, her gaze flicking from the beautiful infant in Khel’s arms to her oldest child.
The baby could have been Vahl’s twin, with the same light brown skin, oversized purple pupils, and the cheetah-like dark spots forming an elegant line on each side of his neck, down the length of his arms and along his legs.
“Don’t worry, Mama,” Vahl said, steadily approaching the newborn. “He can’t hurt me.”
Khel tightened his hold further on the child, his gaze boring into his firstborn’s, searching. “Talk to me, son,” he said to Vahl.
The boy stopped and looked up at his father with a serenity that left me speechless. I could feel the waves of aggression flowing from the baby, although they now focused on his oldest brother.
“I’m okay, Daddy. I’m in control,” Vahl said with stoicism. “He’s angry, but I will show him peace. We will teach him peace,” he corrected, looking over his shoulder at his siblings and then at me.
My chest constricted with love, pride, and gratitude. My people had sought to kill him for what he was and what he might do, but he kept defying the odds. Beyond his tremendous psi power, he fully embodied the endless love of his mother, the fierce protectiveness of his sire, Khel, and the selfless devotion of his Papa, Lhor.
Khel studied his son’s face for a second and then nodded in concession. “I trust you,” he said.
Vahl’s face dissolved in an expression of pure adoration. He worshipped his father, who didn’t fully appreciate the power of those three little words when it came to his son. The one-time Vahl had betrayed his father’s trust, the disappointment on Khel’s face had nearly crushed him. The boy had endeavored to never let that happen again. And this largely explained his incredible control today.
Lhor took Amalia’s hand. H
is gaze roamed over Zharina and Rhadames—both of whom he had sired—before settling on Vahl. Although tense, trust could also be seen on his face. I once more thanked the Goddess that she should have given my daughter such wonderful mates as those two males, the perfect fathers for her powerful offspring.
Amalia, her forehead still damp from the effort of delivery, held on to her second mate’s hand with bruising force as she looked on with fear at the scene unfolding before her. Her mother, Maheva, had covered her modesty when we had barged in. But now, she, too, watched the scene with a sense of dread, not only because of the threat the newborn represented, but because she was pregnant herself. With the Veredian reproductive issues resolved, she and her mate, Minh, had decided to have a child in her last year of fertility. I could see on her face that she feared it might be just as violent.
“Hello, little brother,” Vahl said, closing the distance with the boy. “I know your rage. I used to feel the same. You can’t kill me. I’m older and stronger than you. I will always be older and stronger than you.”
The baby hissed, and I felt the psychic strikes he launched in quick succession at his brother. My spine tensing to near breaking point, I waited with bated breath for Vahl’s reaction.
He smiled.
“That’s cute, but you still can’t hurt me,” Vahl said with a smug expression.
He reached a hand for the baby who tried to claw at him. The Shadow boy’s hand froze mid-air, and he stared in disbelief at his older brother.
“Like I said, I’m stronger than you,” Vahl said with a shrug before resting his palm on the baby’s nape. “Even if you want to kill me, I will protect you.”
The waves of aggression I’d been feeling faded almost instantly as Vahl pushed his Kaa—peaceful psionic energy—towards his youngest sibling. The newborn gaped at him in awe.
