Destiny (Awakened Fate #9) - Paperback Edition

The Beast is dead.

Long live the Beast.

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Judiciary, Ari found unexpected allies in the depths of the sea. With the mermaids and the Beast beside her, she chased her enemies through the ocean, only to discover a deadlier threat than she could have imagined waiting in the sunken ruins of a place that had been lost a thousand years before.

And in one moment, everything changed.

Now, the Beast is gone. The mermaid world is in tatters. Ancient magic has turned Ari’s worst enemy into a force unrivaled on land and sea, a monster more terrible than the Beast had ever been. Ari’s friends and family are in mortal danger, and Chloe and the mermaids are the only hope to save the wizards from total annihilation.In the war against the Judiciary, the mermaids and wizards must join together or else the entire world will fall.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Awakened Fate Series is a completed young adult fantasy series. None of the books are meant to be read as a standalone, since the story continues throughout the books with cliffhangers, interconnected narratives, and new discoveries in each installment. To fully enjoy this and the other books of the series, readers are encouraged to start at the beginning with Awaken: Book One of the Awakened Fate Series.

The Awakened Fate Series (Now Complete!)

• #1 - Awaken
• #2 - Descend
• #3 - Return
• #3.5 - Abide: An Awakened Fate Novella
• #4 - Arise
• #5 - Become
• #6 - Rebirth
• #7 - Memory
• #8 - Defiance
• #9 - Destiny

ARI

The strakirin stared at me, and I could see their fear, their worry. Leo made a stuttering, hissing sound.

I could tell it was an apology.

“No,” I gritted out. “Don’t… speak like them.”

A heartbeat passed. I knew Baylie was behind me. I could only imagine her expression. And the dehaians too, with their guns.

“S-sorry,” Luna said.

I dragged my gaze up to theirs.

Two pairs of snake-like eyes watched me. “Human eyes,” I snarled. “Change them.”

Luna and Leo flinched like they were scared of me, but then Luna hesitated. For a heartbeat, she didn’t even seem to breathe.

And then the scales faded from her skin and her eyes turned a brown so deep it was almost black.

Human.

She glanced at Leo. His skin and eyes changed too.

“Why are you here?” I demanded.

“For help,” Leo said.

“For you,” Luna added.

I tensed.

“You…” A smile flitted over Luna’s face, and I could feel it. Her joy at speaking more easily again. Her relief at her freedom from the droning hive mind.

My jaw clenching, I threw more energy into the wall separating us, trying to keep her out.

Luna winced. Hurt flickered in her eyes. “You saved us. From it. From him. You saved…” Her gaze didn’t quite make the trip to her brother this time. “They told us we’d be like the enforcers. That it wouldn’t hurt, but it did. We were trapped there, inside our minds, and the things they made us do…”

“You signed on for this.” I tossed the words back.

“We signed on to defend our people from annihilation by dehaians, not—” Luna cut off, struggling for words, but it wasn’t about the language this time, I could tell. It was memory. “Not to kill children. Families.”

I saw the dehaians behind them shift position, their hands flexing and then crushing down on their weapons.

“We couldn’t stop them,” Luna continued. “Not from the inside. The… the thing they made would have killed us. But you…” Her brow twitched down, her expression confused yet knowing. “We needed you. Need you. We can feel that, inside our heads.”

“Why?” I demanded.

She shook her head, giving a small shrug. “We don’t know. It’s just like a space inside, and it’s… you.”

I stared at her. I knew what she was talking about. Maybe, anyway, because I’d said something similar to Noah. That there’d been a space inside me, a place where our connection had been, and that had allowed me to hide from the monster they’d put inside my mind. But…

My body went cold, chills pouring through me.

But that space had been him, not me.

Luna bit her lip. “We got away after the dark place. Others didn’t. We hid from him, but it was so hard to stay out of his…” Again, that glance to her brother. They were communicating, I realized. Still talking to each other with the drone.

I felt sick.

“He dominates the hive, but he doesn’t listen to it. He doesn’t hear it like we do, and he doesn’t care. The judges made him different. Not fully, but… different. He wasn’t erased like we were supposed to be. And he’s powerful. More than us. More than any of us. He… he’s just…”

“Evil,” Leo finished.

I shivered. The word fit.

“He claimed the rest,” Luna continued, “but we got away.”

“How did you find us?” Baylie asked.

Luna wrung her hands together and then froze when the dehaians made cautioning noises, tightening their grips on their guns. “The judges sent out warnings about dehaians. They said to avoid Santa Lucina because it wasn’t safe. We knew you were traveling with dehaians at the canyon, so, you know, we decided to risk it.” Her shoulders twitched in a tiny, helpless shrug. “We got lucky. We saw you come out of the water.”

I stared at her. They got lucky. The dehaians had SUVs. We’d driven on highways, on country roads, all the way up into these mountains. And they’d gotten lucky.

But the strakirin were fast.

“The judges lied to us,” Luna said, her voice choked. “They claimed we’d be defending our people from attacks, not murdering children. Not babies.”

Behind her, the dehaians looked ready to kill the two of them where they stood.

She cleared her throat. “But we heard the rumors, the resistance broadcasts, where they said it wasn’t dehaians at all—”

“It wasn’t.” Baylie’s voice was cold.

Luna nodded quickly. “I know. We didn’t believe the stories, not before. But when the judges sent us down there…” She looked ashamed. “We didn’t mean to start a war. To erase ourselves so that they could start a war.” She turned to the dehaians. “We know our apologies will never be enough, no matter how… how horribly sorry we are. But we are so, so sorry, and that’s why we want to help you.”

“How can you help?” I couldn’t stop shaking. This was insane. Wrong. These monsters—

Except they weren’t monsters. No more than I’d been when I let the judges connect me to the Beast. When I’d doubted what little I’d witnessed of Noah, and believed instead that the Judiciary were right and honorable and honest, because they had to be. Because I was a ruanir, and they’d been our trusted leaders for centuries, and everything I knew proclaimed they were a force for good.

Rather than a bunch of megalomaniacal lunatics hellbent on crushing anyone and anything in their path.

“You’re like us, but different too,” Luna said. “You haven’t… you don’t hear it like us, either, do you?”

Her question was nonsensical. And it sounded rhetorical too. “What?”

“The song.” She tapped her temple, watching me.

Song? Oh. “The drone?”

She blinked, like she couldn’t believe I described it that way. “Y-yes. I guess. It doesn’t sound the same to you as it does to us.”

Clearly not.

“It’s changing,” Luna said. “He’s changing it, and we can hear that, which means we can help you find him.” She looked uncomfortable. “He’s hurting people. We can hear them screaming. He has to be stopped. But we can guide you. Help you find the others, and the judges, and even him.” She stepped forward, trying to take my hands even as her eyes darted warily to the soldiers. I flinched away, and dismay flashed over her face. “You’re not like us, but the strakirin need you, now more than ever. You’re the key, and if you don’t—”

“What does that mean, the key?”

Luna hesitated. “We think it means you can save the world.”

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Genre: Young adult mermaid paranormal romance

Content:

• Swearing
• Violence (PG-13)
• Physical peril

Reading order:

1. Awaken
2. Descend
3. Return
   (followed by #3.5 - Abide: An Awakened Fate Novella)
4. Arise
5. Become
6. Rebirth
7. Memory
8. Defiance
9. Destiny

The Awakened Fate series is complete!