Scorpion

Scorpion

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BookThre
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Marked like Me Series

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Cyndi Goodgame

Also by Cyndi Goodgame

(Fey Court Trilogy)

Deception

Tainted

Betrayal

Guardian (Companion to Deception)

(Goblin’s Kiss Series)

Denial 

Yield

(Marked Like Me Series)

Orion

Son of Ra

Scorpion

Daughter of Anat

Shadow Queen

Protector (Companion Novella to Son of Ra)

(Under Cover Series)

Under Cover

Over Darkness

(Siphon Chronicles)

Siphon

***

Mary Never Had a Lamb, She Was the Lamb (Twisted Paranormal Nursery Rhymes)

Gargoyle (Hyde Chronicles)

© July 2013 Cyndi Goodgame

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher.  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.  Acknowledgements go to the various authors of classic fiction who wrote so eloquently that their words have become easy to quote in today’s written word.

             
ISBN:

             
[1. Supernatural-Fiction. 2. Vampires. 3. Werewolves. 4. War.  5. Prophecies. 6. Gods and Goddesses. 7. Constellations. 8. Destiny.9. Valkyrie 10. Orion]

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to my quote worthy writers and just plain worth quoting people of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Evel Knievel, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, Charlotte, Bronte (put too dots over e), William Shakespeare, John Keats, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Frost, Winston Churchfield and George Washington.

Summary:

Changing the world is never easy!

Destiny leads Stace to Cas and on to rule all of the factions as the gods would deem necessary.  That destiny is playing it out, but bumps keep setting them back along the way.  And she has yet to meet the final faction leader, Cord Ryan, also known as Scorpion. 

Leader of the Were faction, Ryan intends to make himself as intertwined in Stace
’s life as the other marked ones.  He’s stayed silent for far too long.

Borgon
’s motives are becoming clearer.  When the ex Hunter fails to enslave the Elves if they don’t do his bidding because they want more, he is forced to offer them more.  Equal control over the factions for destroying Anastacia Anat Hathown the rumored Shadow Queen will suffice, but he doesn’t count on other factors at work.  When his strange attempts to capture always fail, Borgon picks up new alliances that are meant to weaken their forces.  And he has a weapon designed specifically to take out the gods.  What Borgon didn’t count on was the power the five
Marked Ones
will hold when all of them can harness what they can accomplish
if
they work together.  It’s a superhero team made by the gods to take back what belongs to the strong and honorably brave supernatural leaders of our world.    

Appendix A:

             
End of second book analysis of characters and copy of letters to the Marked Ones from their respected godly parental units.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.  Watch your words, for they become actions.  Actions become habits.  Habits become character.   Watch your character, for it becomes...

Chapter Two

...your destiny.

Chapter Three

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow...

Chapter Four

...than a man swears he loves me.

Chapter Five

A house divided against itself…

Chapter Six

…cannot stand.

Chapter Seven

It was the worst of times...

Chapter Eight

...it was the best of times.

Chapter Nine

Two wolves battle inside of all of us.  One is good and the other is evil...

Chapter Ten

...the one that wins depends on the one we feed.

Chapter
Eleven

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side...

Chapter Twelve

...which he never shows to anybody.

Chapter Thirteen

Two minds meet and do not understand each other in time enough to prevent any shock...

Chapter Fourteen

...of surprise at the conduct of either party.

Chapter Fifteen

Training is everything...

Chapter Sixteen

...the peach was once a bitter almond.

Chapter Seventeen

The worst loneliness is...

Chapter Eighteen

...not to be comfortable with yourself.

Chapter Nineteen

I would challenge you to a battle of wits...

Chapter Twenty

...but I can see you are unarmed.

Epilogue

Appendix One

Marked Ones

MARKED ONES LETTERS

Questionable Villains

Characters in Limbo

Faction Symbols

“The windows of my soul I throw wide open to the sun.” –John Greenleaf Whittier

Trouble finds
me, I do not search for it.  I didn’t choose this life.  Just recently, I found out my entire existence was planned out by the mothers.  The mothers who say they are the goddesses and gods of the skies above.  Gods and goddesses, who only come to me in my dreams, but came to earth and “acted” like they were in love with men.  I couldn’t disprove their ill-fated predictions over my people, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if I’m doing the right thing.

