by Sarah Noffke
Trin laughed and started to circle the man before her. “You know how to add insult to injury, but that will only ensure I crush you more decisively.” She held out her metal hand and pressed her fingers shut, the force not something most would survive.
“You end here,” Mika stated. “You’re the reason for this invasion. For the pesky creatures.”
Trin laughed and pointed a finger at the dragonriders. “Oh, no. The Dragon Elite has come to help, along with the House of Fourteen. Currently, everything of yours is being confiscated, including your scientists.” She turned, looking at the faces of the employees who had taken orders from Mika Lenna without question. “All of you will go to prison for what you’ve done to me, to my men, to animals, to who knows who worldwide. It ends today. It ends with you.” Trin pointed a metal finger at Mika. “Your death happens first, and then we fix the world you screwed up.”
Without warning, the genetically altered werewolf and the cyborg he created raced toward each other, a blur of colors as they were locked on each other, instantly intertangled.
If it wasn’t for the flash of metal on Trin or the rippling of Mika’s muscles, Sophia wouldn’t have known where the machine began and the werewolf ended. They rolled, smashing into the walls, scientists scurrying out of the way to avoid being pummeled by the fight. Many of them chose to go up the open corridors, knowing they would run into cyborgs who would take them prisoner. That was a better fate than being crushed by a werewolf and the thing he’d created.
They two yanked apart, covered in lacerations from what they’d done to each other. Sidestepping, Trin kept her eyes on Mika as he moved stealthily in the opposite direction, both looking for an opportunity to attack.
Sophia recognized the fear in his eyes and realized something. Trin being one of the first cyborgs wasn’t a mistake because she was a woman. At that moment, she knew what Mika had done. He, in his greed to be like a god, made his first cyborgs too powerful. According to Trin, it was why many of them didn’t survive. She had, and he knew she was more powerful than him.
The maker had met his match.
“I’ve pictured your death a hundred times,” Trin began breathlessly. “I realize now, the quicker the better, because I will replay it a hundred times in my mind before I give it rest. It’s best if I don’t let you monopolize much more of my life, which will begin again today.”
With that, Trin Currante’s hands shot off her body on metal rods, extending out and allowing her to reach Mika without getting close.
Her hands, the real one and the metal one, grabbed the sides of Mika Lenna’s head and pulled.
The next bit wasn’t for Sophia’s eyes. She turned away and found her face in Wilder’s shoulder as the unnatural sound ripped through the air. She didn’t need to know what a man’s head disconnecting from his unnatural form looked like. Hearing it was more than enough.
When it was tossed to the ground and rolled to her feet, she did look down, just to know that this time, the man who had created monsters from beautiful people was finally gone.
Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two
Black and blue all over, Trin Currante appeared much more human than Sophia had ever seen her. She was still a cyborg and would be for a bit longer. The skin on her face was cut in several places, long gashes that were oozing blood. Her hair was scorched, and her metal parts were scuffed and chipped. She looked…hopeful.
Standing outside of the Saverus headquarters, Sophia watched as Alicia looked over the files they’d recovered about the cyborg project on her tablet. She remained quiet for a long time, musing.
“This won’t be easy,” Alicia said matter-of-factly.
Sophia pursed her lips. “It can be done, right?”
Alicia gave her an uncertain expression. “I’ll do what I can. I think I can make the cyborgs close to what they once were.”
“Close?” Sophia argued, about to throw a fit.
To her surprise, it was Trin who put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s good enough for now. You’ve done all you can. You all have.” She looked at the House of Fourteen members taking scientists into custody. The cyborgs were being helped by dragonriders. Everyone had come together to defeat a man the world had already thought defeated. This time, though, things were different. Trin had seen to that.
“I promise,” the magitech expert began, “that once I have a cure, or whatever it ends up being, I’ll call you to the lab.”
Trin nodded. “I’ll be the first to take it. Not because I want it, but rather because I was the first to survive. If it’s not going to work, I want it to fail on me.”
