Everything that has an End (Color Variant B)

Cover Credits

Cover line art by: Paulo Barrios

Colors for version (a) by: David Delanty

Colors for version (b) by: Michele Wilson

Chronological Order

ARK-007 Betrayal

ARK-010 Awakening

ARK-011 Rebirth

ARK-001 Carnage

ARK-005 Meeting

ARK-006 Family

ARK-008 Alliance

ARK-009 Declaration

ARK-012 Enemy

ARK-002 Negotiator

ARK-003 Thief

ARK-004 Collector

By Story Arc

Wraith: Year One

Remember that kid in class who looked at you like you weren’t there. This is why you don’t mess with that kid.

ARK-010 Awakening

ARK-011 Rebirth

Resistance Revolution Revenge

Sometimes we fight for ambition. Sometimes we fight to defend others. Sometimes we fight for justice. Sometimes it matters. Sometimes we just fight.

ARK-001 Carnage

ARK-005 Meeting

ARK-006 Family

ARK-008 Alliance

ARK-009 Declaration

Searching for a Symbol

Every army needs a standard, every nation needs a flag, and every legend needs a symbol.

ARK-002 Negotiator

ARK-003 Thief

ARK-004 Collector

Stand Alone Chapter

Some stories stand alone.

ARK-007 Betrayal

ARK-012 Enemy

Other Works by this Author

Fantasy

A Rising Knight Volume One: Everything that has an End

He was a killer by fifteen, a warrior by sixteen, a revolutionary by seventeen, a legend by eighteen, he won't live to be nineteen. These are Steps Vlad will take to define his destiny. He will spit at the feet of god and slay his angels.

A Rising Knight Volume Two: Born for War

Welcome to the game. It wants to kill you. Now the stage had been set it’s time for the real show to get started. All three story arcs from volume one are continued in explosive fashion. It’s time to go play with monsters.

Erotica

Olympic Perfection

She can contort her body in ways most people can’t imagine, she can get into positions most wouldn’t dare. Frederique Chinloo is about to compete to prove she’s the best in the world, on the grandest stage of them all. Win or lose she’s going to show her lover and best friend a few things she’s picked up by being a world class gymnast. Have you ever wanted to be someone’s personal balance beam?

Seven Deadly Sins

The Seven Deadly Sins, embodiments of all corruptive evil in the world, have been unleashed for the first time in centuries. Lust will consume, Gluttony will feed, Avarice will take, Sloth will rest, Wrath will rage, Envy will steal and pride will glory. Will they prove to be mankind’s destroyers or their saviors? Every chapter in this seven story Anthology series features a new facet of sex, from orgies to bondage to rough sex.

www.ARisingKnight.com

ARK-001 - Carnage

-Darkness birthed him, a blade fathered him, Death was his first lover. He was baptized in fire and blood. He will save you.

July 15th 1:37am(EST) - 1 Year, 2 Weeks, 1 Day since first contact.

79 degrees. Clear skies after heavy showers that started at midmorning and continued into the early evening. Balmy night winds from the south east brought relief after the sticky, sticky heat of the day. Mud caked untended seams and cracks in New York City sidewalks.

Shadows dappled the forest of metal that were to be the bones for a building going up on forty-fourth and sixth. Forty wizard soldiers moved through those shadows, keeping careful watch in every direction. Another ten moved in pairs around the perimeter, ready to reinforce or retreat as necessary. To the eyes of a wizard they appeared like darkness wreathed in light. They wore dull gray uniforms under breastplates, greaves, gauntlets, and helmets that glowed faintly with protective spells. Tendrils of multicolored light twisted themselves into spell webs around them. Their swords had a fine phosphorescent sheen that promised a harder bite than mere sharpened steel could have delivered. A fist clutched a still crackling broken bolt of lightning on field of violet arrogantly on their chest.

But lights and lightning were only there for the eyes of other wizards. The most a human might have seen were sharp eyes hunting for shadows within shadows. Hunters. Not the castrated cannon fodder that made up the regular wizard army; well trained professional soldiers. Knight Hunters. Broken Bolts.

A scout moving alongside the main body looked carefully into every shadow before moving on. It wasn’t his first hunt. No one took chances when it came to Knights, he checked every shadow twice. His sword was already drawn and he had a long dagger ready to pull if he had to drop it. Deadly cords¹ of fire and lightning encircled his shield arm², ready to launch but not yet ignited. Nothing to be done about the light witch-light from his armor but he could deny his prey a perfect Reigh shadow. His job was to wait until he made contact with the Knight, and then use those spells to hold him off while retreating and light the place up. As soon as his unit saw that, they would swarm the Knight and take him out.

