Dark Reign

by Rachel Jonas

  The Vampire’s Mark

  Book One: DARK REIGN

  a series written by

  Rachel Jonas

  The Vampire’s Mark: Dark Reign

  Copyright © 2018, Rachel Jonas

  Cover art courtesy of Najla Qamber of Najla Qamber Designs

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including, but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Rachel Jonas (R.C. Jonas).

  This e-book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Table of Contents

  THE VAMPIRE’S MARK 1: DARK REIGN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SOUNDTRACK

  SYNOPSIS

  THE VAMPIRE’S MARK 1: DARK REIGN

  Four blood-sucking princes. A beautiful anarchist. One dangerous mistake.

  To the vampires who dominate each quadrant of the Lydian Dynasty, I’m only known as “Blackbird”—a masked vigilante who, at nineteen, is already public enemy number one.

  To what’s left of humanity, I’ve been called a superhero, a title I neither welcome nor deserve. My only objective is to offer the enslaved what was stolen from us …

  Freedom.

  However, a failed plan lands me in the last place I imagined, at the mercy of all four Dynasty princes—Julian, Levi, Roman, and Silas. They’re monsters, each with a heart rumored to be as cold as their icy skin. And what’s worse, thanks to the slip-up, my fate is suddenly theirs to decide.

  It’s up to them whether I’ll swing from the gallows, and I’ve given them every reason to sentence me to such a fate. Yet, I felt something unexplainable when our paths first crossed.

  Something that gives me hope.

  We should be one another’s worst nightmare. Only, I’m beginning to wonder if, somehow … these four princes might be my saving grace.

  ***

  THE VAMPIRE’S MARK is an action-packed, paranormal romance involving vampire royalty and the humans who fear them. This series is an upper YA/NA crossover perfect for fans of Bella Forrest’s “A Shade of Vampire”, E.M. Knight’s “The Vampire’s Gift”, and Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses”.

  Love hotheaded dragons and ferocious wolf shifters?

  Then Rachel’s completed series,

  THE LOST ROYALS SAGA, is perfect for you!

  Start the series for only $0.99 or FREE with Kindle Unlimited.

  Thank you for your purchase! I would love to get your feedback once you’ve finished the book! Please leave a review and let others know what you thought of

  “The Vampire’s Mark: Dark Reign”.

  Come hang out in “The Shifter Lounge” on Facebook! We chat, recommend YA paranormal Romances, and engage in other random acts of nerdiness. Once we’re fully up and running, there will be tons of giveaways, exclusive ARC offers from me, and guest appearances by some of your favorite YA authors!

  For all feedback or inquiries:

  author.racheljonas@gmail.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nightfall

  “Mind your manners, mind your tongue,

  Fear the gallows, old and young.

  Heads will roll, souls will plead,

  For the Bylaws all must bleed.

  Mother’s love, nor steadfast will,

  Neither saves when night goes still.

  Run and hide, come what may,

  When the beasts come out to play.”

  A passage from ‘Red Prose: A Collection of Cautionary Children’s Folksongs’

  Origin: Postbellum North America

  Year of publication: Unknown

  Author: Unknown

  Status: Banned from publication and distribution

  ***

  Corina

  We all knew the Standard Forty verbatim, could recite them forward and back. However, as I put distance between myself and the orphanage I broke into tonight—and then out of—Felix couldn’t recall the three little numbers that stood between me and freedom, life and death.

  The gate code.

  “Today, Fe!” I screamed through the mouthpiece.

  My heart beat in constant vibration against my ribs. Glancing back, there were no flashlights, no footsteps other than mine rustling through the damp leaves. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that meant I wasn’t being stalked. It only meant the ones stalking me didn’t need lights or gadgets to hunt me down. Their eyesight and keen sense of smell were enough.

  “Nine-eight-something, Felix! Try nine-eight-two!”

  He hated when I yelled into the com, but his sensitive eardrums would recover. Meanwhile, the six-year-old girl who clung to my back probably wouldn’t if we were caught. My actions today etched our fate in stone.

  Hers.

  Mine.

  No, she hadn’t played a part in orchestrating this plan to break her free from a bleak, tortuous future, but she was a fugitive now nonetheless. From here, if we were caught, there would be only one outcome.

  Death by hanging, in the center of town.

  Yeah, of course the monarchs would consider it a wasted opportunity not to make an example of anyone who broke the rules. But when it came to me, a public hanging would have little to do with the implied warning to those considering rebellion. It would be about pride, about finally digging the thorn from their side, the one who evaded capture one too many times. Granted, my escapes were usually narrow at best, but that mattered little to them. In their eyes, every breath I took was an embarrassment, a mockery of this entire system built on a foundation of fear, greed and false loyalty.

