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  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 L.M. Lacee.

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  GIFT

  DAUGHTERS OF ETHOS

  BOOK 0.5: Prelude

  Prologue

  ONE:

  TWO:

  THREE:

  FOUR:

  FIVE:

  SIX:

  SEVEN:

  EIGHT:

  NINE:

  TEN:

  ELEVEN:

  TWELVE:

  THIRTEEN:

  FOURTEEN:

  FIFTEEN:

  SIXTEEN:

  SEVENTEEN:

  EIGHTEEN:

  NINETEEN:

  EPILOGUE:

  Book 1: Unknown Universe

  Characters - Unknown Universe:

  PROLOGUE:

  ONE:

  TWO:

  THREE:

  FOUR:

  FIVE:

  SIX:

  SEVEN:

  EIGHT:

  NINE:

  TEN:

  ELEVEN:

  TWELVE:

  THIRTEEN:

  FOURTEEN:

  FIFTEEN:

  SIXTEEN:

  SEVENTEEN:

  EIGHTEEN:

  NINETEEN:

  TWENTY:

  TWENTY-ONE:

  TWENTY-TWO:

  TWENTY-THREE:

  TWENTY-FOUR:

  TWENTY-FIVE:

  TWENTY-SIX:

  TWENTY-SEVEN:

  TWENTY-EIGHT:

  TWENTY-NINE:

  THIRTY:

  THIRTY-ONE:

  THIRTY-TWO:

  THIRTY-THREE:

  THIRTY-FOUR:

  THIRTY-FIVE:

  THIRTY-SIX:

  THIRTY-SEVEN:

  THIRTY-EIGHT:

  THIRTY-NINE:

  FORTY:

  FORTY-ONE:

  FORTY-TWO:

  FORTY-THREE:

  FORTY-FOUR:

  FORTY-FIVE:

  FORTY-SIX:

  FORTY-SEVEN:

  FORTY-EIGHT:

  FORTY-NINE:

  FIFTY:

  FIFTY-ONE:

  FIFTY-TWO:

  FIFTY-THREE:

  FIFTY-FOUR:

  FIFTY-FIVE:

  FIFTY-SIX:

  FIFTY-SEVEN:

  FIFTY-EIGHT:

  FIFTY-NINE:

  SIXTY:

  SIXTY-ONE:

  SIXTY-TWO:

  SIXTY-THREE:

  SIXTY-FOUR:

  SIXTY-FIVE:

  SIXTY-SIX:

  SIXTY-SEVEN:

  SIXTY-EIGHT:

  SIXTY-NINE:

  SEVENTY:

  SEVENTY-ONE:

  SEVENTY-TWO:

  SEVENTY-THREE:

  SEVENTY-FOUR:

  SEVENTY-FIVE:

  SEVENTY-SIX:

  SEVENTY-SEVEN:

  SEVENTY-EIGHT:

  SEVENTY-NINE:

  EIGHTY:

  EIGHTY-ONE:

  EPILOGUE:

  Book Two: Destination home

  Characters – Destination Home

  ONE:

  TWO:

  THREE:

  FOUR:

  FIVE:

  SIX:

  SEVEN:

  EIGHT:

  NINE:

  TEN:

  ELEVEN:

  TWELVE:

  THIRTEEN:

  FOURTEEN:

  FIFTEEN:

  SIXTEEN:

  SEVENTEEN:

  EIGHTEEN:

  NINETEEN:

  TWENTY:

  TWENTY-ONE:

  TWENTY-TWO:

  TWENTY-THREE:

  TWENTY-FOUR:

  TWENTY-FIVE:

  TWENTY-SIX:

  TWENTY-SEVEN:

  TWENTY-EIGHT:

  TWENTY-NINE:

  THIRTY:

  THIRTY-ONE:

  THIRTY-TWO:

  THIRTY-THREE:

  THIRTY-FOUR:

  THIRTY-FIVE:

  THIRTY-SIX:

  THIRTY-SEVEN:

  THIRTY-EIGHT:

  THIRTY-NINE:

  FOURTY:

  FORTY-ONE:

  FORTY-TWO:

  FORTY-THREE:

  FORTY-FOUR:

  FORTY-FIVE:

  FORTY-SIX:

  FORTY-SEVEN:

  FORTY-EIGHT:

  FORTY-NINE:

  FIFTY:

  FIFTY-ONE:

  FIFTY-TWO:

  FIFTY-THREE:

  FIFTY-FOUR:

  FIFTY-FIVE:

  FIFTY-SIX:

  FIFTY-SEVEN:

  FIFTY-EIGHT:

  FIFTY-NINE:

  SIXTY:

  SIXTY-ONE:

  SIXTY-TWO:

  SIXTY-THREE:

  SIXTY-FOUR:

  SIXTY-FIVE:

  SIXTY-SIX:

  Books by L. M. Lacee

  GIFT

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  BOOK 0.5: Prelude

  By L. M. Lacee

  Prologue

  Maikonia Prime.

  Present day.

  ‘Greetings, Peyton, it is nice to see you.’

