Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Shattered Destiny Episode Two
    Shattered Destiny Episode Two
    Shattered Destiny Episode Two
    Ebook168 pages1 hour

    Shattered Destiny Episode Two

    By Odette C. Bell

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Xarin’s made his choice. He has no idea how far-reaching its consequences will be.
    Shar survives the vacuum of space only to vow to destroy him. And she has friends. Mark reveals his true colors, and the shadowy priest continues to build his forces in the darkness.
    ....
    A light-romance sci-fi, Shattered Destiny follows a gritty warrior and a cold prince fighting destiny to find each other one more time. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Shattered Destiny Episode Two today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOdette C. Bell
    Release dateMar 11, 2016
    ISBN9781310102677
    Shattered Destiny Episode Two

    Read more from Odette C. Bell

    Related to Shattered Destiny Episode Two

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      One Word: Striking

      Jun 26, 2019

      One Word: Striking
      4 min read

    • Article

      Morbidity & the Miniature

      May 11, 2018

      Morbidity & the Miniature
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Debut Novelist Imagines Life After Her Own Death

      Aug 4, 2022

      I was 17 years old when I died. The post A Debut Novelist Imagines Life After Her Own Death appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Seven-Year Cycle

      Jul 5, 2022

      The Seven-Year Cycle
      8 min read

    • Article

      Soft Blues

      Feb 15, 2021

      Soft Blues
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    • Article

      Freefalling

      Aug 17, 2022

      Freefalling
      8 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Have A Bird

      Aug 2, 2020

      There are so many rites of passage you’ve already missed out on, and the school ball is destined to become another item on that ever-growing list. You try to delay the inevitable until every breath from your lungs sounds as if cystic fibrosis is cack

      12 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Touch Of Evil

      Nov 26, 2019

      Touch Of Evil
      4 min read

    • Article

      I’ve Been Stabbed!

      Jun 30, 2022

      I’ve Been Stabbed!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Phillip B. Williams

      Dec 15, 2017

      The masters are yet dead. Wanting to be human,I tried to rewrite The Waste Land. The canon’s reachcasts ruinous light. The masters’ pens breachthis page where, above, my own hand spectates. Babylonrisen, exorcism in reverse, whose nature upended now?

      6 min read

    • Article

      Draw Me

      Jul 5, 2023

      Draw Me
      2 min read

    • Article

      Collins Ferry Landing

      Jul 1, 2020

      for my father Only rivers bottom out like this.Only rivers bottom out with this kind of conviction.Not humans, or, at least, not humans asindisputably human as you were,trapped in consciousness’s surplus, exilic,animalized absurdity, writhing in its

      5 min read

    • Article

      Let The Right One In

      Aug 3, 2021

      Let The Right One In
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Survivor

      May 20, 2023

      The Survivor
      3 min read

    • Article

      Letting Go

      Oct 30, 2021

      Letting Go
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letting Go

      Oct 29, 2021

      Letting Go
      7 min read

    • Article

      Robert C. Koehler: A Looming Book Of Soul Fragments

      Feb 23, 2023

      Confession: I have a few books out there that no one knows about because I haven’t written them . . . well, finished them. I’ve talked in previous columns about “wrestling with infinity” — the match I always lose — by which I mean, picking a subject

      3 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Words

      Jun 3, 2023

      Finding The Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      KILL A STRANGER Chapter 2

      Dec 31, 2020

      If you’ve never been in a situation like this before, you just can’t understand it. I’ll be blunt. It was absolutely terrifying. The nightmare started just like that. Bang. I literally woke with a start, and realised that I was being flung around in

      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Shattered Destiny Episode Two

    4.5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Shattered Destiny Episode Two - Odette C. Bell

      Chapter 1

      Shar

      My mind slowed down.

      To a crawl.

      As the atmosphere was sucked out of the hole beside me, visible as clouds of white gas interspersed with chunks of hull plating, the seconds dragged into a crawl.

      I had more than enough time to realize one fact.

      Xarin had chosen the princess over me.

      Despite the fact my lungs were struggling for air, my body tumbling in free fall, the void threatening to pop me like a balloon – I had time to appreciate that fact.

      Time to let it break me.

      It would have been easy – too easy – to let myself succumb to death.

      But that thing inside me – that thing that broke – gave way to an unholy anger that wouldn’t.

      It saw me force my eyes open one final time, using the last of my strength to track an object as it came towards me.

