The Augment E-Book

Keyla Damaer

• Herausgeber: Keyla Damaer
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Blood ties, twisted bonds, and the truth too terrible to bear.

Ryma, an Augment with extraordinary powers, uncovers a startling revelation—she has a twin sister, Jessica. Haunted by memories of the horrors of her sister’s past, Ryma sets up in an adventure to find the man responsible for their separation and much more. Suspicion casts a dark shadow on her adoptive father, Adam Waters, and the mere thought of his involvement terrifies her.
In a world of secrets, loyalty, and deception, she must accept a painful truth that risks breaking her. Will the weight of these revelations shatter her sanity irreparably?

Find out now!

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Ryma

Guide

Contents

THE AUGMENT

by Keyla Damaer

https://keyladamaer.com

***

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or a used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. I really mean this. Totally not you.

All rights reserved. Any reproduction or unauthorised use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

I write in British English. Colour and leant aren’t typos. It’s the funny way Brits spell the words.

That said, even if several set of eyes looked for errors (aka horrors), and despite the great professional editing by Kerry Murphy, you may still find typos.

Some kind souls have reached out to me to warn me about them, and I promptly corrected them. You can do the same here: https://keyladamaer.com/report-an-error

Other kind souls who had an opinion about the story have left reviews. I thank them all and you for snatching a copy of this story. Feel free to leave a short, honest review.

This story is part of the Tales from the Sehnsucht Series.

Copyright © 2022 Keyla Damaer

www.keyladamaer.com

Ryma

The Augment

PART ONE

Manderian year 2470

The evening breeze caught Ryma’s dark hair. Long locks whipped around her face like a snake’s tongue. The view from the window overlooked the park of the royal palace in the capital of the Shedirian Empire. She stared at the gloomy clouds chasing one another in the sky. Heavy with snow, they promised a tempest. Still, nothing compared to the turmoil inside her.

‘A twin sister—’ Ryma whispered and pressed hard on the tablet showing the DNA results, breaking the device. Splinters of glass cut through her hand, drawing blood.

Shedirian Empress Jessica Bowen caressed the wounded hand. ‘You’re bleeding.’ Her voice trembled.

Ryma glanced at her recently found twin, forgetting about the pain. Jessica’s golden hair was French braided and wrapped into an elegant low bun. A simple strapless gown of pale-grey embroidered silk, adequate for her position, adorned her. A pair of long elbow gloves completed the ensemble. People often said pregnant women had a distinct glow. Jessica was radiant, despite her huge belly. Her firstborn Alexander was due within the month.

Ryma focused on her wound. The pain abated, leaving a warm sensation where there had been blood before. Not even a scar. True, she was an Augment like Jessica, but this twin idea made little sense. ‘My adoptive father, Adam Waters, never talked about a sister, let alone a twin.’ She studied Jessica’s expression to find any hint of lies in her body language. ‘He told me my biological mother died giving birth to me, and my father died before I was born.’

She recalled her childhood with Adam; the first time they went horse-riding, him teaching her how to ride a bicycle, even the time when he fed her broth, and she sneezed it all over his face and uniform.

She continued, ‘I have no reason not to believe him.’ She pushed Jessica’s hand away from her arm.

‘If you don’t believe my tests, you are free to repeat them. My blood is at your disposal,’ the Empress said.

‘Yes, I will, but first, I want you to tell me your story.’ Ryma projected her unspoken words into Jessica’s mind.

The other woman ambled to the posh chaise lounge and let herself sink into the fluffy cushions. ‘My first memories are of a Bureau 42 laboratory. The couple who claimed to be my parents said they worked there. They pretended to play games with me. The truth was, they were conducting experiments for as long as I can remember. The first painful one was the sensory deprivation tank. They said it would measure my telepathic abilities. It hurt so bad. Here, let me show you.’ Jessica arched her back, keeping one hand on her ready-to-explode belly.

For a moment, Ryma experienced senselessness in complete darkness. No sense of smell, taste, hearing, or touch, and without the ability to know which way was up or down. With a gasp, she closed her mind to the dreadful sensation.

