by LK Kelley
the
ANAERRIS CODE
a Gemma Sinclaris Series
Part 1
the
Gemma
By LK Kelley
DragonEye Publishing
The Anaerris Code, a Gemma Sinclaris Series – Part 1 The Gemma
Copyright © 2017, by LK Kelley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, by any means or in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author and Publisher, except for brief quotation embodied in literary articles or reviews.
Published by
Space-Time, an Imprint of DragonEye Publishing
First Printing: February 14, 2017
ISBN 13: 978-1-61500-137-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 13: 978-1-61500-138-5 (EBook Mobi Kindle)
ISBN 13: 978-1-61500-141-5 (Ebook EPub )
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963820
Publisher info. Contact
DragonEye Publishing
511 W. Water St., Unit E
Elmira, New York, 14905
Website: DragonEyePublishers.com
[email protected]
...PROLOGUE…
Above me, two, ancient moons shine – one of brilliant lavender, purple, and white, and one of blood red, yellow, and black. Both obscure one-fourth of the night sky, casting an eerie light on the world of my birth, which is charred and blackened by hell-fire and blood. I stand upon an enormous bluff, and stare down into the great, blackened valley, while the final war rages. A massive river of red races toward the brilliant lavender moon...the blood of my people and his. Tears of blood stain my cheeks and clothing while I watch the end of two races of beings. My race will be gone – including me, if I refuse to agree to be turned. A sound behind me. I know it is he. I can feel him as I have always done, since we met. Our kind should never be together, but it is as inevitable as time itself. I turn to see my attacker's body, which no longer has its head attached. Blood gushes forth from it. I meet his frightened eyes, and follow his horrified gaze down to the fatal wound in my chest where blood runs freely. I will bleed out in seconds.
“NO!” he yells, as I begin to collapse.
He catches me long before I hit the blackened earth below me. I stare at the man I love, knowing I should not love him. We are enemies. He has no tears to shed, but he gently cradles me in his arms, his tortured red eyes begging me with the same question he has asked many times. I can barely move my head, but I nod once, knowing the precious cargo I carry for my race and his. I want to be with him forever. And, if I’m still alive, my own race will also continue. I must change, no matter what, into whatever form. His mouth lowers to my neck kissing the pulse that is rapidly quieting as my heart silences. I feel a momentary sting as his fangs bite into my neck. To be with him forever is all I ever want, and I must complete the task that I was given by the ancients. Warmth trickles down the back of my neck as I feel the liquid of life slipping from me, echoing the death of my planet. I hope we have not waited too long. He lifts his head, his mouth dripping with my blood. I see in his sad eyes that he is hoping the same. I slide gratefully into the unknowing.
Time and space stand still. For how long, I know not. I awake, naked, on a soft bed covered in crimson silk. He sits with his back to the headboard, still cradling my lifeless body in his arms, patiently awaiting my awakening, and then, I will always be with him. I lift my eyes to stare at the man I will be with forever. I am ready as his lips lower to mine while my new, strong arms pull his nude body over mine. He is not gentle with his kiss, and I would never want him to be. I kiss him back frantically, feeling wetness between my legs as he spreads mine with his. He plunges into my heat, sheathing himself as deep as possible, and thrusts hard and fast into my body. My hips meet him with the same desperation and desire. I need him like I do not need air to breathe. As our orgasms reach their climax, I feel his hot seed jet into me. I can feel it enter my womb! He has so much! He stills, and I open my eyes that I know are still ripe with inhuman desire. I stare at the couple that is reflected in the mirror above our bed. My bright red eyes look back at me. I am whole again, and in the arms of my great lover for all time to come.
It is time. He shows me the crystal that I had entrusted to him, and I breathe a sigh of relief. It is safe, and ready for the one who must receive it. One who knows not of his part in the great scheme of the Creator. I must make sure that the Codex is written, and both it and the crystal must be kept apart. Both are dangerous alone, but together would cause unimaginable chaos. Our race has always been banned from writing about our history. I have been charged with finding a way to write what I was given in an indestructible method. But, I will use not only my own powers, but those given to me by my mate. I will make sure that we do not lose our heritage. If we must sacrifice our own lives, then so be it. At all costs, the one safeguard I carry must be kept safe until a time when the “gem” is needed.
Time ceases to exist in the realm we chose for its magic, where an ancient friend of mine offered to help. An ally who believes, as do we, that nothing can be left to chance. It is time to travel to the one place the Council would never expect us to hide the book. As for the crystal? My love has given it to one we know we can trust to protect it, sending him to a primitive planet known as Earth. And, we will hide the flesh-blackened codex – sealed with the most terrifying of magic that cannot be opened by any living soul, or they will die. My magical friend sees the future, and tells us that a time will come when both crystal and book will join together. Because of this, she sends an envoy with the “gem”. And, now, we are leaving behind the only one who has the power to open and to read... the codex. And, then, it passes into legend and myth.
And, this book will forever be known as...
the
ANAERRIS CODE
The Beginning
“DADDY!” screamed eleven year-old Gemma Elwood, as she ran toward the house, and down the driveway with a tiny little dog at her feet. “DADDY! DADDY! HELP! HELP! MOMMY!”