Sophia blinked as emotion started to well up in her. “It will work.”
The look on Alicia’s face made her think she shouldn’t inject false hope. “We will figure something out, regardless,” Sophia amended.
Trin nodded. “Things are already better. My men are free from the demon who created them. He can no longer hurt others.”
Sophia looked around as Warriors from the House of Fourteen led magicians who had been captured by Mika Lenna and were about to be experimented on back to their families. The House of Fourteen’s reputation had been saved tonight. Valuable magicians had been rescued. Animals had been put out of their misery, and many wrongdoers put behind bars. It wasn’t healing. That was a long way off, but it was a start, and for Sophia that was good enough.
She put her hand out to Trin and smiled. “Thanks for coming together with me to do this. I look forward to future occasions where we use our skills for justice.”
Trin’s face worked on smiling, although it was more scars than anything at this point. Finally it formed something that was marked by happiness. “Thank you, Sophia Beaufont, for helping to restore my faith in humanity. It’s been a long time coming, and I realize now I wanted it all along, more than revenge. More than a cure. It reminds me that no matter how much of me is a machine, at my core, I’m a human.”
Chapter One Hundred Forty-Three
“On and off,” Sophia said, pointing to the button on the side of the phone she’d given to Evan. They were sitting on the stoop of the Castle, the sun just rising over the Expanse. Breakfast hadn’t been served in the dining hall. After everything, she couldn’t wait to give the guy who was a total pain in her ass the phone he’d won fair and square in a bet.
“On and off,” he repeated, confused, looking at the device like it was a ten-thousand-page codex. “Oh, this will take a while.”
She shook her head. “You are going to be the death of me, dude.”
“Dude,” he mocked her. “I’m a hundred years older than you. Give me a break for not getting your fancy-dancy technology right away.”
“It’s intuitive,” she stated. “You’ll pick it up. Wait, what am I saying? This is you. I’ll give you nightly lessons. You’ll need many. I’m certain of it.”
“Ha-ha,” he replied with no humor.
“Remember, if Hiker finds you with that, what do you say?” she questioned.
“Sophia bought it for me although I asked her not to,” he answered immediately.
“Then you’ll wake up with my friend Trin standing over you about to rip your head off like you’re Mika Lenna,” she told him with pride.
He nodded. “I meant to say, I found it, sir, at that awful Saverus place. Sophia who?”
She nodded. “Much better. Just don’t have it out while you’re at the Castle, or he will catch you.”
A stomping sound behind the Castle door made them straighten. A moment later, none other than Hiker Wallace whipped open the door of the Castle and stood on the threshold.
The two dragonriders stood at once, trying to act natural. Evan put his elbow on Sophia’s shoulder, leaning too much of his body weight on her and nearly making her topple over. Sophia found herself whistling.
Hiker’s eyes were on the Expanse in the distance but he diverted his gaze to the pair. “What’s wrong with you two?”
“Sophia was trying to kiss me,” Eva
n answered quickly.
She pushed him off her. “As if.”
“Well, whatever,” Hiker said dismissively striding past them. “We’re having a hatching.”
“A what?” Sophia asked, running to catch up with the large man and his long strides.
“A hatching,” he repeated, walking out to where the dragon eggs littered the grassy hills of the Gullington.
When Hiker said there was a hatching, what he meant was hatchings plural.
Sophia’s mouth fell open as she took in the sight around the Expanse. Hatching was one word for it, but a great awakening was another. She couldn’t believe the sight as hundreds of the dragon eggs broke open, newborn dragons poking their muzzels through their colorful shells and breaking through with their horned tails. They rolled out of their shells in brilliant shades of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, white, and black.
For some reason, on that beautiful summer day, hundreds of the dragon eggs had decided to hatch at once. As they frolicked about, both evil and good dragons, Sophia knew the Gullington was going to change drastically.
They now had a huge population of dragons to care for and to train and hopefully bond to riders. Most importantly, to bring justice to a world that was worth saving.
