Awakening

Kat Quickly

Description

What if you were the one who could do something about Global Warming? Would you believe the ramblings of a strange but handsome older man, and accept your destiny as the immortal daughter of Ursula the Warrior Goddess, protector of the Great Ice, and save the planet? This is Carmen Whyte's destiny: of which she is oblivious until she meets Victor Bernhard, enigmatic owner of Great Blizzard Publishing Enterprises. Once Victor takes Carmen's hand she senses a powerful connection that she spends much of the novel resisting. After all she is engaged to Andrew Adams: the most desirable bachelor in New York. Victor must bring Carmen to accept her fate; re-awaken the Half-lings, immortal half men-half bear/wolf, shape shifters like Victor, and restore the Great Ice. Carmen must accept her destiny willingly; expediently. Evil forces are gathering. The most dangerous threat is Andrew's father, Will, powerful Senator & industrialist. Will's initial approach is through Andrew. But as Victor's influence grows, Will's sense of urgency spurs him to drastic action. Will knows that Carmen can only be disempowered through marrying a mortal and bearing his children. Thus a battle is waged - a battle Carmen is reluctant to join, despite Victor's warnings. Her true powers of insight and healing are slowly emerging. Finally the truth of Carmen's birth is revealed, she sees Andrew's true heart and goes to Victor. In a dangerous final confrontation between good and evil Carmen and Victor defeat Will and Andrew. Andrew is humiliated, now Carmen's sworn enemy.

Sujets

• Erotic literature

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 03 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849891813
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
THE AWAKENING
By
Kat Quickly
Publisher Information
The Awakening published in 2010 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright © Kat Quickly
The right of Kat Quickly to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



