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    Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels
    Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels
    Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels
    Ebook67 pages57 minutes

    Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels

    By Stephanie Barr

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    About this ebook

    Before the Bete and the other castaways crash landed on their new home across the universe, they fought different battles on the land of their birth. Meet Xander, Laren, Rem, K'Ti, Sinda El and Kindren Forn before they all bound themselves together in a fateful journey that would alter the course of their lives and and the lives of those they left behind.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephanie Barr
    Release dateJun 10, 2018
    ISBN9780463747940
    Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels
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    Author

    Stephanie Barr

    Although Stephanie Barr is a slave to three children and a slew of cats, she actually leads a double life as a part time novelist and full time rocket scientist. People everywhere have learned to watch out for fear of becoming part of her stories. Beware! You might be next!

    Read more from Stephanie Barr

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      Book preview

      Power Struggle and Other Stories from the Bete Novels - Stephanie Barr

      Power Struggle

      and Other Stories from the Bete Novels starting with Beast Within

      by Stephanie Barr

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2018 Stephanie Barr

      Discover other titles by Stephanie Barr

      Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing

      Tarot Queen

      Beast Within (First of the Bete Novels)

      Nine Lives (Second of the Bete Novels)

      Twice the Man (Third and final Bete Novel)

      Saving Tessa

      Musings of a Nascent Poet

      Curse of the Jenri

      Legacy

      Ideal Insurgent

      The Taming of Dracul Morsus

      Pussycats Galore

      Catalyst

      The Library at Castle Herriot

      Dedicated to Stephanie, Roxy and Alex, always.

      To Chuck, Mirren and many other beta readers, proof that good beta readers are worth their weight in gold but I'm too scatterbrained to keep track of who read each story.

      Power Struggle, Storm Front, and Gauntlet were first published in the anthology, Legacy.

      Cover Art by Stephanie Barr

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Power Struggle

      Storm Front

      Blood Moon

      Gauntlet

      About the Author

      Preview of Beast Within, the first of the Bete novels.

      Power Struggle.

      The scream of a body moving unfathomably fast brought everyone from their huts. No planes or ships flew this far over the wild. It could only be Drakken.

      Sure enough, the missile, wine-red, plummeted from the skies, wings folded over a body made to fly. At the last moment, the wings extended, long and so thin they were nearly translucent, but sturdy enough to slow his progress so that he landed rather than crashed in the village center on three of his four legs. There were scrapes along his shimmering scales, a few scales broken or scratched with sword or arrowhead, but nothing that a dragon like Drakken would notice.

      His snout was elongated and his body was sinuous, the wings delicate but functional, the body almost snake-like as if he were a head and a long, pointed tail with legs and wings. His eyes whirled green and were brightest when he was enraged, a fairly common occurrence, but they were profoundly bright now.

      In his slender talons, a child was clasped, gasping for breath and well stained with blood.

      Drakken, what have you done? the village archivist hissed, a trait he was prone to when he was close to losing his own temper. Where are the others? How many times have you been warned not to raid the human villages? Do you wish them to come and destroy us?

      You worry too much, Fryll! Drakken thought to him. Call the healer. I did not steal a human child but saved a Bete.

      You lie! Fryll retorted, but he was already checking the child for injuries and gestured his son, Cil, to find the healer. There hasn't been a spontaneous Bete born in the human villages for years, not one that's lived past infancy, what with the humans' hatred of any sign of deviation. Any who show the slightest touch of magic are killed as Bete, even if they don't change shape.

      Drakken transformed to his human form and stretched, cracking the bones in his neck. He was tall and golden-skinned with bright green eyes and long black hair. His mother hid his nature. They killed her, brutally and with torture. It was her death scents that led me there. Those bastards killed her while the kid listened, smelled it from outside where they chained him.

      Fryll's careful hands uncovered the child's wounds, most notably deep gouges from the chains that had been on him, neck, wrists, ankles, leaving his belly exposed for the wild creatures that roamed outside the human village, leaving him to die where even his other nature couldn't save him. Fryll turned and spat. Is he Prime?

      Aye, and strong, Drakken said, wrapping a robe someone handed around his slim person. He met and held Fryll's pale green eyes, reptile to reptile at that moment. Fang panther, magnificent and strong enough to pull his neck from the collar that bound him, though perhaps not without damage. He killed two direwolves with only his teeth before I sent them running and freed him.

      Strong Prime were, even now, at a premium, seemingly rarer with every generation since the Prime had no choice to but mate with humans. Dangerous enough when Bete

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