I also can
’t die.  Mostly.  Morosely speaking, my head could technically be removed.  Anyway, there are five of us “picked” out that were sent from the gods to restore the supernatural factions back to order.  Me, and the four male counterparts as I call them.  Calum, the Hunter.  Cas, the Vampire.  Cord, the Were.  Szar, the Valkyrie.  And me, Stace, the Valkyrie head chick in charge of all what I loosely term the Fab Five.  Sometimes the nickname changes depending on how pissed I am with them on a given day.  But I’m getting ahead of myself for I haven't met Cord Ryan, the Were leader yet.  I’ve only heard he’s to be the new leader of the faction though he didn’t want it.

I used to be this “never say die” girl who felt invincible, turned heads, and for the most part, stayed locked up in the castle tower hidden from danger.  What I didn
’t know one hundred percent was that I was indeed immortal, not as invincible as I thought in the emotions department,and a daughter of a goddess who thought she had my whole life planned out.  Guess again.

I’ve recently made some changes.

The sarcastic, determined, take no prisoners girl was still inside, but other things have changed.  I was now more aware of how my ice princess attitude affects those I care about.  I don’t always get what I want and that’s okay (mostly).   I’ve never really had someone I cared about this much or been cared about in a loving kind of way.

This was most definitely the reason I fell for Cas so fast.  No one had ever given me the attention or tenderness like he did.  Yes, Calum was attentive as a first boyfriend, but not caring.  He had an agenda. 

Now I don’t mean that he was uncaring, just...I know he wasn’t the one for me. 

Cas was...devoted, loving.  I embraced it and was learning to be the same.  I still seemed to be naturally “icy” to others.  I vowed to try to fix that. 
TRY!

I have also reached a pinnacle of what m
ust be ahead for me.  At one conclusion I have surmised that the brewing war between the supernatural in my world is not all black and white.  The other conclusion...I have no choice but to enter it.  Solution number one at this point...go with the flow and tweak as I go.  Solution number two...take the bull by the horns and string him (Borgon, i.e. scoundrel who wants me dead so he can take over the factions) up by his ears.

Borgon had plans.  He schemed a takeover of all the factions with the specially hidden plans of taking me to the
Elves in the process. It worsened when he didn't retrieve me.  The Elves killed his wife and child.  Now he has no remorse.  No sense of moral left.   My father was wise to his first agenda and led him to believe he would help him if it meant saving his children.  Borgon agreed to kidnap my brother with the aid of the Elves and have the other factions hire a bodyguard to “protect” me with the assumption I’d be easy to trap. Borgon let my father believe that his plan was to scoop up the Weres faction and straighten out the Elves, but my father had friends in low places that told him otherwise and helped him with his own agenda.  No one would hurt his children or the prophecies that were to become.  You see, he knew all this would come to pass.  His wife, my mother, was the goddess who told him. 

Szar agreed to be “kidnapped” and I was left in the dark for my own safety.  That was brilliant on their part since I was so apt at saving my brother.  Who else knows more than me?  Don
’t answer that.

So...Borgon thinks the Vamp, Were, and Hunter factions are at his mercy because my father acts the part of scared Valkyrie leader and aid to him.  Really, my father has it all planned out and Borgon
’s the dupe.   All that’s about to stop. Cas, the Vampire leader will harbor me in safety.  Szar will soon take father’s place.  Calum will take his father’s place as the Hunter leader.  And Cord Ryan will be the leader of the Were faction whom I am told will comply to our every whim as long as I am involved though no one will tell me why that is.

With all that almost in place, Borgon will think that he has the factions breeched and then will be surprised when he attacks with the enslaved
Elves in tow.  No, the Elves don’t have a powerful enough leader to help them govern their own faction and haven’t for many years, but that’s not to say they might not be able to start now.  They trusted the wrong man.   And what about the other creatures in our world that don’t have the governing power to stabilize a faction or themselves?  Humans have let corruption take them by the hand.  Everyone else can see.  Can’t they rise above too? 

I was sent by the mothers of the sky to bring peace.  Now, with all this war upon us, how do I achieve this goal?  I
’ve been schooled in the ways of war, but learning about it and living it are two different things.

So, that brings me back to Cas and the others.  We are intertwined in some weird plotted way to end up together (I think) and save the supernatural world from destroying itself.  The human world has no idea and probably never will.  The gods made up this awesome (to them) plan to make five (yes, I said five—you
’ll see) babies marked alike and with super powers to change the recent volatile choices made by the factions that make up our hidden world. 
              Now that we, the Fab Five, or the Marked Ones, or whatever...know what we are here for and what we must do, we still have no clue.  Every faction knows of us though the details are shrouded in mostly fiction.  Which works well for the validity of rumors since the majority of them involve superpowers like invisibility and causing earthquakes.

Maybe the gods will let us in on the next step in solving
their
problems.  Either way, here is what happened next.