Or her, the last one had been a girl. Little redheaded slip of a thing ripped out poor Jori's guts with her bare hands. She laughed while the man spilled his guts at her feet. She didn't stop laughing until they separated her head from her body. Dangerous job, but it paid very well and he had a little one on the way.

It was over before he knew what happened. A shadow he had cleared exploded into life. Then there was a hand on his throat releasing something into him. His foot gave a single twitch and went still.

Warm blood trickled down Vlad's face. He held them as they were for a count of ten, movement would attract attention. Cords of earth and water flowing from his palm had torn the Hunter's his throat so badly that blood kept gushing onto his killer. Too much power; hadn't meant to do that. Fading blue light crackled feebly around his right hand where it pressed against the dead man's breastplate. Passive shields might as well be tissue paper at this range. More cords of earth and water ran from that hand into the man’s body. The dead Hunter would have bled out from the wound in his neck, but that had only been intended to keep him quite. His right had been the real death dealer. All the Hunter's organs were crushed into so much paste within his own body.

When he was sure he had not been noticed by the other scouts, Vlad lowered the body to the ground behind a girder.

He was back to being Vlad, and that was a problem. Sweat beaded his oval face, trickling into brown eyes and matting finger combed hair. His wiry body trembled. He'd never killed before, nothing that wasn't already dead anyway. The shock had broken his focus. With it went the reality warping powers of a Knight. If he was going to survive the night he would need them. He needed to bring his trembling inner world back into balance. Balance was everything.

Unbidden, his eyes were drawn to the body. Vlad allowed his mind to run where it would. Some problem solving methods were not linear.

Once upon a time, a Knight could have gone his entire life without shedding a drop of blood. The Twisted did not bleed when they died; only fell to dust and ash. Knights, serving in the Harrowers, were once the blade that cut into the armies of the Horde and the Host. But he was only fourteen and he already had blood on his hands.

Wizards grew differently than humans. After first gaining access to their full magical power they rapidly grew to physical prime and stayed that way until the last year of their lives. In human terms he appeared to be about twenty-five. But he didn’t feel twenty-five, he felt fourteen. Which was wrong. He never felt his age. For as long as he could remember, he'd been an old man. Old men did not become teenagers, it didn't happen. Not to him.

Things didn’t have to be this way. He'd spotted them first, he could have run. Might’ve been smarter if he had. Instead, he'd left a trail of magic for them to follow. This was his choice of battlegrounds.

Even without his help the Hunters would have found traces of him sooner or later. They were all over the city. But if they didn’t find him they might assume he'd moved on. The Broken Bolts would look for him elsewhere. For that to have a chance to work, however, he would have to leave everything behind. Staying was out of the question. Finding and killing people like him was what Knight Hunters did. Eventually, they would sniff him out. And, if not him, those traces would lead them to people who knew him. The Hunters would hurt them to get to him. That was how they worked.

No, there was only one way for this to work out so he could keep his life. Make it seem as if they had been deliberately lured here as part of a trap. That way, anything the Hunters found would be written off as part of the trap. They wouldn't look for him here again because you didn't set a trap in your own home. You did it somewhere far away. But, for the lie to work, the trap would have to appear to be successful. He would have to kill more of them.

Or he could walk away right now and he wouldn't have to take another life this night. All he had to do was leave everything and everyone he cared about behind and run.

He took a breath, slowed his racing thoughts and focused on what mattered.

There was one simple truth in this that no amount of sanctimonious bullshit could wash away. All their lives combined were not as valuable to him as his own. As the feeling he had when he kissed Wit, or argued with Ethan, or joked with Kat, or bickered with his mother.

In that moment he had the power to choose between their lives and his. So he chose. He would not walk away. These people had chosen to make their living off the pain and suffering of others. Looking down at the man he had just killed he expected to feel sadness or pity or something like regret. But he didn’t feel any of that. He was supposed to. You were supposed to regret killing…but he didn’t. All he felt, was contempt for someone who whored themselves to the council.

He took another breath and brought himself back into the Knight State. There were formal names for it but he didn’t use them. When he was focused he shed his identity as Vlad, son of a human woman and became the Knight, son of battle.

Knights were born for war but most Knights were forced to suppress their abilities in order to hide from the Hunters. Without training those abilities atrophied and would come only as imperfect shadows of their full capabilities. But Vlad didn't live among other wizards and humans didn't have the context to understand what he was. His powers had never been suppressed. In the last year he'd fought and killed demons, walked battle fields in the middle-east and spent every hour he could learning combat strategy and tactics. He had a long way to go before he reached his full potential but these Hunters had still never faced anyone like him. A battle tested Knight.

He turned his terrible mind to the task of murder.

First order of business was to eliminate the watchers on the perimeter. They could not be allowed to report back. Deception could not abide accuracy. Using the shadows