The Traveler: Initiate Years (Short-story Collection Books 1-5): THE TRAVELER: Initiate Years

By Kat Bastion and Stone Bastion

AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME! All five books together in one page-turning collection.

 

Award-winning and bestselling authors Kat Bastion and Stone Bastion join forces once again in an exciting new short-story adventure series… THE TRAVELER: Initiate Years.

 

Meet Isobel Brodie… Recent thirteenth-century Scottish transplant—from twenty-first-century Southern California. New wife to a fearsome Highland laird. Future mom to immortal twins. Rookie warrior drafted by magick to save the unraveling fabric of time.

 

The dark angel who mentors her calls her Ms. MacInnes.

 

Prophesy named her… The Traveler.

 

Veil of Realms: Isobel is catapulted thousands of years into the past, to Ireland's Newgrange, where malevolent forces have breached the thin barrier between worlds. On her first mission, will her magick be strong enough to defeat an ancient power-hungry entity?

 

Secrets of Alexandria: Dropped into legendary Alexandria, Isobel hunts the threat she's been sent to eliminate. But her adversary is clever and experienced. And the learning curve to her new magick, steep. Yet with the timeline in danger, she's all that stands between her nemesis and life everywhere.

 

Panther Rising: Thrown into a sweltering jungle seven millennia in the past, Isobel navigates natural and otherworldly obstacles in a Mayan temple underworld. But as ancient entities join forces to steal energy through time, she's pressured to outsmart an enemy that's always time-jumped one step ahead.

 

Stones of Power: Transported to a future Samhain, circa 2039, Isobel stumbles into a group hiking to witness supernatural occurrences at Stonehenge—her apparent destination as well. But it seems her foe crafted a trap for her. And the price to save life everywhere? Higher than ever.

 

Highland Magick: With the rules of the game constantly shifting, Isobel squares off with her reviled enemy in her own backyard. But will she be able to safeguard her clan without exposing the secrets of her magick?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kat Bastion and Stone Bastion
• Release date: Sep 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734806175

Book preview

The Traveler: Initiate Years

Also by Kat & Stone Bastion

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Unbreakable Series

Heartbreaker

Rule Breaker

Lawbreaker

Ball Breaker

Icebreaker

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No Weddings Series

No Weddings

One Funeral

Two Bar Mitzvahs

Three Christmases

For Valentine’s

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Highland Legends Series

Forged in Dreams and Magick

Bound by Wish and Mistletoe

Born of Mist and Legend

Found in Flame and Moonlight

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THE TRAVELER: Initiate Years

Veil of Realms

Secrets of Alexandria

Panther Rising

Stones of Power

Highland Magick

Standalone Novel

The Espionage Effect

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Romantic Poetry for Charity

Utterly Loved

Praise for Other Stories by Kat & Stone Bastion

Awards and Praise for

Forged in Dreams and Magick

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First Place – Unpublished Beacon Award

Best Paranormal Romance

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First Place – Hold Me, Thrill Me Award

Best Paranormal Romance

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Chosen by FreshFiction.com as their Fresh Pick for October 22, 2013

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"A beautifully woven tale about love, choices, courage and destiny, Forged in Dreams and Magick is one of the best time-traveling novels. Fans of Gabaldon’s Outlander will love it."

Bookish Temptations

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I was gripping my iPad like a crazy woman and fanning myself from the smoldering romance. Lawdy!

The Flirty Reader

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Bastion’s debut is pure perfection, a combination of romance, magic, emotion, adventure and surprising twists and turns. This is a truly unique romance that should not be missed!

TheBookQueen

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"HOLY HELL!!! I am so… um… wow! FABULOUSNESS. Forged in Dreams and Magick definitely makes my BEST OF list for 2013…"

That's What I'm Talking About

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A story guaranteed to enthrall with lushly detailed travels into times long gone by. Woven with love, passion, magic and legend, the story had me hooked from the very first chapter.

Read-Love-Blog

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Kat Bastion’s wonderful debut brings a new voice to the fore. Her voice is strong and unhesitating, very human and real, sometimes young and delicious in her treatment of intimacy and relationship development.

Fangs Wands & Fairydust

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OMG, Bastion hits all cylinders in this supernatural tale. The layers in the book were fascinating, and I devoured the fun, adventuresome read.

Literati Literature Lovers

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Praise for

Bound by Wish and Mistletoe

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"I LOVED it! Bound by Wish and Mistletoe is, to my mind, a perfect entry in the historical / paranormal fiction genre and has quite a bit to offer."

