by Anya Bast
Danu The primary goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, both Seelie and Unseelie. Also followed by some other fae races. Danu is accompanied by a small pantheon of lesser gods.
Furious Host Those who follow the Lord of the Wild Hunt every night to collect the souls of the fae who have died and help to ferry them to the Netherworld.
Goblin Town The area of Piefferburg City where the goblins, a fae race with customs that differ greatly from the other types of fae, live.
Great Sweep When the Phaendir, allied with the human race, hunted down, trapped, and imprisoned all known fae and contained them in Piefferburg.
Humans for the Continued Incarceration of the Fae (HCIF) An organization of humans working with the Phaendir to ensure the fae are never given freedom.
Humans for the Freedom of the Fae (HFF) An organization of humans working for equal fae rights and the destruction of Piefferburg.
iron sickness The illness that occurs when charmed iron is pressed against the flesh of a fae for an extended period of time, eventually fatal.
Joining Vows Ancient, magick-laced vows that twine two souls together. Not often used in modern fae society because of the commitment involved.
Labrai The god the Phaendir follow.
Netherworld Where the fae go after they die.
Old Maejian The original tongue of the fae. It’s a dead language to all except those who are serious about practicing magick.
Orna The primary goddess of the goblins. Accompanied by many lesser gods.
Phaendir (“Fane-dear”) A race of druids whose origins remain murky. The common belief of the fae is that their own genetic line sprang from the Phaendir. The Phaendir believe they’ve always been a separate—superior—race. Once allied with the fae, the Phaendir are now their mortal enemies.
Piefferburg (“Fife-er-berg”) Square Large cobblestone square with a statue of Jules Piefferburg in the center and the Rose and Black Towers on either end.
Piefferburg, Jules Original human architect of Piefferburg. The statue honoring him in Piefferburg Square is made of charmed iron and can’t be taken down, so the fae constantly dishonor it in other ways, like dressing it up disrespectfully or throwing food at it.
Rose Tower Made of rose quartz, this building sits at one end of Piefferburg Square and houses the Seelie Court.
Seelie (“Seal-ee”) A highly selective fae ruling class, the Seelie allow only the Tuatha Dé Danann sídhe into their ranks. Members must have a direct bloodline to the original ruling Seelie of ancient Ireland and their magick must be light and pretty.
Shadow Amulet The one who wears the amulet holds the Shadow Throne, though the amulet might reject someone without the proper bloodline. It sinks into the wearer’s body, imbuing him or her with power and immortality, leaving only a tattoo on the skin to mark its physical presence.
Shadow Royal Holder of the Unseelie Throne.
Sídhe (“Shee”) Another name for the Tuatha Dé Danann (Irish) fae, both Seelie and Unseelie.
Summer Ring Like the Shadow Amulet of the Unseelie Royal, this piece of jewelry imbues the wearer with great power and immortality. It also sinks into the skin, leaving only a tattoo, and may reject the wearer at will. This ring determines who holds the Seelie Throne.
Summer Royal Holder of the Seelie Throne.
trooping fae Also called the troop, those fae who are not a part of either court and are not wilding or water fae.
Tuatha Dé Danann (“Thoo-a-haw Day Dah-nawn”) The most ancient of all races on earth, the fae. They were evolved and sophisticated when humans still lived in caves. Came to Ireland in the ancient times and overthrew the native people. The Seelie Tuatha Dé ruled the other fae races. When the Milesians (a tribe of humans in ancient Ireland) allied with the Phaendir and defeated the fae, the fae had to agree to go underground. They disappeared from all human knowledge, becoming myth.
Twyleth Teg (“Till-eg Tay”) Welsh faeries. They’re rare and live across the social spectrum.
Unseelie (“UN-seal-ee”) A fae ruling class, the Unseelie will take anyone who comes to them with dark magick, but the true definition of an Unseelie fae is one whose magick can draw blood or kill.
water fae Those fae who live in the large water areas of Piefferburg. They stay out of the city of Piefferburg and out of court politics and life.
Watt Syndrome Illness that befell all the fae races during the height of the race wars. The sickness decimated the fae population, outed them to the humans, and ultimately caused their downfall, weakening them to the point that the Phaendir could gather and trap them in Piefferburg. Some think the syndrome was biological warfare perpetrated by the Phaendir.
Wild Hunt Comprising mystic horses and hounds and a small group of fae known as the Furious Host, led by the Lord of the Wild Hunt, the hunt gathers the souls of all the fae who have died every night and ferries them to the Netherworld. The identities of the Unseelie fae who make up the Wild Hunt are kept secret.
wilding fae Nature fae. Like the water fae, they stay away from Piefferburg proper, choosing to live in the Boundary Lands.
Worshipful Observers Steadfast human supporters of the work the Phaendir does to keep the fae races separate from the rest of the world.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at
the first book in the new
Brotherhood of the Damned series
from Anya Bast
EMBRACE OF THE DAMNED
Coming May 2012 from Berkley Sensation!