  Peyton smiled at the handsome male as she entered through the door he held open. ‘Greetings, Jarrod, you are looking exceedingly happy.’

  ‘Why should I not be, I am mated to a wonderful and loving female, and my family are with me, safe and happy?’

  ‘The best reasons there are to be content.’

  ‘Please take a seat and tell me why you have come to visit me here, in my consulting rooms.’

  ‘You say that, like I have never been here before.’

  Jarrod smiled as he asked. ‘Have you? I must have been out when you came.’

  ‘Ha-ha, I am here for your help, because I seem to be daydreaming. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘Yes, a Terran term for dreaming while awake.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are the dreams about?’

  Peyton sighed as she told him. ‘My life before Maikonia.’

  ‘Ahh, I see. Are there specific events you dream about?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Peyton, do you know what a mind healer does?’

  ‘No, isn’t it a secret?’

  He shook his head as he replied. ‘No, it is not a secret. Why would you think that?’

  ‘Melody told me it was.’

  ‘I see, maybe she said that, so you did not…’

  ‘Oh
, annoy you… is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Peyton, let us get back to why you are here, your dreams.’

  ‘Yeah… yeah, okay. What do I do?’

  ‘Sit back and think.’

  ‘Oh… I can do that.’

  ‘Really? Well good!’

  Peyton arched her eyebrows and asked. ‘Have you been talking to Netta?’

  Jarrod hid his smile and asked. ‘About what?’

  She muttered. ‘Nothing, doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Now Peyton, think about the first event that defined you.’

  ‘What… What does that mean?’

  ‘Peyton, your first defining memory.’

  ‘My… what now?’

  ‘Think Peyton.’

  ‘All right, no need to yell.’

  ‘Peyton, please concentrate.’

  ‘I know what you are asking for, it is just… I really don’t like to remember that time in my life. In truth, any of it really.’

  Jarrod smiled gently as he told her. ‘This is why you are daydreaming. Your needar, or what you Terrans call a soul, needs to release the negative energy that is poisoning your thoughts, especially when you are not holding them at bay.’

  ‘I don’t think I do that.’

  ‘Peyton, you have been doing it for so long now it has become reflex.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds bad.’

  ‘It is, now my friend tell me a story about a young girl named Peyton St. Hill, who grew up on Earth.’

  Jarrod took Peyton’s hand in his as she closed her eyes and between one breath and the next she was asleep. Wiping his forehead, he breathed deeply to settle his own needar. He was now in uncharted territory.

  When he decided to take up the offer to live on Maikonia, not once did he think that he would have to heal the Star Daughter. At least with her asleep, there would be no resistance to him slipping through her barriers and reaching the surface of her mind, where he could connect them together. From there he could watch the most important and defining events in the life of Peyton St. Hill. He only hoped he was ready for what he was to experience…

  ONE:

  Age Five.

  The gun trembled in her hand as the man fell over; blood ran out of the hole the bullet had put in his head. She looked over and saw her Mama was still asleep on the floor between the beds. Peyton jumped down from the table and picked up her Mama’s celltex and pressed the number her grandpa showed her. She heard the buzzing noise, and then her grandpa’s gravelly voice. ‘What do you need now, Clementine?’

  ‘Grandpa, me shoot bad man.’

  ‘Run outside, baby girl. Run and hide in your special place and Peyton take the celltex and gun with you sweetheart.’

  ‘Kay.’

  ‘Now, baby girl, run now!’

  ‘Kay, Grandpa, me run.’

  Peyton pushed the button on the celltex and put it in her jacket pocket. With the gun in her hand she ran pass the bad man and out the door, closing it after her. She ran really fast to her hiding place. A row of bushes behind the Hydramotel. Once there she wiggled backward under the branches like her grandpa showed her and sighed in relief. This was her safe space, the one grandpa had made for her when she first came to live here with her Mama. He had told her she had to stay right there until he came for her. She placed the gun on the ground in front of her just in case more bad men came to get her and settled into wait for her grandpa.

  Peyton was almost asleep when she saw lights entering the parking space. She watched as a large man got out of his land truck, then sighed with relief when she saw it was her grandpa. Instinct had her wanting to run to him because her grandpa always made her feel safe, but she stayed where she was, just like he told her too.

  He stopped by his truck and looked around; she guessed he was waiting to see if anyone was gonna come after him. When no more vehicles came, and no lights came on in the Hydramotel, he started walking toward her. When he was halfway there, he whistled, and Peyton sprang from her hiding place and ran to him. She jumped into his strong arms, whispering. ‘Me here, Grandpa.’

  ‘Are you hurt baby girl?’

  ‘Me okay.’

  ‘Thank all that is holy you are safe. Give grandpa the gun and the celltex honey.’

  As she passed both to him, she said. ‘Me sorry Grandpa.’

  ‘You have nothing to apologize for, baby girl. Remember, adults are always… always meant to love and protect little ones.’

  She squeezed his neck with her thin arms and said. ‘Like you protect me.’