Fab Fantasy Fiction

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Kat Bastion has done it again! … Excellent holiday novella, perfect for a cup of cocoa and snuggling under a blanket in front of the fireplace this holiday season.

That's What I'm Talking About

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Move over, Julia Quinn and Sabrina Jeffries! Kat Bastion is an absolutely gifted author and deserves to be recognized for her talent.

LovesHistorical Book Reviews

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Praise for

Heartbreaker

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This book has definitely earned its five stars and I am just floored right now. The passion is explosive, the story itself is beautiful, and the emotions are so real my heart is ready to burst. Beautiful book. Absolutely breathtaking.

One Page at a Time

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"Heartrending, passionate, and captivating! Heartbreaker is a riveting page-turner that will leave you breathless with raw emotions, and the need to hold tight to the ones you love!"

Beneath the Covers Blog

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This book is all about flawless writing, exemplary storytelling, f*#king insane character development. The right dose of sexy hotness…

Love N. Books

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The Bastions are at it again with this beautiful and heartbreaking story. You will absolutely fall in love with Kiki and Darren’s love.

Under the Covers Book Blog

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"Heartbreaker is a phenomenal story."

That’s What I’m Talking About

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I loved it…wonderfully compelling, a story that touched my heart in so many ways and characters I will remember for a long time to come.

Girl Who Reads

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Praise for the

NO WEDDINGS SERIES

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One of the best romantic comedies of the year!

Agents of Romance

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The No Weddings series is one of the best I have read that follows one couple. Cade and Hannah are both lovable characters, the storyline is real and entertaining, and the banter is fun and witty.

Lives & Breathes Book Blog

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I loved it, and I mean REALLY loved it!

Orchard Book Club

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This is an exceptional series… You find yourself fully engrossed in their world and can’t put the book down.

Books -n- Kisses

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The No Weddings series has a group of such amazing characters; you can’t help but relate to them and feel the emotion in every situation they encounter. It has been a long time since a story has made me feel that way let alone an entire series!

Under the Covers Book Blog

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The story of Cade & Hannah’s relationship is realistic, heart-warming, and filled with real-world connections that shook me in a way that few titles I’ve read this year have managed…I have loved every minute of the No Weddings series.

That's What I’m Talking About

The Traveler: Initiate Years

Short-story Collection (Books 1-5)

Kat & Stone Bastion

Contents

Veil of Realms

Secrets of Alexandria

Panther Rising

Stones of Power

Highland Magick

Thank You!

Want to Read More?

Also by Kat & Stone Bastion

Sneak Peek of Found in Flame and Moonlight

About the Authors

Charity Support & Awareness

Veil of Realms

Two hundred and fifty pounds of muscular Highland warrior lunged toward Isobel Brodie, fear etched into his face.

When she shot up a hand to stop her new and overprotective husband, he grasped it tightly. "Och! You gave me a fright. I thought…weel, for a moment…I saw through you."

Interesting. She stared at her very solid hand. Nope. Sorry, Iain. You’re stuck with me, for now. All she could promise. Because as they both now knew, she had acquired responsibilities. In other times. What that entailed, she had yet to find out. Time-travel school hadn’t started yet.

At her suggestion of their time together being transient, his expression clouded. Do you miss your past?

She stifled a laugh. What a crazy question. Her origins? Far in the future, twenty-first century Southern California. But they currently sat on their Clan Brodie plaid, just prior to the fourteenth century. And with her initial uncontrolled time-jumps, she had also sojourned in a first-century Pict village. But they didn’t talk about that past. And none of it held any importance.

No. She gazed into hazel-green eyes brightened by an August midday sun. The here and now. All that matters. All that existed. Only their decadent picnic, their grazing black and white warhorses, Dubhar and Solus, and the verdant Highland grasses bobbing in the wind.

Isa. Iain’s voice hollowed, echoing from afar. Even though he still sat inches away.

She stared at her hand again. Huh. Still solid.

But a strange pain developed behind her breastbone. Heartburn? Only if a pinprick tug toward her insides could be considered heartburn. The sensation intensified. Tugged a little stronger. Once. Twice. Like an impatient child demanding a parent’s attention.

Isa! Urgency underscored his tone. The volume had muffled further. His visage faded as well, as if she’d sunk beneath the surface of a deep lake and stared up at him from ten feet below.

She frowned, confused. Then she glanced at their scrumptious untouched picnic. Which was so unlike their clan’s laird to prepare himself, especially in the busy last few days since he’d returned from weeks away on a scouting trip.

