The Aurator

M.A. Kropf

Description

Megan is a nurse, wife and a mother who learns that her lifelong heightened sensory perception puts her among an ancient elite group known as Aurators—those who can read people’s auras. She meets Max, who mentors her, as she is swiftly thrust into membership within a secret historical medical society originating back to ancient Greece, and her world quickly wobbles between reality and the supernatural driving her to the brink of insanity. In discovering her powerful bloodline, she also learns the prophecy marking her to protect the world from the Caduceus, an equally ancient society intent on world destruction. Conflicted between her professional oath to do no harm, and her prophesied calling to protect the innocent, Megan cannot deny an inherent and swiftly growing urge to do the unimaginable. Barely juggling her new Aurator life, work and family, Megan tries to confide in her rock solid husband, only to discover that he too has secrets of his own---leaving Megan to question if her marriage and family will ever be the same. This fast paced drama will leave readers begging the question--what next?

Sujets

• Thrillers
• Secrets
• Mary
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669871576
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE AURATOR DEADLY SECRETS
M.A. KROPF

Copyright © 2023 by M.a. Kropf.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-7138-5

eBook
978-1-6698-7157-6
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Cover art by Chuck Todd. www.chucktodd.net
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 03/20/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
852147
Contents
Acknowledgments
Reflection
1. The Pain
2. Warmth
3. Chaos
4. The Meeting
5. Home
6. Vision Realized
7. Truth
8. Max
9. Hippocrates
10. Urge
11. Purpose
12. Beginnings
13. Truths
14. Reality
15. The Meeting
16. Powers
17. Questions
18. Assets
19. Liabilities
20. Progenitor
21. Complications
22. Choices
23. Connections
24. Distant
25. The Light
26. Battle
27. True Colors
28. Saturation
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to my children for being my love and inspiration. I want to thank my family for being so patient while I spent countless hours on the computer. To Denise for pushing me through every instance of writer’s block and whose input helped to shape major story lines. To Dad, for being a constant support; no matter what harebrained idea I came up with you have always been in my corner. To Mom, for sending countless emails with research and follow-up phone conversations to bounce ideas off another set of ears. To my father-in-law Frank, who read for me and encouraged me along the way. Lane S-B, whose professional feedback on my very first draft was difficult to hear but helped to make the story better. To Uncle Larry, a well-published author, for encouraging me to rewrite when I didn’t want to, whose wisdom said I wouldn’t regret it— you were right. To Anita Todd, my editor, and Chuck Todd, the book cover artist, for their professional guidance and advice to help make the project complete. These two gave so much of their time and energy toward this project because they believed in it and I am extremely grateful to them. To my readers who read one, two, and sometimes three drafts and gave feedback: Claire W., Bill K., Larry L., Rae Jean E., Valerie L., Nanette M., Larry B., Carole L., Sam Y., Diana K. , Carlee S., and Char M. for reading and lending her name for the detective character. Special thanks to my musical inspiration: Evanescence, Creed, and Machine Head for setting the mood. Thanks to Kathy Weires, photographer, for making the process of taking the author photo relatively painless and making me look good.
 