  As hard as I tried not to, I envisioned my death often, typically when trying to keep a meal down or trying to get a few hours rest. With the work our team did, getting caught and eventually hanged seemed inevitable, but dwelling on that thought wasn’t exactly productive.

  Heaven knows I’d seen enough executions to imagine how mine would play out in the end. I’d be hauled to the heart of the Capitol while thousands gathered around the platform to watch. Millions more would tune in to witness the event by way of a special television broadcast, thanks to the name and infamy assigned to me by media whores.

  This quadrant of the Dynasty, and all the others, would feign an inkling of remorse for finding it ‘necessary’ that my young life should end so tragically. They would croon about how much easier I would have had it if I’d accepted the order of things, if I’d turned myself in, agreed to ensl
avement in a harvesting camp.

  … Over my dead body.

  They would also conveniently leave out the bit about their kind only outnumbering ours because evolution leaned in their favor. Not because their right to life was greater than our own.

  But I digress.

  It was expressed often how they longed to see my shadow cast in the dirt one final time, as my body swung at dusk like everyone else they couldn’t control. There were blog articles as well as pieces in professional publications that backed up this claim. It wasn’t lost on me that my continued existence was a blight on their perfect record of cruelty and swift punishment, but I couldn’t focus on that. My team had one rule: live another day to complete another mission.

  The stream of frantic breaths exhaled into my ear reminded me to focus, reminded me what was at stake. The kid was light on my back, and not just because she was only six. She, like all the others, was only rationed enough food to be kept alive and to complete a day’s work.

  No more. No less.

  I could only imagine how scared she was to lay eyes on me when I awakened her, taking in the sight of my dark mask and clothing, confused after being snatched from her bed and whisked out through a broken window. There’d been no time for an explanation. We’d worry about that when—no, if—we made it to safety.

  Her small hands cinched my throat when she slipped down a few inches. It was my fault for not giving fair warning when I stooped awkwardly beneath a low-hanging branch. Air sputtered back into my lungs with a cough as I hiked her into place again using a handful of her stark-white nightgown as leverage. Her legs locked around my waist and I prayed she had a good grip this time, because we couldn’t stop.

  If she fell, if she let go ...

  Let’s just say turning back was against the rules. These journeys moved fast and only in one direction.

  Forward.

  “How’s that code coming, Fe?”

  “Still trying combinations.” His voice quivered through the com, which meant we were both on edge.

  The soft breaths of my transport turned into quiet sobs. Wetness transferred from her cheek to mine as she clung tighter, maybe for security or comfort, but that had never been my role. I wasn’t the comforter; the acclimation process was Liv and Banks’ job. I was the runner, the one who went into the field to retrieve ‘packages’.

  That’s what we called them during this phase—packages. Regarding them as people before making it back, clear of danger, was always a mistake. So, at base camp, there was a rule: no names. Knowing names made them real, made them … someone. The only one forced to bear such a burden was Jonesy, because mining the lists for viable candidates was his job. The rest of us chose to act blindly, only memorizing their Harvest Initiative Numbers or HINs—the unique identifiers assigned to those born in camps.

  However, as an innocent question was whispered into my ear, I didn’t have much choice but to venture into uncharted territory.

  “Are we gonna die?”

  The words, the fear and concern behind them, made it hard to focus. Mostly because that was the one question I could never answer until we made it to our destination. These missions were always terrifying—for me, for the transport—but it was always my hope that they’d get it one day. That they’d wake up with the freedom to choose where and how they got to live their lives, and they’d deem this horrific experience as having been worth it.

  “Just hold on to me,” was the only solace I could offer without feeding her false hope.

  She settled just a bit and I was able to focus again.

  I scanned the edge of the property, able to gage the distance between us and the gate. That meant we were too close, moving toward a sealed exit with nowhere else to go. Another obstacle, another factor working against us.

  A shimmer of light glinting over dark metal made my heart stop cold. It was faint, and I hadn’t ruled out that I imagined it, but then I saw another and knew it was real. That glint was moonlight and it meant the gate was moving.

  Finally.

  “Felix, I take back all the horrible, horrible things I said about you,” I panted, allowing a smile to break free. That smile lingered there for nearly an entire five seconds.

  Until I heard it, a bloodcurdling howl that pierced the air.

  It was the sound of a hungry pack being released to chase us down. It was also the first sign that the resident huntsman had been notified that the package, HIN-016565, had gone missing.