Unable to reconcile the escalating pain in her chest, she rubbed two fingers over the spot and inhaled deeply. A warm flash brushed over her heart outward, to her scalp, fingers, and toes.

She’d heard pregnancy typically came with heartburn. But in the first trimester? Maybe twins were different. But the hot flash was an odd and unexpected symptom. Then again, she had no reference point for a first pregnancy. Pretty sure human-turned-immortal cases weren’t in any medical books. Anytime in history.

"Isa! His face turned ghostly pale, and he lunged toward her again. You’re vanishin’!"

As the heat increased, wavy lines distorted the atmosphere between them, like the air inches above a scorching summer asphalt back in twenty-first-century California.

Iain! she cried out to him in the split second that everything disappeared, once she realized what was happening. The event transpired a bit differently than in the previous startling episodes. But recognizable nonetheless.

Apparently in reaction to an unknown trigger—the tugging within—she’d unconsciously gathered energy from her surroundings to respond to where she’d been requested.

Time had beckoned.

And the powers she’d recently acquired had responded. Without her say-so.

Yep. Stupid me. I’d assumed I’d be free to enjoy a romantic afternoon picnic.

An instant later, she materialized into thick forest.

Running.

And no longer wearing the baby-blue day dress she’d chosen for their first date in weeks. Her favorite deerskin pants and halter top had materialized on her body. In her hands? Short swords.

Instinct had her duck, just before the low hum of an arrow whizzed over her head. Then she dodged right, to avoid another. Faking left, then swerving right, she dove through scrub edging a game trail and thrust her sword in the exact spot the arrow had originated from. A rustle preceded a muffled thud.

How had she known where to target? No idea. Another new power. They kept on coming.

As she spun around, then kept running along the trail while targeting the second archer, she shouted a mental call for assistance out into the ether. Cupcake!

The wide base of a tree loomed ahead. Without slowing, she discarded one sword by tossing it blade-first into the soft earth, ran up the trunk and grabbed the lowest branch, then thrust up and skewered her second attacker. A low grunt sounded. With a jerk of her sword, a body fell to her right from above. Then made a much louder thud.

Great. I’ve killed two people. Somewhere in time.

Get your superior ass over here, Sunshine! A little help!

Breathing hard, she cleaned her blades, then sheathed them into scabbards at her hips.

The chest-tug remained as she continued down the game trail. With cautious stealth. Alone.

Figures my mentor would abandon me on my first assignment. Yep. She tossed that accusation out there too. But the lack of intel didn’t surprise her much. From the beginning, the whole time-traveler thing had come without any warning. Or instruction manual.

However, sarcasm rubbed her lone guide in time and magick the wrong way. She enjoyed it immensely. But there was a time and place. Other times. Different places. Not here and now.

The tugging transformed into a keening vibration, a constant pull with every measured step.

After a dozen more paces, the thick foliage began to thin. Through low saplings, she perceived a clearing up ahead. The late afternoon sky appeared grayish with its high cloud cover.

When she stopped with only slight leaf-cover as camouflage, she made out a dark figure turned away from her. Behind the figure, giant menhirs, upright boulders engraved with megalithic art, fanned outward, brimming with unleashed energy. Barely discernable in the darkness beyond, the presence of a massive mounded earthen structure pressed against her senses.

All of a sudden, the vibration within her chest escalated, burst into a hot charge, then shot forward into the clearing, manifesting as sparks of that same shimmering mirage.

The figure spun to face her. The dark turned out to be a robe. A wiry salt-and-pepper beard clung to a weathered face. A gnarled staff extended from his clenched hand. With a strangled cry and glowing eyes, he struck the ground with his staff. Like a forged lightning bolt, energy shot up through the ground so fast, the hairs on her arms stood on end. The air above him began to shimmer, then roiled with a growing dark cloud that appeared from seemingly nowhere.

A sorcerer of some sort. That she’d been assigned to handle. With zero intel.

She sighed.

Even stubborn her understood knowledge granted power. And she had stifled stubbornness before.

A little respect went a long way.

Skorpius. Her mental voice gentled, as she finally addressed him by his proper human name. Would you please assist me? I’d greatly appreciate it.

At once, she felt her mentor’s powerful presence beside her.

"You do not require my assistance, Traveler. Amusement edged his low tone. However, he hadn’t addressed her with his typical Ms. MacInnes" taunt. The situation warranted seriousness.

She so agreed with that assessment as she shot him a deadpan look. I killed two people.