      The assassin’s body.

      It struck mine, and I found the strength to latch a hand over her bloodied leg.

      Somehow my mind knew just what to do. Despite the fact I was seconds from death, my hand darted against the assassin’s hip holster, and grabbed something off it.

      With my last fumbling movements, I activated an oblong, black metal device.

      ….

      And it saved me.

      Some kind of strange dark-blue energy field encased me in an instant.

      And though I couldn’t understand how, it saved me.

      It forced oxygen from nowhere into my lungs, bringing much-needed light to my rapidly dying brain.

      My eyes shot wide open, and I could see that blue shimmering field just beyond my pupils.

      I… I was alive.

      I was alive, because I’d saved myself.

      I hadn’t come this far, hadn’t sacrificed so much throughout my life to fall just because some man had abandoned me.

      No… not some man.

      As I floated there, scraps of hull plating and Arterian weapons from the storage room tumbling around me, I no longer tried to deny that fact.

      Something had connected me to Xarin.

      But there was another fact I was not going to deny.

      As I curled a hand into a fist, I promised myself that if I saw that bastard again, I would slam it into his face.

      …

      Prince Xarin

      I screamed her name, over and over again, not out loud, in my mind.

      Something inside me seemed to curl up and die.

      If it weren’t for the fact my armor had a magnetic lock against the metal floor, I would have been sucked out into space.

      Despite the fact my despair was all-encompassing, I still held onto a scrap of sense, and it saw me shift back, lock an arm around Arteria’s limp body, and power towards the door.

      Structural shields had not blinked into place around the hole in the hull.

      Whatever explosive the assassin had detonated against it had obliterated the shield emitters in this entire area.

      So I had to be quick and careful.

      Arteria was limp in my arms, and I watched her struggle for air, her throat punching against my arm.

      I didn’t even beg her to hold on.

      I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said that all of my mind was locked on the terrifying thought that I just lost Shar….

      That I’d chosen to lose her.

      That I’d picked Arteria over her.

      If I’d paused to think, I would have realized how ridiculous that thought was.

      Shar was little more than a soldier.

      An expendable asset.

      Arteria – she was my beloved.

      So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that I’d just made the worst mistake of my life?

      I approached the doors and commanded them to open.

      They managed to open just a crack before the atmosphere outside began to vent.

      I locked Arteria’s limp body against my chestplate, brought up my free hand, and punched it into the small gap between the doors.

      With a shrill scream pushing from my open lips, I managed to open the door, physically overriding every safety mechanism.

      Then I jumped through to the other side, the atmosphere still billowing around me, venting into the room and out through the hole in the hull.

      As soon as I made it out into the corridor, I let go of the doors, and they snapped closed.

      Every warning alarm you could imagine blared in the corridor, but once the doors were closed, the air vents pumped in more oxygen.

      And finally Arteria could breathe.

      I ran a short way down the corridor, entering another section I was certain would have been undamaged by the hull breach. Then I set her down in my lap and I cradled over her.

      I had to encourage my hands to shift towards her face, to rest against her pale white skin.

      They were disobeying my every command.

      One even jerked to the side, and flailed backward the way I’d come, as if it were clasping for Shar.

      ….

      I didn’t understand what was happening to me.

      Before I could become terrified at what my hands were doing, Arteria gasped and jolted forward in my arms.

      At least I could control them, and I wrapped them around her, drawing my chin close against her shoulder. It’s alright, you’re alive. You’re alive.

      My voice shook with true fear.

      Tears even threatened to touch my eyes.

      Shar was….

      Dead.

      That fact… it kept sinking in further and further, reaching right into my chest until it latched hold of my heart and….

      Before I was aware of what was happening, I lost consciousness, falling to the side, Princess Arteria falling from my grip.

      I had time for one last thought until the blackness swarmed into my vision. What had I done?

      Chapter 2

      Shar

      That strange blue energy field kept me alive long enough until one of the sensor technicians aboard the Illuminate spotted me.

      I was surprised they didn’t leave me to die.

      Instead they sent out a cruiser and picked me up.

      I shouldn’t have been conscious.

      The assassin’s blast should have been enough to fry my brain, let alone break my bones.

      I was determined not to slip into unconsciousness, though, let alone die.

      I resisted every attempt at sedation until I was taken to the medical bay. Though I wasn’t taken to the primary medical bay, but a secondary smaller facility.

