Rise of Alpha (The Prodian Journey #1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for Rise of Alpha

  Acknowledgment

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 – The Wheel of Fortune

  Chapter 2 – Freak with A Tic

  Chapter 3 – Dream

  Chapter 4 – Dead Girl by the River

  Chapter 5 – Revelation

  Chapter 6 – Interpretation

  Chapter 7 – Meeting the Tranak Leader

  Chapter 8 – Nightmare and Death

  Chapter 9 – The Prodian

  Chapter 10 – Aarmark versus Ergans

  Chapter 11 – Mertest

  Chapter 12 – Introducing Carionis

  Chapter 13 – Corpse Flower

  Chapter 14 – Version of the Truth

  Chapter 15 – Reumdag

  Chapter 16 – Fighting Back

  Chapter 17 – Cannus Ride

  Chapter 18 – The Battle

  Chapter 19 – Sleepover

  Chapter 20 – Mr. Ax

  Chapter 21 – Grounded

  Chapter 22 – Homecoming Game

  Chapter 23 – Dagger

  Chapter 24 – Aarmark Maturity

  Chapter 25 – The Prom

  Chapter 26 – Casualty

  Chapter 27 – Alpha

  Chapter 28 – Rightful Heir

  Chapter 29 – My Prodian

  Sneak Peek

  Books by Lorenz Font

  About the Author

  Book Designer

  Rise of Alpha

  The Prodian Journey, Book 1

  By

  Lorenz Font

  Copyright © Lorenz Font, 2016

  Published by Talem Publication

  The right of Lorenz Font to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

  All characters and events in this Book – even those sharing the same name as (or based on) real people – are entirely fictional. No person, brand, or corporation mentioned in this Book should be taken to have endorsed this Book nor should the events surrounding them be considered in any way factual. This Book is a work of fiction and should be read as such.

  Paperback ISBN – 978-0-9973858-0-9

  E-book ISBN –978-0-9973858-1-6

  Cover Design - Claudia Trapp/Phantasy Graphic Design

  www.phantasygraphicdesign.com

  Interior Design - Jennifer McGuire | JEMBookDesigns.com

  www.lorenzfont.com

  What a fantastic series opener!

  The queen of the unexpected twist is back, and this time, Font is taking her storytelling skills to the next level. From the first page, Rise of Alpha unfolds like a movie, sucking you into an elaborately crafted world filled with vivid imagery and characters who are real, engaging, and flawed.

  Amidst an action-filled tale of teenagers and royalty, fantastical weaponry and other worlds, is an endearing story of young love and heartache. For a brilliantly executed roller-coaster ride of emotions packed with everything from laughter to despair, I can’t recommend this book enough.

  R.E. Hargrave-International Best Selling Author

  Acknowledgment

  This endeavor wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the following people.

  Mom—Thanks for constantly picking me up when I’m down. I’m truly blessed.

  Trenda and Patrik Lundin—Your tireless critiquing and listening to me ramble on and on about every aspect of this story has been much appreciated. I couldn’t have a better husband and wife team (or friends) in my corner.

  Wendy Depperschmidt—Through hell and high water, we’ve been through it all. Thanks for sticking by me all these years. Love you more!

  Mavvy Vasquez—Sensei, you’re amazing. Thanks for taking on this project.

  Judith Somera—Thanks for being the steady hand and the guiding voice in all my journeys.

  Bunny, Noots, Mickey, and Kevinsky—Love, love you guys!

  Claudia—The Trident rocks!

  Rachel Hargrave—You’re simply the best. I can’t say it enough.

  Finally, to the gals in my street team, namely Cynthia, Kitty (Paula), Melissa, Lori, Wyndy, and RE. You ladies are awesome.

  With love to Eric Banaag for twenty-three years of friendship. I’ll keep counting.

  The Wheel of Fortune

  Normal people rang doorbells. However, my best friend insisted on throwing rocks at my bedroom window instead. He’d even cracked the glass once, but he had yet to learn his lesson.

