Havermouth, Present Time“Get up!” Aislen threw open the doors to the offices in which the witches were sleeping. “Get up! Get up! Get up! We need to do another circle, right now! Right, right this second!”“M,” Bianca groaned sitting up and dragging her hands over her face. “We’re done. You can’t keep waking us up. We need time to recharge, to restore after you drained us. We can’t possibly do another circle right now…”“I need…” Aislen pressed the heel of her hand to where her heart was racing crazily. Talen placed his hand on her shoulder, his thumb stroking in reassurance. “My mates are missing, B,” she said on the verge of tears. “I need to scry and find them.”“I’m sorry, M,” Bianca shook her head wearily. “The magic is like a fizzle. Not enough to light a candle, let alone something like we did before.”“Perhaps I can help,” Sigrid said from behind Talen. Aislen whirled to face the female vampire, Talen’s first child. “Come,” Sigrid held out her hand to Aislen. “Let’s go somewh
Havermouth, Present Time“In our history, there is a story of great queen, Inora,” Sparrow said softly. “It is said that she was a devoted mother, above all else, and loved her son, more than life itself. Inora began life as a slave, stolen from her people before she was old enough to remember their ways. She was raised amongst her captors, and when she became a beautiful young woman, a powerful lord chose her as his second wife.“However, Inora knew that she was destined for more, her son was destined for more. When the neighboring kingdom visited with word of a new god, one who was above all others, the True God and Only God, The One God, she knew that was what she had been born for – to bring the savior, the One God to the heathens of her adopted country. And so, she rose against her barbarian husband and sister-wife and prevailed, raising her son from second son to king.“But there was another, a pretender king, unblessed by the One God, who sought to dethrone her, and he had witc
Havermouth, Present TimeTalen watched as Leighton took Morgana’s hands and she drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes as Sigrid anointed her again with Samuel’s blood. Rhett’s fingers gripped his forearm, clenching tightly. “What the f-k is with the blood?” Talen’s dark-haired mate whispered as if afraid to disturb Aislen’s concentration.“I do not know,” Talen confessed. “I am intrigued as well.” He saw the flicker of white skirts from the corner of his eye and turned his head to look at the doorway where Leighton’s wife and daughter lingered, watching the proceedings with fascination, as they had watched everything that occurred within the warehouse since their arrival.He could imagine what it was like for them, rendered prisoners due to their hunger, and forced to live utterly isolated other than each other and Leighton, who kept a tight stranglehold on their movements at all times as was demonstrated by the wards that he had built around the warehouse, not quite trusting that t
Havermouth, Present Time As the room cleared around them Rhett pushed to his feet. “The gym, you said?” He asked Aislen as he returned to the bedroom and searched frantically amongst the table-top cluttered with belongings before kicking through the pile of discarded clothing that had been shoved into a corner, until something jangled. He traced it down, exclaiming his success as he found a set of keys. He returned to the workspace. Aislen still sat within the circle of salt, her blood-smeared eyes closed, and her expression scrunched as she concentrated. He hesitated, not wanting to leave her alone, but also unable to stay and wait whilst his mates were in trouble. She did not seem to know that he was there, deep in her magic, and he feared to cross the salt circle in case he did something that would harm her, finally trotting down the stairs and banging with the heel of his hands against the closed doors where he knew, from listening to the talk of his mates, that the witches were
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThaelen climbed the ladder to the guard point at the top of the gate, shading his eyes as he scanned the horizon, the wind dragging his hair and the beads that Sigrid had persuaded him to let her place in his beard rattling. The human blood slaves were making their way back towards the tents and stronghold for their midday meal, whilst the vampires continued their efforts building watch towers at high points of the topography.The fortifications changed the familiar landscape. There were pits being dug to slow the approach of an armed force of horse riders, and further afield, whole sections of the forest were being felled to provide the wood for all the building work. They replanted as they felled, but it would take decades for the trees to grow back.Thaelen mourned the changes, as necessary as they were, they further stripped away his childhood, his memories no longer matching what he saw. He had lost so much, he thought, he did not know if he
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThe sixty Lords and Ladies who had originally settled Concordia had done so after a series of tragic losses, choosing isolation from the rest of their species in exchange for safety, and deciding to blindly follow the vision of a Seer that had foretold that they would find their safe home on the other side of the mountain range that humans had long declared to be impassable.They had gathered their blood slaves and begun a convoy through the mountains, driving ahead of them goats and rugged mountain sheep, the passage of which cut a path for the vampires and humans to follow. So long had their convoy been that it was said that they had spanned the entire range, with the tail still at the starting point as the first goats made their way down onto the plains at the foot of the mountains in Concordia.The ancestors had no knowledge of the land that would greet them – efforts to explore had been thwarted by the rocky coast and the rough waters on the
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years Before“Well, they definitely know that we’re here somewhere, as they’re now looking for us,” Thaelen observed dryly as he watched as two scouts fought against the hold of his men, frantically seeking freedom as they were stripped of clothing. Their screams and pleas were muffled behind the gags that were tied so tightly around their heads that their lips were pulled back and their cheeks indented.The gags, and the tightness in which they were tied, were necessary. The shrieks of previous captives had almost led to Thaelen’s capture when they had drawn the attention of a group of traitor vampires searching the trees for Thaelen’s force.Thaelen kept his face controlled as the men were impaled and the stakes hoisted and set into the holes in the ground. It was a terrible way to die and was intended to be. Every day that the human force found new bodies in the forest killed in increasingly horrendous ways, the more soldiers deserted, fleeing back towards
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThe ornate armour of Thaelen’s ancestors creaked and clanked, the extra weight on his body making each footstep heavy on the ground, but its appearance was a visual reminder of his heritage as Thaelen fronted the approach of his army to the war camp of Lord Kellen, Aeri and Nothran, the vampire soldiers leaving their tasks to line up behind the three Lords as they moved to greet him.“This is close enough, my king,” Hod murmured.“Hmm,” Thaelen took three more steps. “My advisor, Lord Hod, would recommend me to stop,” he called out to the Lords. “This is an era where friends and family ally with the enemy and slip poison into the welcome drink, so his advice is sound and I should consider every vampire Lord in Concordia a potential enemy, however, I like to believe that you find the actions of Inora and Yeric just as detestable as I do, and that you are here to assist me in bathing Gyrd’s fields in human blood, and seeking justice from the traito