      The primary bay, apparently, was busy dealing with Xarin and Arteria.

      The primary medical bay aboard the Illuminate was massive.

      It was built to facilitate hundreds of soldiers who went into battle on a daily basis.

      There was room in there for me.

      I just wasn’t important enough.

      I’d never felt anger like this. In all my days, I’d never been betrayed like this.

      Because I’d never trusted anyone before.

      Somehow I was still alive, and according to the medical technicians, I was goddamn lucky.

      Just a few more seconds in that cold, thankless vacuum, and I would have popped like a balloon full of blood.

      I thought no one would come to see me whilst I was in the secondary medical bay.

      I was wrong.

      Mark did.

      At first I thought it was just so he could question me – I imagined the crew had little idea what the hell had happened in the Arterian weapons facility.

      But as Mark walked in, and his face virtually exploded with compassion, I softened.

      He walked right up to my bed and locked an armored hand on it. Shar, I heard what happened. God, how did you live through that?

      I didn’t reply. Couldn’t.

      He locked that hand harder around the edge of my bed and leaned in close. I’m… sorry… he— Whatever Mark was having trouble saying, he suddenly shook his head and obviously thought better of it. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sure Xarin will be too when he wakes up.

      Fuck Xarin, I spat.

      Fortunately there were no medical technicians in earshot.

      But Mark was – he was right next to me. He would have heard exactly what I’d said – and he was close enough to see the goddamn violent anger rippling over my face.

      I felt sure he would reprimand me, possibly even throw me in the brig.

      I just didn’t care anymore.

      I just didn’t care about anything.

      As I waited there with bared teeth for Mark to make his move, I was shocked when he simply leaned back and looked at me evenly.

      Can you walk? he suddenly asked, his tone changing.

      I frowned at him.

      Can you walk? he asked again, his voice quiet and quicker as his eyes locked on a medical technician who walked into the room.

      I’m still under medical observation, I answered cautiously.

      Not what I asked. Again he didn’t look at me and spoke in a low hushed whisper designed not to get anyone’s attention. You just have to walk down the corridor.

      I opened my mouth to ask what this was about but thought better of it.

      A nervous, expectant energy rode off Mark in waves.

      I swallowed, pushed my hands into the bed, and sat.

      It was easier than I’d expected. The techs had done a remarkable job fixing me up.

      Mark took several steps back, making room for me.

      He watched the medical technician cautiously but not overtly.

      The tech didn’t even notice as I slipped out into the corridor with Mark.

      I waited for Mark to tell me what the hell was going on.

      He didn’t pause until we walked into an abandoned room.

      My curiosity was getting the better of me. I opened my mouth. He brought a hand up and pressed a finger to his lips.

      I frowned even harder now, but I didn’t make a sound, not until Mark pulled something from his armor and appeared to check the room methodically.

      Eventually he came to me.

      He locked his teeth together, closed his eyes, and swallowed a deep breath.

      When he opened his eyes again, he… seemed like someone else.

      I’d never seen a more radical transformation.

      He watched me, and it felt as if he was assessing me for something….

      He locked his alarmingly clear gaze on me.

      Were you serious about what you said before? he eventually asked.

      Serious? I let my confusion crumple my brow. Mark, what the hell is this about?

      He continued to look at me with that startlingly clear gaze. It was the kind of gaze that told me he’d be able to tell if I was lying.

      About Xarin? Mark suddenly bared his teeth. About Prince goddamn Xarin. You said he could get fucked, or words to that effect. Did you mean it?

      My cheeks paled as I realized I was quite probably in trouble.

      I dropped my gaze to the floor.

      Before I could submit to my punishment completely, my eyes jerked back up. Fuck Prince Xarin. He left me there to die.

      Mark took a step back, locked a hand on his chin, and eventually smiled.

      It wasn’t the kind of smile I’d expected to see on his face.

      Sure, it was charming, engaging, but it was also as hard as rock.

      He suddenly pressed forward and tilted his head to the side.

      He was close enough that my brain fooled me into thinking he was about to kiss me.

      But the charming guard did not lean in to kiss me. Instead, he leaned a hand past and locked it on the wall behind me.

      To anyone else it would have been an intimidating move. Anyone else would have tried to jerk away or at least drop their gaze.

      Me, I stared right at him, even jutting my chin out, trying to let him know that

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1