Yes, some dragons would be evil. Some would be good. Sophia believed the good like Trin Currante and Hiker Wallace, the Dragon Elite, and Liv Beaufont and all the rest of her friends outweighed those who were evil in the world. If she’d learned anything recently, it was that good always conquered evil when forces banded together.
Standing between the leader of the Dragon Elite and her friend, Sophia looked at the Expanse as the new generation of dragons emerged. They would bring many new adventures to this world. More than anything, she hoped they fulfilled their ultimate purpose—to bring love and justice to Earth.
The Story Continues with Harmonize Hostilities
Coming July 17, 2020
Pre-order today and have it delivered to your Kindle Reader at Midnight on July 17, 2020
Sarah’s Author Notes
May 18, 2020
Thank you so much for reading. Your support of the Liv Beaufont series and this one has been life changing. Thank you! Seriously! Thank you.
This was my 64th and 65th book. I should start just counting them as one, but the idea was originally to break the books up later but I don’t think we’ll be doing that. Anyway, my point in explaining the number is that apparently at this point, I need to do strange things with the chapters to keep things interesting for me.
My boyfriend and I originally bonded over Taylor Swift music, well after I asked him if he knew how to use a fork and told him my last name sounded like a cat throwing up. We chatted on Facebook messenger for the first few months and we’d slip in Taylor lyrics to each of the conversations. That’s about the time that he told me that he starts each of his books with a Tay-Tay song title.
For this book, I picked up the challenge, but in true Sarah style, I took it a bit farther. For the first part of the book, I used Taylor song titles to start each of the chapters. That was like 60 titles. At first it was challenging to figure out how to start a chapter with “Death by a Thousand Cuts” or “Cornelia Street.” And then after a while, it sort of started the chapters on it own, taking them in a fun new direction.
Although Tay is quite prolific as far as music goes, she doesn’t have 130 plus titles, so I had to switch to a different band for part 2. I have an unhealthy obsession with Snow Patrol. I’m a little too proud that the lead singer, Gary Lightbody, called me out at one of their concerts. I was like, “OMG he pointed up to me in the balcony and called me ‘blondie.’” Of course, he was turning down my marriage proposal, but that parts not as important. And also, Gary, you didn’t even give us a chance! That’s fine, I’m over it and still love the band enough that I used their song titles to start each of the chapters in the second part of the book.
Okay, so now I think I’ve started a tradition—like writing a book isn’t hard enough that I’ve got to challenge myself with this new device of starting chapters. But it’s really fun and you all should play along. So I need suggestions of bands I can use for song titles. They have to have a big collection and hopefully the titles aren’t too crazy. Actually crazy is probably okay. I can figure out how to start a chapter with “Who Killed Bambi” or “Anarchy in the UK.” Alright, so are the Sex Pistols the next band for part 1 of book 7? Rolling Stones? Aerosmith? You tell me. Put it in the review for this book or message me on Facebook or send me a telegram or carrier pigeon. Just send in your suggestions.
Other things I did with this book, is that I included many of my friends as characters. You may have read RE Vance’s book, “Death of an Author.” Well, when I found out that he hadn’t put me in the book and killed me, I was pretty pissed. When Sarah gets pissed, people hear about it—incessantly. So then JL Hendricks and I decided that we’d put each other in our books and kill the character off. Writers are very strange people.
Ramy tried to make good on things with me by putting me as a “gnome-like” character in a short story but that one wasn’t picked by the fans. Anyway, Ramy is pretty much the male version of me, I’ve decided. Between his constant antics and pranks and his obsession with cheese, he’s like my spirit animal. So recently, he put me as a ninja in a book and that made me happy—until I learned that he gave me a gnome boyfriend. You just can’t let well enough alone, can you Ramy-Cans (that’s my affectionate name for him that he doesn’t really know about)?
Anyway, his thoughtful gesture earned him a place in the book as Zac Efron’s bodyguard. I found out from the Scotsman that my favorite movie, the Greatest Showman, wasn’t really liked by Ramy-Cans, so of course, I had to make his character obsessed with it. And then the bonus of him playing fetch with Lunis and feeding the dragon broccoli was just icing on the cheesecake.
