Title: Regna Born

Series: The Regna Sagas, Book One

Author: Erick Holmberg

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 08/06/2024

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 86100

Genre: Fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, literature/general fiction, M/M, slow burn, murder mystery, magic, super powers, super humans, psychic abilities, culture war, action adventure, pets

"Beneath the veneer of everyday life, a clandestine world thrives in the shadows, filled with powerful telepaths who call themselves adepts. These superbeings have guarded their secrets for millennia, but when a brilliant scientist, Joe Martin, maps and prepares to publish their genome in a famous medical journal, the adepts realize they can’t hide forever and further exposure to the human world threatens their existence.

Gabriel Kelly has his life turned upside down when someone murders Joe, his ex, and the race to find the genetic map begins. Gabriel, an average adept, enlists the help of his best friend Sellers, who has his own secrets, in exposing the killer and securing the map.

Gabriel finds himself caught between the human cops who think he killed Joe and don’t know about the map, and rival adepts who don’t care who killed Joe but want the map for their own ends. Will Gabriel be the key to preserving the secrecy of adept society, or will the revelation of their existence alter the course of history forever?"
Excerpt

Regna Born
Erick Holmberg © 2024
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

adept / ˈæd.ɛpt/, /əˈdɛpt/

noun

The colloquial name of the human subspecies Homo sapiens psychica, born with enhanced senses, strength, and varying degrees of telepathy and telekinesis.
—National Intelligence Strategy White Paper: Top Secret (TS): Release of this document will cause severe damage to the security of the United States—Adept Assets

The rich green jungle could be the Garden of Eden. Too bad it’s just as full of snakes.

The journey was an endless cascade of rickety bridges and muddy craters, making travel in Myanmar dangerous, especially in remote areas. And this is the most remote of the remote areas.

Armies of mosquitoes cluster in clouds so thick they absorb the sunshine like miniature black holes. They stalk Gabriel in synchronized precision yet ignore the miners because the smorgasbord his unique blood presents is too enticing. A symphony of exotic birds and mournful crickets serenade predators and prey alike.

Which one is he?

He blocks the relentless sun with his hand and grins, recalling a quote from Rudyard Kipling: Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. His Londoner father would be a shocking lobster color by now.

Gabriel’s sense of smell, enhanced by the wolf bond, struggles to decipher the onslaught of sensations in the heart of the jungle. Rich chocolate from the wild orchids and the subtle honey of cherry blossoms suffuse the thick, humid air. The scent of metal and oil from the jaws of the mine conspire to wipe this sweet fragrance from the face of the earth.

As he draws nearer, the clamor of machinery drowns out the jungle’s orchestra. The air pressure drops, and the siren song of gemstones laden with ley energy rushes to Gabriel’s head. The tug grows stronger, threatening to pull him into the ground. He closes his mind because he can’t risk getting ley drunk. Finally, he emerges into a stadium-sized pit of ravaged earth.

A guard carrying an ancient rifle and a scowl stands under a crooked sign written in English. “Welcome to Ruby Land,” it proclaims in blood-red letters set against a white background. The mine is new, but the sign’s battered lettering silently flakes away.

Tall and taciturn, the foreman’s question-mark posture proves he lives in a world not made for the different. Eyes that refuse to meet Gabriel’s dart about looking for a safe harbor but find none.

“They’ll meet you at the shrine.” The foreman jerks his head to the north. “This way.”

He grunts past the guard and leads them down a narrow, rocky path. They walk in silence, broken only by Gabriel’s dog, Zuko, sneezing from the dust kicked up in the foreman’s wake. Zuko’s massive paws carry his lean one hundred pounds silently behind Gabriel, his snow-white coat oddly untouched by the dust and mud. Despite his size, Zuko’s floppy ears and Snoopy-like face put everyone at ease. But if he were to bare all the gleaming white teeth Gabriel dutifully brushes each day, no one would be at ease.

Gabriel wipes sweat away from his eyes and takes in his surroundings. “Has anyone else been here?”

“No,” comes the quick reply. “You’re the first.”

Gabriel smiles when he detects no lie in the foreman’s answer.

Flowers cover the Buddhist shrine where he’ll meet the latest warlord laying claim to this profitable hole in the earth. He’s led to an open vestibule with a bird’s-eye view of the vast countryside. If they have a bird’s-eye view of the countryside, who has a bird’s-eye view of them?

“Wait here,” the foreman says. “It won’t be long.”

The distant rumble of a convoy snaps the foreman’s head to attention. He reaches for his gun, and beads of sweat break out on his forehead. For a long moment, his ragged breathing joins the rhapsodizing birds and crickets.

“It’s them,” Gabriel says, smashing a mosquito against his forearm. Without a word of goodbye, the foreman turns and scurries away.

Deep in the outback, Gabriel expects a ragtag group fighting for independence, but a high-tech armada of bulletproof glass and modern weaponry barrels into view. They drive and park in that careless way that says they drive and park however they please. Like cops, and a shiver runs up his spine. In the middle of the caravan, the doors of a black four-door SUV open in synchronized precision, and the occupants, dressed all in black, march toward him with ramrod-straight posture.

Two men and one woman carry Kalashnikov rifles in the low-ready position and surround an older man in a protective cocoon. Behind them, two men carry a large wooden trunk. Their stance indicates a threat, so Gabriel sweeps the area. This highly trained squadron can’t be mercenaries because they radiate military precision. Their conspicuous lack of uniforms means that whatever happens here will vanish without a trace.

When the man in the center enters the shrine, he makes eye contact with a slight tilt of his head. He’s wiry and vascular in a way only triathletes and career military are. His gray hair is cut regulation short, and his teeth are shark white.

Gabriel wishes he didn’t sweat so easily. He gingerly perches on the small wooden chair the leader offers him. Given his size, it feels as if he’s stolen it from a six-year-old. Please, don’t let the fragile thing collapse. A rickety table adorned with a single bright yellow flower sits in the center.

The leader sits opposite him, reminding Gabriel of a king on a throne. At his nod, two of the soldiers open the trunk, revealing the freshly unearthed rubies Gabriel’s crossed the world to buy. Their jagged red edges tell the story of a violent ejection from the earth. Gabriel feels the urge to whisper them an apology.

“May I see one?” Gabriel’s Burmese is tinged with a British accent. He wants to throw them off their game, which appears to work when the four exchange furtive glances. He opens his mind to one of the soldiers and touches the language skills part of his brain. As long as Gabriel is within close proximity of the man, he’ll be able to speak Burmese.

The leader smiles. “Do you have the money?”

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Erick grew up in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, where it was impossible to find fantasy novels with diverse characters and points of view. Erick lives in Boston with his husband and their dog, a giant Bernadoodle named Niko, and writes the books he always wanted to read and the lyrics he always wanted to hear. When he’s not writing, walking the dog, or making pasta, Erick is a vice president at an asset management firm.

Regna Born is Erick’s debut novel with NineStar Publishing.

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