A House Of Night Novels & Stories

Bertha Mason had been a woman with no options, no voice, no path to freedom except through destruction. My body swayed as I staggered back to the bed, collapsing onto the thin, damp mattress. The ceiling spun above me, water stains twisting into grotesque shapes that seemed to watch me with hollow eyes. I closed my own eyes, preferring the darkness to those accusing stares. Sleep came in fragments, disjointed and shallow. Each time I drifted off, I was jolted awake by the house shifting above me—the creaks and groans of the old mansion stretching its bones. My heart began to synchronize with these sounds, as if the house and I were becoming one organism.

She had already sprinted past the turnoff for her apartment building; leading these unknown killers to her safe house would be suicide. She needed to lose them in the dark, because if she failed to break their line of sight, she would likely end up as a corpse on an autopsy table by morning. The path ahead was pitch black, unlit by any city infrastructure, but her enhanced night vision handled the darkness without issue. Fortunately, she knew these back alleys like the back of her hand. Reaching the absolute end of the concrete maze, the narrow path finally opened up into the wide, brightly lit expanse of the multi-lane highway.

They border on the territory of one of the vampire kingdoms, Sardonia. The Nightstone family’s home is a large three-story house half-covered in ivy. The turrets and the seven-story tower attached to the house must be for defensive purposes. It looks like a fortress. My father tried to attack this pack for their territory over ten years ago, and I can see why he failed.