1012 AD, NORWAY
OTHER people’s blood seeped into Broder’s wounds, making every slash and scratch on his body burn.
He was alive. He’d survived.
His muscles were weak from disuse, but the drive to live—the drive for revenge—had made him deadly for the time he’d needed to wreak this carnage. Now that it was over, the will to kill leaked slowly from him, not unlike the last decade of his life.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. The moment he’d stepped foot in this enclave, his life had been worth nothing. Before then, even…
Ignoring the fiery pain of his injuries, his chest heaving and his eyes wild, Broder turned in a circle, a sharp sword clenched in one sticky hand, an ax in the other, and surveyed the bodies around him. The sight gave him no pleasure, no peace, but he didn’t regret any of it. He’d do it again if given the chance, even though the act itself was more blur than memory.
He’d delivered retribution.
He barely remembered it. He’d heard tales of men caught up in battle carnage, wild with bloodlust, unknowing of the deeds they committed. Man, woman, child, it mattered not to them, all fell beneath the crazed warrior’s blade. That’s how he’d spent the last five minutes…had it been ten? Or had it been an hour? He wasn’t sure. Images flashed through his head—blood, bone, flesh—the sharp, silver edge of his blade rendering it all into so much meat.
Movement caught his eye. He turned, ready to launch into another attack, and caught the sight of a decapitated body sliding slowly from an ornate gold and green chair to the floor, making a lifeless heap. He relaxed.
It was over. Soon, he, too, would be over.
Blinking barely focused eyes, he lowered his sword and lifted his head, stretching muscles of his body that had long gone unused. He limped to a nearby chair and sat. He needed to leave this place because he didn’t want to die here and he didn’t have much time, but now that the insane rage which had animated his half-dead body had ebbed, he could barely move. His nose twitched, stinging from the stench of unwashed body and death.
Slumping against a heap of silken pillows, his blood staining them dark brown, he closed his eyes. Just for a moment. His hands still gripped his weapons, as though secured there for eternity. One wound burned brighter and hotter than the rest. He looked down at his side and examined the crescent-shaped slash.
He wouldn’t survive it.
Every movement made the congealing blood covering him—his own and other men’s—crack like dried mud. The
images of what he’d done crowded his mind. It made him sick, but he didn’t want to take it back. He looked around, his lip curling with hatred. If anything, he wanted more.
“Broder Calderson!” His name echoed through the quiet chamber.
In spite of his wounds, Broder leapt to his feet, turned toward the voice, and reflexively threw the ax in his right hand. The man who stood at the entrance of the chamber didn’t move, didn’t even blink as the weapon circled through the air, swooping end over end lazily, as if time had slowed it, the blade headed straight for his forehead.
The ax passed through the man as though he were made of mist.
The man—tall, slender, black hair slicked back from his angular, handsome face—smiled. He swished his forefinger back and forth, grinning. “No, no, Broder. Bad boy.”
Broder frowned at the unfamiliar language and accent, and backed up, the sword dropping from his hand and clattering to the marble floor. The man wore outlandish clothing, he now noticed.
He looked him up and down. He wore no tunic and his trousers were more than passing strange. There was an odd, sharp cut to his clothing and his shoes were too shiny. Some sort of extra long bit of material that served no purpose hung from his neck. He’d never seen the like of such clothing—or fabric—in all his life. A black swath of some hard material Broder couldn’t identify balanced on the man’s nose and wrapped around the upper part of his face, concealing his eyes.
“What are you?” Broder asked in a voice that hadn’t been used in a very long time. It came out broken and rough.
“Not what, who. You don’t recognize me? I am Loki.” The man walked toward him, unusual shoes crunching broken pottery, treading through pools of blood. His strange, shiny shoes never seemed to be affected. His voice held a strong note of derision. “Surely you must know who I am. I am known for the tricks that I play, and I have played many of them.” His voice went serious. “But I am not playing now.”
Of course he knew Loki. Broder felt the blood drain from his face. He’d just tried to kill a god. “Am I dead, then?”
Loki laughed. “Not hardly. Not yet, anyway.” He removed the odd black thing covering the upper part of his face and his cold blue eyes skirted Broder’s body, taking in the parts of him covered with Broder’s own blood. “You won’t be dead for a very, very long time. If ever.”
Broder struggled to make sense out of those words. It was clear to Loki and to himself that he’d be dead in a few hours. It had only been a need for revenge that had kept his body full of life up until now. He’d had his revenge; now it was time to join his loved ones. He welcomed it.
Loki took a step forward, his polished shoe crunching on the remains of an invaluable piece of pottery. “You’ve had a more than a little fun here, I think. Are you thirsty?” He gestured to a half-broken pitcher on a nearby table, sitting in a pool of the blood he’d shed. “Need libation, perhaps?”
“It wasn’t…fun.” Broder frowned, trying to translate the odd manner of his speech. “I had reason for this violence.”
“You offend the gods, you ungrateful barbarian!” Loki’s voice boomed from him, echoed into the reaches of Broder’s head, made the blood leak from his ears. Broder swiped at it and stared at the coating on his fingers. “You’ll not avoid reprimand!”