William Tyler Elwood flung open the door the moment that he heard his daughter scream over the thunder and lightening that scraped the sky. Gem flung herself into his arms. Gemma and his love had just left the house minutes before he heard Gem's voice.
“DADDY! MOMMY! HELP MOMMY!” she screamed, finally getting her words right.
Tyler felt his stomach draw up in knots as he heard the terror in her voice. Without a word, he threw Gem into the new, red truck that he had just purchased, and drove like a maniac to where Gem pointed. Tears ran down her cheeks as she sobbed. Tyler stepped out of the truck.
“Gem. Stay here,” he told her, then turned to see smoke and flames coming from below him on the mountain.
Terror gripped him as he flung himself over the edge, and started slipping and sliding his way down the embankment to get to the black Honda SUV that lay at the bottom of the mountain side. As he got closer, he saw his wife, Corina, laying on the ground in an unnatural position. He slid his way down, using his hands to keep him upright, rocks and grit scraping them to almost bloody pulps until he reached her. She had been flung almost thirty feet from the vehicle, and she hung from a low branch, where she had been impaled. He gulped as sobs racked his body. He had no option but to pull her down. She was dead. There was no life left in her beautiful green eyes. Crying uncontrollably, he slid her off the eight inch limb, and gently laid her down on the ground pushing her blonde hair back from her face. Looking into the face that had held his love for so long, he found himself in an almost catatonic state as he held the love of his life.
<
br /> “Oh, Corina! My beautiful love! How did this happen?” he asked as reality set into his mind.
His clothing was blood soaked with her precious life, and he buried his face into her neck. The storm crackled around them, and rain poured from the sky mixing with his own tears and her blood from the massive hole in the middle of her body. And, then, he heard crying above him. Who was crying? Then, he remembered. Gem. Gem was crying. He turned his head upward, and saw her peering over the cliff. Corina would want him to watch after her, now. All he wanted was to join her in death! But, he couldn't. Not with his precious little girl needing him. He took one last look at his wife, laid her body down, then began the long climb back to the top. Once he was there, he fell on his knees, and pulled his crying daughter into his arms.
“It's OK, Gem. It'll be OK.”
“No! It will never be OK again, Daddy!” she cried.
“I know, Gem. I know.”
~1 ~
“Alone is never where I wanted to be, but then, I do have Lola!”
Lola, the pug, dodged a pillow that her pet just threw. Lola had been very worried about her over the last few weeks. She hadn't been able to write one, damn word on her laptop. She must have writer’s block. The next words confirmed it.
“I’m so sorry, Lola!” Gem apologized, whipping her up into her arms, and giving her a kiss on her tiny head. “I didn’t mean it! Really, sweetie, I didn’t. Oh, Lola! What am I going to do? I don’t have an idea for my next novel series!”
Lola loved her little pet, so she did the only thing that was really in her power. She turned her head, and licked her pet in the mouth. She and her pet had much in common, since both of them were adopted. Gemma Marie Elwood adopted Lola from a Pug Rescue organization in Denver, Colorado, and she had been with Gem for a very unusually long time. In fact, Gem really didn’t know when Lola came to live with them, and truthfully, Lola was a bit anxious that Gem might discover that very soon. Strangely enough, though, all Lola knew was that she had never been happier. She had only complaint with her pet, and that was that Gem should be feeding Lola much more food than was placed into her bowl twice a day! Gem claimed it was to keep her trim and healthy. Lola didn’t believe that for one minute! Nevertheless, no matter how many times Lola pulled the “I'm really starving” face, Gem never bought it, and would never give her any more, or less. However, sometimes, Gem would give in and cook her an egg, or maybe put some peanut butter in a Kong Ball, which kept Lola busy for hours trying to eat it all, with a bone treat, sometimes. In consequence, Lola grudgingly admitted to herself that she was healthy, trim, and had tons of energy! She could run rings around other pugs her age, since most were kind of fat! In addition, her Vet was very pleased with her health, and it always made Lola a smug pug! Pugs had a problem with weight, causing them to become sedentary with little energy. Another condition specific to pugs was with impaired breathing due to their flat little noses. And, being overweight just made it worse. At least Lola just didn’t have that problem, so she forgave Gem for not feeding her as much as Lola really wanted. OK. So. If she could, she'd eat all the time! Lola loved everything – well, except for lettuce. She hated it! Ick!
Gem carried Lola over to the sofa flopping down, and leaned her head on the back of it.
“Lola, I’m stumped! I don’t have an idea in my head!” Gem told her. “My publisher is about to have a cow! I have to come up with something really soon!”
Since she was little, Gemma Marie Elwood kept spiral notebooks that she called her “Dreams Diary”. Spiral notebooks weren't the most elegant diary, but then, they never had much money. In them was written every dream she ever had that she remembered. It was those dreams, which gave her great ideas for her books. After her Mom had died, she became plagued by new and horrible dreams that were terribly disturbing. She would awake, screaming, and every time, her Dad would come to her rescue, holding her until her shaking and terror calmed.