Those preternatural swirling blue-green eyes of his stared ahead. Glossy black wings arched high above his seven-and-a-half-foot angelic frame. A dark olive complexion fell even duskier in the deep shadows of whatever ancient forest the two of them stood in. He wore his typical distressed black leather pants. His matching black combat boots were battered, laces loose, like he wore them with a modicum of disdain.

Who attempted to kill you. He glanced at her with a tit-for-tat deadpan. You dispatched them. With great skill. No assistance required.

Thanks, Master of the Obvious. It seemed a body count came with the job description and zero expected guilt.

She arched a brow and nodded out ahead. What about Gandalf the Grey over there? And when and where the hell are we, anyway?

Our appraisal banter had only spanned a handful of seconds, but the sorcerer’s roiling storm cloud had quadrupled in size. Magick churned within it, its discharge buffeting her awareness.

The vibration within her chest twanged to life again.

A bright light burst into existence within the churning cloud, growing and flashing out with star points.

A powerful druid. Skorpius’s gaze returned to our target. His greed is destabilizing time.

As the druid’s energy reached a frequency peak, three blue fireballs fired out from the magickal star’s epicenter…and raced straight toward her.

We learn by experience—Skorpius vanished—Traveler.

Baptism by fire, she mentally grumbled back as she unsheathed her swords and crossed them in front of her chest, gathered energy from the surrounding environment, and shielded herself for the blow. The fireballs exploded against her blades.

But not before painful sparks of magick singed her forearms.

Another buildup of power began from the weathered druid.

Urgency pumped hot through her veins.

Instinct had her running again, zigzagging through the glade. But her new time-travel powers kicked in once more and flashed her in and out as she ran. Appearing in random places left to right, she closed the distance between them.

At a critical moment, just prior to the druid’s energy peaking again, she materialized far to the right then concentrated on the space he occupied. The next moment, she appeared inches in front of him with her sword thrust up through the center of his dark-robed chest.

The wizened face stretched gaunt, thin lips rounding into an O. His body crumpled to the ground in a heap of dark material. That flattened. Then disappeared.

His dark cloud disappeared too.

Not trusting the Wicked-Witch melting act, she dug a toe into the earth where he’d last been. The air still snapped and sparked with power. Additional elemental energy from the menhirs licked across her senses.

And the angel’s ancient power still remained, nearby, but unseen.

Where and when are we again? Weary from the fight, she sheathed her swords once again and leaned against one of the towering stones.

Your answer lies within.

Within?

No reply came. Instead, Skorpius’s energy signature vanished.

Great. Thanks for the training, Mr. Riddle.

Wax on, wax off: Mr. Miyagi’s lessons for his Karate Kid. Only the Kid’s trials involved waxing cars and painting fences. Not swords and death. Welcome to my world.

With intense concentration, she followed Skorpius’s riddled directive on instinct. She closed her eyes and searched the depths of her being, into the very beating of her heart, near where the tugging had begun. And a kind of information registered back. Not words. Not symbols. Just a decoded knowing born of magick. October thirty-first, 2,800 BCE, she murmured. Prehistoric Newgrange. Eastern Ireland. Surprised at the internal info-dump, she blinked heavily. Samhain.

Very good, Ms. MacInnes.

Ah. So, my mentor hasn’t abandoned me after all.

No reply came. No energy either. Neat trick.

Still catching her breath, she flattened her palms against the solid surface of the menhir. Grateful for its support, she drank in the power of a legendary site she’d never been to—near its genesis. Whose energy still vibrated through her.

She stared at the turfed spot where the deflated robe had vanished. Traveler one, druid zero. Well, at least my task is done.

With the drop of her last word, the earth began to shake. Loose gravel bounced over the ground. The giant menhir behind her pulsed with greater power. All the stones in sight began to glow.

A heavy foreign presence invaded her mind. Different than Skorpius’s. Ancient. Ominous. Dripping with elemental power. "No, my naïve one. We’ve only just begun."

With the dire prediction, a bruising darkness shot through her veins, freezing, oily—repulsive. The infusion overloaded her senses: clouded her vision, altered her equilibrium, arrested her thoughts. Touch? Skewed. Hearing? Deafened.

And with the maelstrom attacking her from outside, the tugging behind her breastbone vibrated faster.

Yet the inner-tug, that impatient childlike pull, seemed good in light of the outside force. Hers felt…golden. Far different than the caustic foreign assault.

Pulse quickening, gasping for breath, she tried a mental shout for Skorpius, but to no avail. The moment her struggling brain latched on to the dark angel’s name, a lancing pain speared through her head. By the next breath, she couldn’t remember what her