For Jen (JL Hendricks), I wanted to make her a high-powered CEO of an Amazon like company (Hence River Corp). She’s brilliant and successful and also a bit short sighted, because no one can be perfect. That wouldn’t make for a fun or realistic book. I maybe let Jen down by not killing her, but I really couldn’t bring myself to hurt any of my friends, even in a fictional sense.
And then as many of you know, Lee and Cat are based on my friends Crystal and Cat in France. Those chapters write themselves. So there’s lots of friends in my book inspired by my real friends. I think it’s safe to say that I miss my people after two months of this lockdown. Is this thing over yet?
Oh, the Amazon storyline is a bit of a homage to Doctor Who (Jodie seasons). I watched an episode on the plane to Scotland where the conglomerate is run by robots and humans and I was all over it. Not copying because my storyline is very different, but there’s shades of similarities because, well, I’m a Doctor Who fanatic.
I’m pretty much obsessed with most things BBC, hence the reference to Black Books in the stories. Actually, Bernard Black is pretty much the male version of me, I’ve just decided. Sorry Ramy-Cans. It’s just that the Irish man’s sense of humor is very similar to my own. Dylan Moran, if you’re reading this, can we have lunch…Oh, and do you know Gary Lightbody? He’s Irish too and y’all all know each other, right?
Oh, and one last thing about Ramy-Cans. Recently, MA told you all about the virtual office place that he set up for LMBPN. I have a corner office next to Judith Anderle, which is like a dream come true. It’s been a lot of fun to pop into the office and briefly chat with friends that are “mingling by the water cooler.” But in true Sarah style, I had to take it a bit farther than just socializing. Like why have offices if we aren’t going to really use them. David Beers sort of started it by plastering Post-It notes on my office calling asking Tiny Ninja about centaur’s private parts. Actually, I unfortunately know more than I’d like about centaurs. I was once on a date with a guy who commissioned a painting of himself as a centaur and then told me that I couldn’t be one because I was a girl, when I said I wanted
my own painting.
At the restaurant, I all pulled up my phone and did a bunch of research, learning that female centaurs are centaurides. Then we delved into the anatomy of the beasts as he continued to tell me about this life sized painting. I’ve been known to do things that make no sense simply for the entertainment factor. That’s why when this train wreck of a man invited me back to his place to see the painting, I totally jumped on the opportunity. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen and totally worth going back to a potential serial killer’s house. In the painting, he had a mullet, a mustache and a hairy chest. When he asked me where he should put it, I pointed to the trash. This is what a bottle of whiskey and $1200 can get you, if you’re so inclined. Anyway, talk about derailing the story. My point is, I know about centaurs. They have horse parts, Beers.
My other point is that we have a lot of fun in the virtual office and one day, Elaine Bateman and I decided to deface MA’s office. The HR department was out that day, so we plastered his office walls with gnome porn. Really, I just told Elaine to go and make it look like MA had been searching for gnome porn by putting those search results up on one of the screens in his office. They are plastered on the walls of the virtual office. Elaine, who is the funniest person I know, then proceeded to click on the first link. “NOOOO! Just make it look like he’s searching!” I yelled having seen images that I couldn’t unsee.
We also put lots of lists on MA’s walls of things he needed to do or brainstorming stuff. It went like this:
“Story idea: Broke Back Mountain, but with gnomes.”
“To Do:
1.Rub oil on body
2.Find a gnome named Aiden
3.???
4.Profit”
I will admit that I was giddy for MA to walk into his office the next day and see what we’d done. But then I didn’t hear from him. There was no revenge attempts on my own office. Just more sticky notes from Beers telling me that I was short—first time I’ve heard that one. After a few days, I asked MA what he thought of his office and he was like, “You did that? I thought that was Ramy.” I was highly offended that I didn’t get credit for the awesomeness.