Prologue
The Legend of the Ice Kingdom
In the Great Blizzard before time existed when the bears and wolves roamed the Earth as one in the time of unending Cold and Ice the Warrior Goddess, Ursula, came amongst them, bestowing powers of courage, healing, shape shifters and great strength. It was to be their destiny she told them in her weirding ways – to protect the Great Ice, keep the planet in balance, protect the weak, hunt down the cruel and misbegotten of this world.
These chosen Bears and Wolves were of the purest white. They had the strongest hearts and she bestowed upon them the powers of immortality, healing, and the gift of invisibility such that they could move amongst man undetected, intangible like the mist swirling through the mountains and forests of the warmer continents.
Their task was noble but their means sometimes savage. As time passed and the Great Blizzard gave way to the Great Silent White the bears and wolves prospered. They were masters of their domain and their domain was vast. They were worshipped and revered by the lesser beings of their world.
Ursula walked with them, guiding them, directing their actions. She taught the people of the Ice to live harmoniously with the Bears and Wolves, allowing the intermingling of species at chosen times to ensure the bonds between man and beast were strong. She allowed humans to mate with the beasts to create a new species, to take on the special powers of the beasts, to become shape-shifters, to heal and protect the planet, but with the language, intellect and intuition of humans. These Half-lings were also immortal and moved as one with the Wolves and Bears. They were a powerful race – part human, part power beast – destined to rule the planet – to take it to places undreamed of by the ancient people who wrote the story of Ursula, the Warrior Goddess and her shape shifting Ice Beasts.
The Half-lings were not allowed to breed with ordinary mortals –only the beasts or others of their kind – Ursula insisted the blood-lines be kept pure and strong. And should a Half-ling stray from this rule Ursula’s retribution was swift, brutal and unforgiving. She knew what would happen to them if this one rule was broken. Too much animal and they would be hunted to extinction. Too much human and the line would die out.
She herself would lie with Half-lings, changing her shape and sex to be with the ones she deemed the most worthy. The few that she loved. But when breeding, as she did herself from time to time, she lay with the strongest, bravest and largest of the beasts. She favoured the Bears, but over time she bore enough children of Wolves for balance and dignity to be maintained. In her loving she made her partners great, imparting some of her own magic and power. All beasts and mortals of the Ice knew how significant it was to be loved by Ursula.
But the Darkness came. The time of the Great Volcano – the spread of man, the decline of the Ice and the dissipation of magic and belief. The Darkness covered the Earth, the sun blotted by a great cloud and the Ice shifted beneath the Goddess’s feet and she knew the end had begun. She felt herself diminish, become too still. She feared for her people. Her last mating was with the Greatest Bear and the child was indeed a beauty. But Ursula was not strong enough to protect and rear this wonderful gift. Wise and safe hands took the child from her arms, taking it to a mortal life, knowing there would one day be a time for the child to know of her mother, her bloodline and her destiny.
As Ursula was lost to them the Bears and Wolves and the Half-lings feared for the future. The elders amongst them knew they would lose their way without the guiding light of their Warrior Goddess. Without her steel and love they were doomed. All that was left to them was her Sign in the Sky and the hope she would return to them before they were only creatures of myth and legend.
Chapter 1
Carmen had the dream again. She was in a cave but it wasn’t particularly dark or scary. It was a white cave, an ice cave she felt, but did not know for certain. She felt safe and warm. It seemed to her that Heaven might be like this place, but she knew it wasn’t Heaven. She felt as if she belonged here – safe and wanted. She felt loving arms enfolding her, holding her close. She saw a woman’s face smiling at her. She reached up her tiny baby hand to touch that face and her little fingers were smothered in kisses. She felt herself smile and luxuriate in this embrace of absolute love. She was carried to the mouth of the cave. Outside in the brilliant whiteness sat Wolves and Bears – wild, free, completely white and still. They looked to her and the woman holding her, and she was sure they nodded as one and seemed to bow in the greatest respect. Then one of the Bears, the largest – and, she thought, the most handsome – held out his paw to her and beckoned to her to come to him.
Carmen had had this dream for as long as she could remember. As a small child it had given her comfort, especially in those long dark years after they’d moved to the city and her life had changed forever. Even now, despite all her sporting success, she wasn’t sure if it had been worth it. She’d never stopped missing the country, the farm: all that freedom, the animals, the forests and that wonderful clean air. How could she forget that the move had been because of her father’s death and her mother’s inability to cope in the country without him?
She shook her head, banishing silly memories to the dark corners of her mind where they belonged. It was the dream that had set her off, and she wondered still why it came – if there was a message in it? One she was still to decipher. Outside the spring morning had brought out the birds and the sun was flooding through the trees. She threw on her Nikes, called the dogs and set off on her usual run around Central Park. How else would she start the day? Andrew had taken to chastising her about such activities – you never knew who might be in the Park – especially at such an early hour (or late if she went for a run in the evening as she was wont to do). Didn’t she realise there were some very nasty characters out there? She’d laughed at him of course.
“Don’t be so silly, Andrew. Why do you think I can’t look after myself?”
He’d shrugged, taken her hands in his and looked so earnestly at her that she almost agreed with him, almost promised never to set foot outside her basement apartment alone ever again.
“You must know how much I care about you,” he’d said.
“But I have Alaska and Zanzibar,” Carmen had reminded him. “No-one in their right mind comes near anyone with a German Shepherd, let alone two of them. Besides, they are very fine and scary specimens.”
“I know,” Andrew had nodded. “I do. But I am allowed to worry. I love you, Carmen.”
She’d smiled, almost blushed. She wasn’t really used to Andrew, to his absolute presence in her life. His desire to look after her was very flattering, if not verging on the obsessive. She guessed once they’d been together longer than a few months he’d relax a little and be happy that she actually was a highly self sufficient young woman. She didn’t need a man to make her complete or run her life for her. But it was nice to have someone as handsome and generous as Andrew as her lover. He was already Managing Director at Great Blizzard Publishing Enterprises and if he had his way he’d be more than that in a very short time. Andrew was a man used to having what he wanted, when he wanted it.
Carmen was used to men passing through her life, having great sex but not connecting with them. Sex was for recreation, regeneration. Her coach, Todd James, had believed in the importance of sex for his elite athletes. Once Carmen was old enough he knew it would be the thing to relax her, refocus her. So she had embraced the idea of sex as tonic, sex as recreation with a range of very attractive swimmers. Their bodies had connected in physical acts of pleasure that toned their egos and honed their performances. In some respects it was a poor beginning to a girl’s sexual life. Her physical needs were very well met, but there had never been any emotional connection. And until she met Andrew she hadn’t realised that was what was missing from her life: the emotional connection with the physical that lifted sex to love making. So, despite Andrew’s smothering ways when he took her in his arms and made love to her she felt connected to him in a way she’d never felt with anyone else and she loved him for it.
Not long after his warning about running unescorted in Central Park, out at dinner at his favourite restaurant, Andrew had presented her with a small red velvet box. He’d casually put it on the table next to her glass of wine.
“I’d like you to accept this,” he’d said quietly. “And me along with it. I promise to curb my controlling ways – just let me take care of you, Carmen. Always.” He wanted her to understand that anything Carmen wanted Carmen could have – career, children,