  “Brian,” he called, just seconds before more pebbles rattled the pane.

  Groaning, I hurried to stop him. I stuck my head out the second-story window and hoped my father wouldn’t hear us.

  “What the hell! Dude, if you break it again, I’m going to make you pay for it.”

  He flipped me the bird. “Get your ass down here. I have two hours before my parents come home.”

  I sighed and shook my head when he sauntered back to his car. Mark Stanton was the quintessential jock, but for some reason, he liked me. Maybe it was because of our mutual addiction to video games, or maybe it was that I’d won him over with my charming wit and magnetic personality. The latter reason was, of course, a running joke between us.

  After sliding the window shut, I snagged my favorite cap from the top of the bureau. I took the stairs two at a time, hoping to slip out of the house unnoticed. My parents weren’t as strict as Mark’s, but since my social calendar tended to be empty, they were bound to ask a million questions. I’d also heard them talking earlier about my dad’s latest client—a popular athlete who needed a nose job after a bar fight in Beverly Hills—and didn’t want to interrupt them if the same topic was still on tap.

  “Baby boy, aren’t you going to have dinner?” my mother called from the kitchen.

  I cringed at the nickname. Caught, I changed my route and headed to the kitchen to peek through the doorway.

  “I’m not hungry and I’m running late.” I glanced at my watch to prove my point.

  My father looked over the rim of his reading glasses and regarded me with mild amusement. “Not so fast, young man. Your mother wants to tell you something.” He looked at her, urging her to speak with a jerk of his head. “Cynthia, go on.”

  She folded the dinner napkin on her lap and took a deep breath, her kind blue eyes peeking through a curtain of long, dark lashes. I had to admit she was pretty and still looked young, but she couldn’t hide her emotions. I knew she was going to tell me something I wasn’t going to like.

  “Dr. Singer called today. There’s a new medication he wants you to try, but he needs to see you in his office first. Are you available after school on Monday?”

  “Well, let me check my social calendar.” No one laughed when I pretended to spread out an imaginary scroll. My parents refused to skirt around my disease, and if there was anything they loathed, it was my sarcasm and constant self-mockery. “There’s nothing going on that day, Mom. I’m good.”

  Before she could launch into an hour-long lecture on how hard I was on myself, I gave her a quick peck on the cheek to distract her. She didn’t understand that either I made fun of myself, or other kids would. My choice was easier to live with.

  Hurrying to escape, I called over my shoulder, “I’ll see you guys in a few.”

  I heard my father asking, “What is up with that child of yours?” just
as the door slammed shut behind me.

  I hated running out of the house like that, but I was sick of going to doctors, trying different medications without any luck. Kids my age should be worried about dating, hanging out with friends, and school. Instead, I was faced with an insurmountable dilemma—how to control my damn tics.

  The night air was stifling, thanks to the heat wave that had been tormenting Southern California for several days now.

  “Fuck!” I blurted out when I slid across the front passenger seat.

  Mark snickered. In the back, the third member of our Three Stooges act laughed but didn’t look up. Darryl was engrossed in his brand new cell phone.

  Darryl Martin and Mark Stanton had been my best friends since middle school, when my family relocated here from Minnesota. My father had promised it was the last move we’d ever make. A prominent plastic surgeon, he’d never been able to turn down a good opportunity, so the first years of my life had been spent living out of a suitcase. The illustrious career of Dr. Gerald Morrison took us to ten different cities in three states before the Los Angeles partnership came along. I was lucky to meet Mark and Darryl, the only kids who were willing to be friends with the “freak with a tic”.

  “Ready, tic-boy?” Mark asked, already pulling out of my circular driveway.

  I flicked my middle finger before fastening my seatbelt. “Yeah, sure. Where to?” I asked.

  Darryl leaned forward to slap me on the shoulder, his usual greeting. “Madame Elizabeth, here we come.”