  Choking back tears, he nodded, unable to speak for the trust and love she showed him. His granddaughter brought him to his knees with her faith in him. Sadly, his little Peyton had not seen the best of adults in her short life, but thankfully her heart was still good.

  Huskily, he told her. ‘I love you Peyton, you are my gift from God, my redemption.’

  ‘Grandpa, what that mean?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it sweetheart. I am just very grateful you are not hurt. Now tell me what happened so grandpa can make it right.’

  ‘Me not go to jail?’

  ‘What do you know of jail, baby girl?’

  ‘Mama say me bad, me go to jail. It bad place Grandpa, they cut up little girls and eat them, me not go there.’

  Her small body trembled, and he silently cursed his daughter for the terror he could feel coming off his granddaughter. Holding her tighter, he assured her. ‘Sweet girl your Mama is wrong, little girls do not go to jail. Do you believe your Grandpa?’

  Her little head nodded up and down. ‘Yep, me do, Grandpa.’

  She let go a deep sigh and squeezed his neck with her little arms again and said. ‘Me love you.’

  ‘Love you too, my Peyton. Now tell me what happened.’

  As they approached his vehicle, she finished telling him what had taken place. He did not speak immediately as he placed her in the front seat of his land truck. It took him some time to regain his temper and appear normal, to a young girl who had just done the unthinkable and taken another person’s life. In the future, when he looked back on this night, he would wonder why his Peyton was not as traumatized as she should have been for a five-year-old.

  As he crouched in the open door of his truck and looked at his small granddaughter, he knew that for the rest of his life. He would thank his God for allowing him to get over the horror he felt when teaching her to shoot the gun her mother owned.

  Peyton could tell her grandpa was worried. He had on his serious face, the one he wore when he was showing her how to shoot the gun. ‘Peyton, I know you do not like to tell lies but for grandpa to keep you safe and so you can live all the time with grandma and me. You will need to tell just one lie tonight.’

  ‘Who I lie to?’

  He sighed and rubbed his head, saying. ‘To the troopers when they come.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He waited while she thought about what he asked. He had learned over the last six months that his granddaughter was an intelligent, serious five-year-old.

  Eric St. Hill was a large man with short black hair and piercing brown eyes, he had a broad face with a roman nose that had a slight bump. Unlike most men of his age, he wore a full beard because Sandra, his wife of sixty years, liked how he looked with one. As he waited for Peyton to decide what she would do, he again searched the features of the child before him. And still saw no resemblance to himself, his wife or even his daughter, in the sandy-haired, green eyed, pixie faced child that stared at him so earnestly.

  He was eighty-years-old, just pass middle age and over his lifetime he had developed an ability to sense when someone was more than just what they presented to the world. In his granddaughter, his senses screamed at him that what he saw was only a shadow of who she was. He had no rationale for his suspicions, nothing to point at and say that… that is what gives me that feeling. He just knew within his heart his granddaughter was much more than an average five-year-old. Again he wished he knew how, and why his screwed
up daughter had this child. Because just like he knew the sun would come up tomorrow, he knew his daughter had never given birth to this child. Sighing those thoughts away, he asked. ‘Have you decided?’

  After another minute, she nodded. ‘Okay, what do I say, Grandpa?’

  ‘I want you to say that I was bringing you home to your Mama.’

  ‘Oh, okay, I did not shoot the bad man.’

  ‘That is right, you were with your grandmother and me at our home.’

  She looked at him from serious green eyes, and once more, he thought he caught a glimmer of a flame in their depths as she whispered. ‘Grandpa, you make Mama go away forever.’

  ‘Yes, baby girl, I will.’

  ‘I will come and live with you and Grandma?’

  ‘You will forever.’

  She smiled slowly. ‘I like that, Grandpa.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Your speech seems to have improved.’

  ‘I am not scared anymore.’

  He nodded, then kissed her cheek. ‘Of course not, now wait here, little one. I have things to do before I call the troopers.’

  ‘Okay Grandpa.’

  He closed the door and strolled toward the Hydramotel. A place that barely passed sanitary regulations, he had hated every minute his sweet Peyton was made to live here. With a heavy heart, he walked into the room and stopped just inside the entrance and swore, then softly closed the door behind him.

  Eric felt his heart break wide open for what Peyton had been forced to do tonight, all because of his cowardice. He looked down into the face of a vile creature that had a bullet hole in his forehead. Theodore Savini, a known trader in young girls for the sex industry, lay dead at his feet.

  Just before Eric resigned from the troopers to go into private work, he had been in charge of tracking people like Savini. This villain had always stayed just out of reach of the law, nothing every stuck to the man. It was suspected he was involved in more than the sex slave trade. Unfortunately, they could never gather enough proof to charge him.

  Eric crouched down next to the cooling body, and his voice was hard as he snarled. ‘Guess this bullet stuck, you piece of shit.’ Anger filled his voice. ‘You came here to put your filthy hands on my baby girl. You are lucky you are dead, you son of a bitch. What she gave you was merciful.’ His voice lowered even more as he said. ‘Because what I would have done to you would have lasted days if you had touched her. So wherever you end up, and I hope it is hell… you should be thankful.’