Forbidden Reign: A Young Adult Contemporary, Adventure Fantasy

By Amy Earls

Rescue Mom.

Handle The Prophesied Power.

And Don't Fall in Love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amy Earls
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798987401736

Amy Earls

Amy Earls is a professor of first-year college students and holds a master's degree in education for adult learners with a focus in writing. Amy is passionate about helping young adults build a strong faith. When she's not grading papers, she's writing or dreaming up ways to make life an adventure. She lives in a bike-riding and Beaver-loving college town in Oregon with her husband, two daughters, and a never dying goldfish.

Book preview

1

恐惧

A fall doesn’t last forever. Yet as my hand clutched air and a scream lodged in my throat, I wondered. How hard would I crash?

I smacked against a body. At least it felt like a body. The crunch of bones, the sink of flesh. I searched my way through the dark and found what felt like a finger. Cold and still.

With a scream that would’ve woken me from the dead, I scuttled back, my palms pressing into carpet as I collided into another body. A grunt sounded, and I leapt back.

Watch where you’re going, Pero.

I found Carper’s arm and hugged it. I think I killed someone.

Don’t be so dramatic, Carper’s voice said. You only landed on yourself. You died in the younger universe until you came back to return into your old body.

That makes no sense.

Has anything you’ve been through in the last month made sense?

Fair point.

When we left Earth a month earlier, the last I remembered was being drugged, thrown into a limo, and waking up in the older universe, Origo. Now that I’d returned to Earth, had I restored to my old self? My soul felt lighter, as if I’d transported back as a different Pero Ruth Moshe: brave, fearless, a chosen girl full of faith.

Carper wiggled his arm from under my squeeze. Where’s the light?

A quick pressure and pain dug into my foot. Ouch. Be careful.

He stepped off.

You could apologize. I reached my hands forward and met what felt like empty clothes, then hangers.

Why would I do that? I heard Carper’s feet shuffling.

"Right. Because you apologizing a million times while we walked through the debris of Moon City wasn’t enough. I’m sorry. I’m sorry."

I never said that.

Ha! Past the hanging clothes, I touched a wall, then bumped against something light but solid with my feet. Were those shoes? And I suppose you don’t remember crying your eyes out either.

I definitely did not do that.

As much as Carper had changed for the better in the last week, his moodiness still exposed its annoying head. Or was that just his personality?

Sometimes I wonder.

I heard Carper’s hand meet the wall and brush against it. About what?

If you’re really a kid trapped inside a sixty-year-old’s body.

Watch it. I’m only fifty-six. And there are far too many stilettos in here.

Say what?

A light shone. I turned my head and blinked. A large closet hung with rows of coats and dresses, and yes, an impressive supply of heels adorned the carpet.

Oh, yeah, Carper said. I forgot about him.

I turned to his gaze behind me and gasped.

Jimmy lay unmoving on the floor. Carper had said Jimmy’s body was left here on Earth when transported to Origin.

It feels so final now, I whispered. You know, Jimmy helped me survive a lot, including you.

Don’t forget he also tried to kill us.

I recalled Jimmy in Moon City’s mansion, a knife in his hand as he charged toward Carper. Somehow, we’d survived. He wouldn’t have killed me.

Carper raised a brow.

Without Jimmy, would I have come back? Would Carper have come with me, humbled?

Carper’s lips tightened. It should’ve been me. He didn’t take his eyes off Jimmy.

Perhaps. I mean, you did kill a lot of people over the years.

Thanks for reminding me.

I shrugged. Should’ve been me, too.

Carper pivoted.

Mom, Sam, and… I swallowed. …Henry are missing because of me.

Doesn’t mean you should’ve died.

I shook my head. You don’t know who I was before you found me. I was scared all the time. I can’t trust that kind of heart. I’m not sure if it ever really beat at all, till now.

Getting effusive, are we?

I smiled. That’s a big word for you.

You underestimate me. Carper held his hand out past the dresses and shoes and toward the door. Shall we?

What about Jimmy?

We’ll bury him later. Carper cleared his throat. I’d like to take him to his homeland. I think he lived in America.

He’s from a farm. In Green Meadow, actually.

Before he died, Jimmy gave the farm to Sam, which would’ve made it my property too if I had accepted Sam’s offer to marry him. I shivered. Marriage was a big word. Would I marry Henry? We were kind of an item now. But was marriage always the