  A surge of adrenaline kicked my senses into overdrive, prompting me to run like I’d never run before. The smell of wet moss and musky soil lingered in my nostrils as I inhaled, exhaling through my mouth. My lungs burned with each surge, throbbing as they filled to capacity and then emptied, but I couldn’t stop. Not yet. The release of vicious canines with a taste for human blood was enough to keep my feet moving. Especially at the realization that they were gaining speed.

  Fast.

  I had a visual on them now—six or more freakishly large bodies moving between silhouetted trees on all fours like trained assassins. I suppose, in many ways, that’s exactly what they were—canines infected with a strain of the same ‘vaccine’ that turned the human world on its head. Only now, these dogs were trained killers set to tear out the throats of anyone the huntsmen instructed them to pursue.

  “Close the gate! I’ll make it!” I yelled, belting the command with zero fear of being heard. It didn’t matter at this point because we were no longer hiding, no longer flying under the radar. The chance to slip out like thieves in the night was off the table. With our cover blown, the only thing that mattered was survival.

  We were running for our lives.

  “Enter the code!” My voice trembled, staring ahead as the mechanical gate continued to open with an audible whir. Felix defied me and I didn’t question for even a second if it was intentional. It was.

  As usual, he thought he knew best. If I had to guess what he was thinking, he felt it was too soon to close it, thought I wouldn’t have enough time to slip through before it sealed again. However, what he didn’t know, what he didn’t see, was that fast-moving, hungry beasts were now flanking us.

  “Is that barking?” he finally chimed in.

  “Hellhounds,” I panted, only able to huff the nickname humans had coined for the huntsmen’s packs centuries ago. “We’re almost there and we’ll make it,” I assured him, “but you have to start reversing the gate now. Otherwise, they’ll slip through with us.”

  What I didn’t say next was that I was running out of steam, sensing a familiar haze closing in on me. I hadn’t seized in a little over a month, so I was long overdue. Unfortunately, I feared that time was now, while I was in possibly the worst scenario ever, while someone other than myself depended on my ability to keep it together.

  The nifty bracelet Felix fashioned from a smelted curtain rod he repurposed, and tech I didn’t even begin to understand, made episodes fewer and further between. However, we still hadn’t figured out a way to eliminate them for me completely. There was no option other than the unthinkable, something I would never consider.

  Even before the mission, I was feeling under the weather, but alerting the team would have only made someone else feel obligated to make this trek in my place. The problem with that, there wasn’t another as quick or who could improvise on the fly like I could. We all had our parts to play, and extraction was mine.

  “You’re too far away,” Felix panicked. “If I close it now, you’ll never make it.”

  He always kept eyes on me from his monitor, following the small, yellow triangle that represented my position on the map. It had been carefully plotted and uploaded to our system weeks ahead of time.

  “Now, Fe! You can’t wait! There’s no time!” I was sure he could tell by my labored breathing that things were getting tense, but he still wouldn’t cooperate.

  I imagined Liv, our spritely stats geek, lurking over his shoulder, urging him to give it ‘just one more second’. Per her ca
lculations, the likelihood of me making it through was probably slim to none, but it was the only way. If they didn’t initiate now, the hounds would be right behind me and I’d be done for anyway.

  A pair of small, sweat-dampened palms squeezed the front of my neck again. There was no time to coddle her like a kid her age should have been when staring death in the eyes. But then again, she probably wasn’t used to being treated that way at all—held, soothed. If she was like most orphans, being nurtured or shown affection was not part of her upbringing whatsoever.

  The soles of my shoes pressed deep into the soft earth. A heavy downpour around midnight made for less than ideal conditions, but once a mission was in place, there were too many moving pieces to make changes. My team had gotten used to making the best out of the worst circumstances.

  A shiver raced down my spine as I watched the wrought iron gate I raced toward shudder to a stop, and then slowly—so, so slowly—begin to close. It was still too soon to breathe a sigh of relief, but at least I’d convinced my team to listen.

  I pushed myself, harder than I should have, and it was still barely enough. The sound of torn threads accompanied a tug to my sleeve. I’d caught a sharp edge when I passed through the gate. It sucked because I really liked that jacket, but a small tear was better than what I first assumed—that one of the hellhounds had caught me just as I bypassed the first obstacle on this journey toward freedom.

  “Which way?” I called out through the com.

  It was then, while I waited for Felix’s reply, that I glanced back. It was just in time to see a set of glowing, red eyes trained on me. A large body followed, passing through the sliver of space just before the gate hinged.

  I faced ahead again, puffing air from my nostrils. My thoughts focused and I was no longer waiting on that reply. I was on my own now.

  “Uh … there should be a small shed coming up in about an eighth of a mile. Hang left when you get there. Stay on a straight path. That should lead you back to the main road. Alex and O.C. are already waiting in the van.”