‘I endured sixteen years of that crap, the last two with a man assisting my parents during the experiments and for the preparation phases.’

It was an interesting tale, but Ryma didn’t buy it. It didn’t match up to her memories. Or did it? Truth be told, part of her past was inaccessible to her. She’d always blamed it on her faulty powers: ‘You don’t play with DNA without a cost,’ the scientists of the Augments Division used to tell her.

‘Why didn’t you orb away?’

‘To go where? I had never been outside the lab. You know we need specific coordinates to transport us somewhere. I lived in a suffocating prison and didn’t even know where it was located.’

A wave of anxiety washed over Ryma, but it didn’t belong to her. Again, she narrowed the connection with Jessica.

‘Until I discovered why they always wanted me to wear gloves,’ the Empress continued.

Ryma’s gaze flickered to Jessica’s hands. So, there was a reason for wearing that formal piece of cloth during an unofficial meeting. It wasn’t simply out of vanity. ‘Why was that?’ she asked out loud.

‘I remember it as if it were yesterday. One day, I removed them. My parents didn’t notice, and when I touched them …’ Jessica trailed off and pressed her lips tight. Despite the mental shields Ryma had put in place, Jessica’s horror swamped her like a tsunami. The Empress’ memory unfolded in front of their eyes as if they were spectators of a drama in a theatre.

A teenage Jessica stood by a chair with cuffs protruding from the armrests and its front legs. Electrodes with tiny needles at their ends came out from the backrest. A man and a woman flanked her, holding her by the elbows. One gloveless hand touched the woman. ‘Let me go, Mum,’ Jessica pleaded. The woman released her grip on the teenager and shook her head as if to clear it. She took Jessica’s elbow again. ‘I said, sit down.’

‘Let me go.’ Jessica insisted, her right hand still in contact with the mother.

The woman released the girl again. Her eyes were dead, as if waiting for something.

A strange expression crossed Jessica’s face. She clutched the man’s arm.

‘Kill her,’ she ordered.

He drew closer to the woman, his hand grasping her throat.

The memory broke off. In the present, Jessica sat up with her eyes shut, her chest heaved from overexertion.

‘I killed my adoptive parents, my captors, my tormentors. They died because of me. I told him to kill her and, then I told him to kill himself,’ Jessica said through their mental link.

Why was her sister so troubled by her actions? Those people deserved to die after what they had done to her.

‘Is that when you escaped?’

‘Yes, but I had help. My parents’ assistant, Maqk, helped me escape. We ended up here where he had a trusted Shedirian contact.’

‘How could you trust him if he was their assistant?’

Jessica sighed. ‘I was in shock.’ Her eyes met Ryma’s, their minds linked again. The Empress’ feelings blew through Ryma’s mind like a hurricane.

‘I remember little. I know Maqk activated my inhibitor and took me here to Alpha Shedir. The first few months weren’t easy. I didn’t trust him. In time, I learnt he was on my side. I met the Emperor thanks to him. The rest is history.’

The link went silent, and Ryma felt a wave of vertigo. Several events in her life took another meaning. Her voice trembled when she spoke, ‘Did you ever find out who was behind the experiments?’

‘I remember a middle-aged man in a green uniform visited the lab from time to time. Blond hair and brown eyes. They called him “Boss”. That’s how he’s mentioned in every entry in the lab’s database.’

Jessica shared an image of the blond man. Tall with a diamond-shaped face, he had a subtle growth of blond stubble already showing.

Ryma exhaled. Her father Captain Adam Waters was the head of the Augments Division at Bureau 42, but he had brown hair and green eyes. He didn’t look like the Boss at all. Still, could he be behind all this? Slow and insidious, a shadow of doubt dug its way into her heart. Could Ryma trust this woman who claimed to be her long-lost twin? Her father had mentioned nothing about a sister. And yet … something told Ryma that Jessica was telling the truth.

‘I’ll need to verify your data,’ Ryma said.