Questions followed those dreams about her Mom's death – and, one particular question she repeatedly asked, yet was never supposed to ask, she did anyway.
“Why? Why? Why?” she would ask, but that question was never answered, of course.
There were things that never added up in her Mom’s death, and her Dad had not been forthcoming with any information. Whatever the mystery surrounding her Mom's death was, her Dad took it to his grave. He had always told her that her Mom had hydroplaned during a horrendous storm, sending her SUV flying over the cliff. Gem could remember running and running back to her house after she found the wreck, but, she could remember nothing more, and her Father would never answer her questions. Most importantly, though, she always had the queasy feeling that she was in the SUV with her Mom. If so, though, she had no memory of it. But, another question plagued her. If she was, why wasn't she hurt or killed? She had not had a scratch on her!
Her therapy doctors had told her Dad that she had deliberately blocked out what she had seen that night. However, despite all her therapy sessions, the dreams continued to escalate. The night her Mom died was also the first night she dreamed of a frightening place of blood, death, and war. Pick something! During the nights, Gem would awake in a cold sweat that drenched her sheets. Of course that meant that she had to change them in the middle of the night, before she could go back to sleep. And, then, the dreams repeated. During the days, though, she tried to reason it all out, but when she thought of it too much, her head would feel as if it were about to explode. That one particular dream, though, had always remained the same. But lately, it had begun to change. Now, she had become a participant in it! Because of this, she could see from both the objective and subjective points of view. However, trying to figure out which was which, was becoming increasingly harder, especially since she kept hopping back and forth between someone else's eyes and her own. Confusing was not the word for it! She needed to do something about them!
Putting that aside for the time being, she walked to her desk where she kept a drawer under lock and key. Gem inserted her key, unlocked, and opened it, pulling out one of her older diaries. Because she actually believed that sometimes it was beneficial to hand-write, Gem grabbed a pencil, and curled up on her sofa, while Lola plopped her tiny body on the arm of it, falling asleep almost instantly. Gem began to write out her dream, trying to remember the omniscient point of view, and the first person point of view. And, in this case, it was really hard since the scenes kept switching constantly.
“Let's see,” she said aloud, and while biting the top of her pencil, she began to write. Gem's mind escalated, and her hand began to write as if possessed!
“OK. I'm standing on a bluff. Everything around me is blackened as if burned to a crisp. Nothing is alive here. There are no trees, no grass, no water, no signs of habitation any longer. And, it is certainly not Earth, but another planet somewhere. Two moons – or were they planets – take up half of the sky above me – one in lavender and white, and the other black and red! Below me is an unbelievably deep valley – so deep, that those fighting below resembled ants scurrying to and fro. And, even though everything seems so dark, I can still see everything.”
“How weird is that?” she asked herself, still nibbling on the eraser. Then, Gem continued to write and mutter to herself. She smirked, and said, “And, that is the fate of an author!”
“Massive armies fighting beside a red river spanning the ground below her, as if it were a vein within a giant being in the cosmos.”
“Suddenly, I feel a gut-wrenching pain in the middle of my stomach and look down. A large spear is piercing my body. Scene switch. I see what happened from my own point of view, now. A bastard of a coward stabbed me – uh her – from behind, and a look of glee flits across his face. Scene switch, again. Where before, I saw the man who had stabbed me, now, I am the woman, and I see a man leaning toward me with red eyes that have no hatred, but are filled love and concern. I am weak, but I don't know why. Pain! The cause of my pain is sticking out from my chest. And, I'm sticky w
ith blood! A lot of blood! My eyes jerk back to his in shock, and they seemed to ask me a question. Without my own volition, I nod my head slightly, and turn my neck. I see him lean down with fangs, and feel a sharp prick on my neck – no, wait. Scene switch. Not my neck...hers! Scene switch..
“I'm getting damned tired of this!” she growled to herself.
She continued. “I can feel the pricks in his bite, followed by incredible desire despite the weakness due to loss of blood. Switch back. I see her body through her eyes lying on a massive bed covered in red silk. I am completely naked, and my legs are on top of the man's shoulders who bit me – uh – her...and he is fucking me hard! I can feel every single stroke of his cock as he pounds deep into her body! And, I could not stop it! I didn't want it to stop! A mirror hangs from the ceiling over us, allowing me to see the back of his body that was toned with the tightest ass I've ever seen! I am beginning to lose track of where I start, and the woman begins! My hands, no the woman's hands, were digging into his ass, trying to push him – uh, her – deeper into my body. His hair is coal black, but I can see nothing else, since his mouth is suckling my neck as he was biting me. And, more? I stare into the mirror that is above the bed. My eyes were bright red just like his! Although what I could see was so erotic, it was embarrassing – epecially since it wasn't even me!”
“Ah, hell!” she almost screamed aloud. “I always wake up at this point in the dream, feeling wet, horny, eager, and ready for my new life to begin.” But, aloud, she said, “And, that is the...End of dream, Lola,” Gem finished with a flourish of her pencil! Her face was flushed, and very red.
