Consanguinity

By Gabriella Bradley

Together Forever...the beautiful orange roses Dion had planted for her would bloom, flourish, but wilt and die, like him. Except the roses would bloom again the following year...

Twenty-one years of happiness was cut off abruptly when one of Jorgenson’s hitmen killed Dion. Devastated and alone, Lux throws herself into her work—solving cold cases, and especially to find the killer that robbed her of her mate.

When the GIA sends her to another planet to solve a cold case to locate a missing princess, Lux takes it on. Little does she know that she will meet the mate destined for her by the gods. Or, that the mysteries surrounding that case will solve the mystery of her origins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781487430016

Book preview

The GIA once again sends Lux on a cold case mission, one she had never expected...

Together Forever... the beautiful orange roses Dion had planted for her would bloom, flourish, but wilt and die, like him. Except the roses would bloom again the following year...

Twenty-one years of happiness was cut off abruptly when one of Jorgenson’s hitmen killed Dion. Devastated and alone, Lux throws herself into her work—solving cold cases, and especially to find the killer that robbed her of her mate.

When the GIA sends her to another planet to solve a cold case to locate a missing princess, Lux takes it on. Little does she know that she will meet the mate destined for her by the gods. Or, that the mysteries surrounding that case will solve the mystery of her origins.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Consanguinity

Copyright © 2020 Gabriella Bradley

ISBN: 978-1-4874-3001-6

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

Consanguinity

Sequel to Frosted Heritage

By

Gabriella Bradley

Chapter One

Lux walked to the window and looked down at the gardens. In her mind, she saw Dion weeding a flowerbed. The mental image brought tears to her eyes and a lump in her throat. He had so loved his plants and flowers, and whenever they took some time off, he had spent all his time planting and weeding. Their gardens were the most beautiful in the neighborhood, his pride and joy.

The roses he had planted, imported from Earth, were in full bloom and a sea of color, the orange roses overpowering the rest. Because of their name, they were his favorites.

Her thoughts drifted back to that day a year ago when she’d stood in this exact same spot watching him plant the rose bushes...

Dion called out to her, making a drinking motion. Lux smiled and nodded, then went to the kitchen to get him a beer from the cooler and brought it to him. Beer was a luxury he imported from Earth.

Thanks, honey. He took his gloves off, and sitting on the grass, patted it. Come and sit with me. I can’t wait for these roses to grow. You’re going to love the blooms. I bought a variety of colors.

It was the closest Dion had ever come to his home planet—his imported flowers and plants, and a few other imported items. He could never go back, never show her where he grew up. All these years, they had remained a hunted couple on Earth. Jorgenson, the cartel boss, now an old man, still had a price on their heads. It was a huge reward, coveted by many contract killers, and the Galactic Investigation Association had forbidden Dion and Lux to set foot on Earth. It had been twenty-one years since they had successfully solved the missing dragons’ case, and the GIA had still not been able to get Jorgenson convicted. His ring of crime continued to flourish.

What are you thinking about? Dion asked and planted a kiss on her cheek.

She fibbed because Jorgenson and his cartel were a sore point for Dion. About the next cold case. And of course, as always, the one we haven’t solved.

She brushed his dark hair away from his sweaty forehead. Thanks to the magic that she’d mastered over the years, she had at least been able to make him look younger than what he was. But the truth nagged at her. Dion was mortal. His true age was showing in his movements, and his internal organs were aging despite her best efforts. She might have been gifted with powerful sorcery, but she wasn’t able to stop his inner timeclock from ticking his mortal years away. He was in his mid-fifties now. People from Earth could live up to a hundred, but mostly, they began really winding down after seventy. At least she’d been able to stop the osteoarthritis that had started to attack him. Osteo was a debilitating disease that many older people on Earth suffered from.

We’ll never be able to visit the thousands of planets in the universe. Your parents could be anywhere, he reminded her.

True, but I’ll never give up searching for them. Now that they’ve developed jump technology on Earth, we might be able to search in another galaxy and finally find the two planets my real parents came from.

"For the time being, there won’t be any private travel on those ships, and that’s the only way for us to get to another galaxy. It could take years before universal travel for the general population is possible. And I doubt cold cases will ever reach beyond our own galaxy. Well... I shouldn’t say never. Sometime in the distant future, it’s a possibility, I guess."

I suppose. But now that they’re beginning to send exploration ships out, there’ll be more information available about the planets in those other galaxies. Maybe we’ll finally find out where Schevenet and Trechturion are.

But that won’t help because your prince and princess won’t be on either of those. Remember, the gods said they had sent your parents to another galaxy.

Maybe it’s time for us to visit the ice region again and talk to Truana, the enchantress. If the Oracle will speak to me, I might get answers...

We have two more days off. Monday is a holiday, so we could go then. Do you have everything ready for tomorrow’s birthday bash for little Boxy?

Yes, I look forward to seeing the whole family. Did I tell you Gushi is with child again?

Is she? They’re not wasting any time. They’ve already got five, and Boxy is just turning one.

Dion loved it when her whole family, especially the nieces and nephews, came over and filled the house with the laughter and running feet of children. But she also knew it touched a sore spot. They’d not had a child. No matter how many doctors and specialists Dion had insisted she made appointments with, she couldn’t conceive. Gushi, her younger sister, had even offered to be a surrogate, but Dion was against that method.

Lux knew why there was no child in their lives, but she’d never had the heart to tell Dion that the gods had foretold she would be barren. It was one of the two big secrets she’d kept from him. The second was the gods telling her that he wasn’t the mate meant for her.

She and Dion had even spoken about adoption, but then they’d finally decided their careers kept them too busy