  “Are you guys serious?” I had a long list of items I could spend my money on—video games and a new laptop came to mind—but a tarot card reader on Hollywood Boulevard was not one of them. Then again, we’d been doing a lot of crazy stuff lately, and we supported each other. The trip to Madam Elizabeth’s was going to happen whether I liked it or not.

  Darryl hooted from the backseat. “Yeah, I feel lucky tonight.”

  “Just in case you didn’t know, psychics can’t predict lottery numbers,” I said, hoping he’d change his mind.

  He scoffed. “I’m not trying to win the lottery, Talon.”

  I rolled my eyes. Talon was my favorite character in the online game League of Legends. It was one of the geeky things we enjoyed doing on weekends or when our parents thought we were doing our homework. Mark liked the marksman, Varus, and Darryl preferred Garen. We had gotten into the habit of calling each other by those names.

  “Madame Elizabeth better come through for us. She’s supposed to be good,” Mark said, turning the car onto the busy street.

  Darryl rubbed his palms together. “I heard she’s bea-uuuu-tiful.”

  That wasn’t good news. In my experience, beautiful people were mean or would have nothing to do with me.

  “Fuck!” My shoulder gave an involuntary twitch.

  For seventeen years, I had endured the embarrassment and the stares that came along with Tourette’s Syndrome. It was a curse—the kind of punishment you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. My waking hours were plagued with ceaseless jerking. The vocal tics were even more embarrassing, coming out regardless of time or place. It destroyed my confidence, so I hid behind a wall few people could overcome. Although my parents had been steadfast in their support, they sometimes became the target of my frustrations. There were good days mixed in with the bad, but I was still holding out hope that I would outgrow my symptoms like my doctor said I might.

  In the meantime, I had just two “real” friends. Everyone else was either embarrassed to be seen with someone who had no power over his episodes, or too put off by the onslaught of verbal profanity. Well, it was only the one word. Of course, it had to be a term not acceptable in most social situations.

  Mark and Darryl had grown thick skins. Most of the time, they just jumped in during my verbal attacks, making light of the outburst and taking the focus away from me.

  I thanked my lucky stars for them, but I still wished I didn’t have to wake up to another day of these stupid episodes. Seventeen freaking years marred with shame and loneliness. I should be an active teenager, teeming with enthusiasm and lust for life. Instead, I spent my time hiding inside my shell, safe within the fortress I’d created to preserve my fragile ego. I was resigned to living my life in a Tourette’s jail.

  “Yo, what’s the matter?” Mark turned to look at me from the driver’s seat. As much as he tried, he couldn’t understand what it was like to be in my shoes. After all, he was popular at school. Aside from being an athlete, Mark had legions of girls vying for his attention because of his green eyes and wild chestnut hair.

  “Nothing.” I dismissed his question with a wave of a hand.

  How could I keep on explaining my discomfort at being around new people? Even I was getting tired of hearing my lame excuses. My friends understood my dilemma to a certain degree, but they weren’t the ones who shouted obscenities at the most inopportune moments. Why couldn’t I have gotten stuck with a word like marvelous, jockstrap, or even bastard? Why did it have to be fuck?

  “Dude, whatever you’re thinking, screw it. You’re not getting out of this one. This is payback for when you dragged my ass out to take pictures of birds! I had to wake up early and take pictures of … some sparrows!” Darryl shook his head at the memory. It was obvious the expedition still bothered him. His problem, not mine.

  Darryl was sort of in-between me and Mark in the appearance department. He was a few inches shorter than me but lanky, with gunmetal gray eyes and flat black hair, courtesy of a cheap bottle of supermarket-brand hair dye. We dressed in similar styles sometimes, depending on how dark my mood was, but Darryl was the one people called goth. He was into piercings. So far, he had three in his right ear, two in the left, and one in his right nipple. It remained a mystery how the three of us got along so well, considering our differences.

  “They’re called Graceful Hedge Sparrows,” I corrected, “and they’re quite interesting.”