Reflection
This is it . . . the resolve . . . this is who I am. I never asked for this. As a nurse . . . as a mother . . . I always tried to be a good person, someone for my kids to look up to. Yet here I am doing the unthinkable . . . deciding who lives and who dies. Who am I to think that I should hold such control? Yet, as I stand here viewing the surreal scene in front of me, I struggle to fight the fear and the nausea . . . the excitement. I become acutely aware of every muscle in my body. One by one, flexing and extending as the blood pulses hard to supply the oxygen my muscles need to stay satisfied. My heart is pounding and racing . . . aching. A sudden chill vibrates through me as I become aware of a slight sweat band spread above my brow line. The back of my neck feels moist as a drop slowly trickles down my back. I take in a deep breath and, noticing the raggedness of my breathing, I steady myself. I smell the aroma of victory as the scene overtakes me, making me shudder as I feel the high. I can taste it on my tongue, which makes my mouth water and I have to swallow hard. I feel my saliva moving downward, a bit cold in my overheated body, only to land in my now quivering stomach. I sigh, realizing that the nausea has finally passed.
I stand and look at him, my victim, with contempt but also with a deep sadness that it had to come to this. He never saw it coming. His lifeless body is twisted into an unnatural position on the ground, still, but not dead . . . not yet . . . and a smirk spreads across my face.
But as the breeze of reality kisses my cheek, my face drops ever so slightly. The others . . . they were right . . . I have been created for this. I close my eyes for a moment as I feel a strange sensation. A need to do something, but what? Is this what they were talking about? I was drawn here and it felt right, but could I really finish it? Could I really end a person’s life? Even if someone deserved to die, was I really to be judge and jury? I feel lightheaded as the faces of so many victims who were dead because of this person swirl in front of me. Resolve overwhelms my senses as I realize that he cannot live to repeat these acts. My eyes close, and as I take a deep breath I feel a sense of calm wash over my body. At this moment I understand who I am meant to be and how far I have come to get here. In front of me I see my past, present, and future. I was born to complete a purpose . . . my purpose . I suddenly see flashes of my past as I feel myself slipping into the memories of my youth . . . and the path that led me here.
1. The Pain
Everyone has a destiny, and whether it is predetermined or not, reaching it is up to each one of us.
Growing up I had always been . . . well felt different. I’m not sure why. I was a moderately attractive girl, sleek athletic build from all the years of soccer and running, long dark hair which I had been told had the perfect wave and body, although I was constantly at odds with it. I was good at sports, and academically I was in the top ten percent of my class. Still I never felt like I fit in. Friends, or the lack thereof, were a difficult subject for me to talk about. Many tried to be friends with me, but I was never able to let anyone close enough.
“Megan,” my father would say to me, “why don’t you call one of your friends and go to a movie or something?” But there was no one to call. It’s hard to explain, but I see things that other people don’t. A sort of a light or dark essence around a person. I remember my first experience with this when I was six years old.
The Catholic church that my family went to had a priest who always looked angry to me. But whenever he was around certain young boys in the congregation his shape took on an eerie dark hue. It was almost as if someone had taken a thick black marker and drawn a perfect outline of him, careful not to draw into the lines of his body but also not too far away. At least this is how my six-year-old eyes saw it. Everyone at the church loved him. He was, after all, one of the chosen ones . . . chosen by God. However, he disappeared one day, and neither I nor anyone in our church ever saw him again. It was much later, well into my twenties, that I heard he had been molesting the boys in the church.
The next time I noticed the strange outline, as I called it then, was not until my teenage years, when I was sixteen and a junior in high school. I hated high school. This time the outline was around a boy at school, and I remember it was much darker, more pronounced, and had a feeling of impending doom to it. Since I didn’t have a lot of friends, no one noticed when I became obsessed with following him around. I watched his every move, waiting for . . . well, I don’t know what I was waiting for. I was always intrigued by others and felt as if people wandered around with blinders on, not watching their actions, others’ reactions, or quite frankly even where they were going. I felt very aware of everyone, as if I was waiting, looking for . . . or about to miss . . . something.
The boy’s name was John Steele, and I followed him around for two months the way an obsessed stalker follows his or her intended, watching his ever-changing outline. Sometimes it was jet black and very defined, moving with him. Other times it was a faded gray, less defined, more see-through and not very snug to his figure. But always there. By all accounts, John should have been a very popular boy since he was attractive and played on the lacrosse team. I saw that girls were definitely attracted to him because they would stare at him when he wasn’t looking. He seemed completely oblivious to this. He was an attractive boy with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a strong build. The lacrosse team had to work out in the weight room every day so most of the boys on the team were fairly muscular. We were similar in one respect . . . he did not appear to have a lot of friends either. While I did not find myself attracted to John in that way , I was drawn to him. Why? I didn’t know.
One night, two months after first noticing John, I had an extremely vivid and terrifying dream. Little did I know then that what I saw was more than just a dream. The dream started in a classroom, not one that I regularly attended, when something dark walked into the room. There was a loud noise . . . many loud noises. I saw three specific faces, kids that I