Chapter OneMarcel’s POV “Open your eyes and watch, boy.” My father snarls through gritted teeth and spittle flies from his taught lips into my face. He roughly grabs the loosely tied pony tail at the back of my head and wrenches my head back, which forces me to look up and watch the carnage unfolding in front of my eyes. My jaw tightens in frustration but I bite my tongue. I hate that he calls me ‘boy’. I haven’t been a boy for over a century, but he still looks down on me as if I am dirt beneath his boot and nothing more than a juvenile inconvenience. “This... is what we are. This... is what they made us. You can not fight nature son.” He shakes my head, pulling my hair out at its roots, as he aggressively makes his point.He is not wrong about not being able to fight nature, however, we are anything but natural. He continues his speech, the same one I have heard almost daily for decades. “They call us demon, devil, night walker, shadow reaper, but we would not be, were it not f

Evangeline’s POVIf you see the Blackledge Raiders, run!That is what we were taught when we were children and we were told the same thing every single day. If I wanted to go to the river to wash, my mother would stop me at the door and say, “Take a friend with you, and if you see the Blackledge Raiders...” I would finish the sentence for her. “Run. I know.”The same rules applied to fruit picking, walking in the woods, feeding the horses and pigs, hanging out the clean clothes to dry. Everywhere I went was in tandem, and I never had a minute to myself unless I woke up early enough to sneak out alone and unseen.I never really believed the raiders would come for us. Why would they? We were seven families living on the Blackledge boundaries, hardly worth their trouble or the distance they would have to ride to reach us. We had nothing of value, not really, and we caused no trouble.Oh, how wrong I was.The day they came, I was being punished as usual. My mother had caught me at the riv

Marcel’s POV I stand in silent contemplation for a moment and consider my options. The answers to every question I have asked could be right behind this door and honestly, now that I’m potentially stood on the precipice of finding what I have been searching for, I’m terrified. If these people are descended from Hikura, they could be the answer to everything, the key to the lock I have been unable to open thus far. Well… they could have been had I found my voice and spoken out against my father. I know that not a single person survived this culling, Halen came here with the sole intent of wiping out the entire coven and that is precisely what happened. When it comes to witches my father becomes a whole different kind of beast and I get a glimpse of the pure evil that resides within his comparatively innocuous shell. As I reach out to push the heavy looking door open, it moves just a bit, as if of its own volition and my breath sticks in my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck stan

Imelda’s POVI have been waiting for this day ever since I woke up in the stone circle surrounded by the spirits of my old coven.They say time heals all wounds. Well, I’m here to say, that is total bullshit. It’s been a century, one hundred years, since my mother chose to end her life and pass her deathless gift to me. One hundred years, and I still have a hole in my heart where she used to fit.The thing that hurts the most is that it was her choice leave. I understand, though I find it hard to accept, but she could have told me. She could have given me time to prepare myself, to ask the questions I will now have to hold onto until we meet again. It feels like she left a conversation part way through, she just turned her back and walked away.In my typical fashion, I did not take the news of her passing well. Okay, maybe I’m polishing that a bit. I fell utterly and spectacularly apart. One night, when I couldn’t carry the burden of my grief any longer, I sat inside the circle of tow

Constance’s POVI watch from the window as my son’s tall, dark figure retreats into the thick mist. My heart is heavy with a potent mixture of grief and envy, I know he has felt like a prisoner here for almost as long as I have. I would give nearly anything to be running from this place right beside him. First there is something I must do, and when the deed is done, I too, will be free to begin living my life.It has been fifty-six long days since Marcel left. I am not losing my mind, not yet anyway. I know the figure I see in the mist is only a memory of the morning he left. It is the feeling of hope that this memory gives, that keeps me going when it feels like there is no point in waking up every morning. The hope that I too, will soon be free like Marcel.Evangeline creeps into the dining hall and the screeching sound of chair legs scraping along the polished wood floor sets my already tender nerves on edge. She is now my only comfort in this cold and lifeless castle, since Marcel