  “Whatever. We sat there for hours. Hours! I followed you around while you took pictures of those dumb birds. We could’ve been attacked by a mountain lion, for crying out loud.” Darryl’s voice squawked while he jammed his fingers through his faux-hawk.

  “Sure, whatever,” I retorted. “I’m in the car already, so it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”

  Mark parked the car in a paid parking lot, and we strolled a few blocks to a dilapidated building that housed several businesses and souvenir shops. I felt for the phone in my pocket and switched it to vibrate, just in case Mom decided to call to check on me. God knew she had the tendency to coddle, and at my age, it had gotten downright embarrassing.

  VOYANT’s purple neon sign welcomed us when we walked into the dark, rather dingy room. The scent of burning incense was heavy, and I faltered, not digging the eerie atmosphere. The black walls were lined with wall hangings of different tarot card characters, which seemed to be smirking at anyone dumb enough to buy their bogus predictions. Mark glanced over his shoulder at me with an unspoken challenge, leaving me no choice but to follow him to the counter.

  The girl behind the counter looked up, her expression one of boredom. I recognized her immediately and stopped in my tracks, my mouth gaping open.

  Shannon McKesson?

  Whoa! Shannon was the epitome of popularity. She was pretty in that girl-next-door type of way. Her blond hair bounced on her shoulders like girls’ did in television commercials. Her eyes were bluer than my mother’s, and she had that mature persona most teenagers would die for. I had been watching her all these years, unable to take my eyes off her whenever she drove her yellow Beetle into the school parking lot or walked through the campus with the sure kind of grace only confident people possessed.

  Darryl shifted next to me and pushed my chin up, closing my mouth. I coughed, realizing I’d already made my first blunder of the night. And it didn’t even have anything to do with my tics.

  “Hi, Shannon. We’re here for a tarot reading. I called earlier to make an appointment,”
Mark said, sounding like a real tarot junkie.

  “Oh, yeah. Larry, Curly, and Moe.” She hopped off the barstool and checked off our names in the appointment book.

  Mark and Darryl quickly pointed at me. “He’s Curly!”

  Of all the things these bastards could do, they had to put me in the spotlight. They knew I hated the attention. I felt my face burning from embarrassment but decided to play along, shuffling my feet for maximum effect. What came next was a reward for my efforts. Shannon laughed, the sound a sweet mix of tolling bells.

  Darryl continued laughing, but Mark leaned forward on the counter, about to unleash his killer moves on Shannon.

  “Hey, gorgeous. How are you?” Mark said in his most effective man-voice.

  “Cut it out, Stanton,” Shannon answered with a roll of her eyes.

  It was obvious from Shannon’s reply that she was familiar with Mark. As much as I hated what I was feeling at that moment, I wanted to sock Mark and tell him to lay off. We all knew he was seeing Brittney, his flavor of the month.

  Shannon drew back the shimmery black divider that blocked the entrance to another room. She whispered something to someone before she looked at our group and waved at me.

  “Curly, you’re up first.” She held the curtain open for me while I made my way around the counter.

  “Thanks,” I muttered under my breath. In the brief moment when I walked past her, I caught the scent of jasmine and inhaled deep. My whole body hummed at her proximity, and I felt like I had woken after a long sleep.

  “Madame Elizabeth will take good care of you,” Shannon said in a mocking tone.

  She drew the curtain closed, and I found myself trapped with Madame Elizabeth for the next God-only-knew-how-long. I glanced at the woman sitting behind the round table in the center of the room that was covered with a velvet cloth. Atop sat a stack of harmless-looking cards.

  “Hello, young man.” She bowed her head in welcome. With an elaborate wave of her hand, she gestured to the chair opposite hers. “Have a seat.”

  I returned her greeting with a tight smile, and then, with great reluctance, sank into the chair. I had no idea what the heck this tarot and psychic crap was all about to begin with, except somehow predicting the future. Remaining silent, I rested my clammy palms on my thighs.