Broder staggered backward, his head and side pounding out an intense rhythm of pain.
“You must be punished for this. You know that, don’t you, Broder?”
Punished? He’d just spent the last ten years of his life in torment. And before that…hadn’t he had enough torment?
“Wah, wah, wah,” Loki sneered. “Don’t think I can’t read your thoughts. If you offend the gods, you suffer for it.” He pointed at him. “And, you sir, have offended most heartily.”
Broder winced, pain flaring through the wound in his side. He just wanted to die. He wanted to collapse to the floor, close his eyes and never wake up. However he had a very bad suspicion his wish would not be granted. There were punishments worse than death. Anyone who believed in the gods knew that much and this was Loki, the most deceitful of all the gods.
Loki held up a hand. In his palm a small blue light sputtered to life and formed the shape of a sword, then narrowed to a sharp, pointed sliver than looked like a narrow spear.
Broder tensed. Surely that supernatural weapon was meant for him.
“I’m impressed you don’t run,” said Loki. “Most of them do.”
He threw the blue sliver at Broder. Even though he moved to avoid it, the sliver found his chest, burying deep like the thinnest dagger made of pure ice. It pierced his heart, spreading agony to every part of him. Freezing and burning in equal turns, it dropped Broder to his knees, snapping his head back, arching his spine. A bellow of torment ripped from his throat.
The sliver formed a cold hollow of nothing in the center of his chest, shearing away all the flickers of humanity he’d managed to hold on to during the last decade. Soon nothing remained.
And nothing truly meant nothing—no warmth, no love…but no fear or anger, either. He breathed into it, relaxing completely for the first time in years. Yet at nearly the same moment the pain ebbed, something else rushed in to fill up the peaceful emptiness. Something foreign. Something that didn’t belong there.
Something from Loki.
In the center of his soul a mark of despair burned. He knew without being told that he was Loki’s—his possession—and that could not be a good thing. He’d traded one Hel for another.
Broder pried his gummy, blood-crusted eyes open and saw that he’d fallen on his hands and knees to the floor, shards of pottery cutting into his shins and palms. Grunting with effort, holding one arm to his chest as though he could compel the icy sliver and Loki’s mark out of him, he forced himself to look up into the grinning, gloating face of the god.
“You are hereby punished for your crimes, Broder Calderson. Eternally.”
Broder had no doubt of this, but he could barely rouse himself to care.
“Don’t be disheartened,” Loki continued. “I am not an evil god with no sense of the human heart. Exactly one thousand years from now, if you have been a worthy warrior you will have a woman. Not just any woman, the woman of your every desire.”
And then Broder truly knew he was damned.
ONE THOUSAND YEARS LATER…TO THE DAY
JESSAMINE’S boots clicked on the pavement of the parking ramp, echoing through the empty structure. It was late and she was alone. If she’d had any other choice, she would have been home and in bed right now with a good book, rather than walking through this creepy parking garage with every bad movie cliché about such places riffing through her already freaked out mind.
Her totebag, stuffed with all her paperwork, rested over one shoulder. Her hand was secured in her pocket, pepper spray unlocked and at the ready. She didn’t take any chances. Not these days. Life had suddenly grown too unpredictable for that.
Her hands still trembled from what she’d just done. She wasn’t certain she could ever do it again. How she’d managed to do it all still eluded her. She hadn’t received any concrete answers from the risk she’d taken tonight, but sometimes lack of information was meaningful, too.
And, wow, she’d taken a huge risk.
Now all she wanted was to get home, sort through the confusing results of the evening and figure out what to do next.
As she rounded one of the thick concrete walls, a man stepped out from near the elevators. Jessa hesitated, watching him carefully, her hand ready on the pepper spray. He was a good looking guy dressed in a black linen shirt, a pair of jeans and black boots. His face had a GQ-handsome quality to it, light blue eyes and well trimmed facial hair around his sensual mouth. His hair, black and slick, was styled to perfection. Her best friend, Lillie, would have swallowed her tongue. Just her type.
Normally she’d think yum. Tonight he set off every warning in her body. He was the type of polished man that usually put a woman at ease, but her mind
never strayed from Ted Bundy. He’d been a handsome, polished guy, too.
He watched her with attention beyond that of some guy waiting for an elevator. His fascination with her every move did little to flatter her. She walked past him doing her best to hide her impulse to break into a run.
“Be careful, tonight,” said the man in a rich voice that reminded of her warm chocolate.
She missed a step, tried to smile but was too on edge. “Excuse me?”
He turned toward her. “They know what you are.” He paused. “They’ve been watching you.”
What I am? She pulled up short, stunned by his words. The comment sent a shiver through her, a jolt of fear followed by a sharp jab of anger. “Are you trying to scare me or are you just crazy?”
The edges of the man’s mouth quirked up and he slid his hands into his pockets. “My name is Dmitri. I’m a friend.”
“A friend, sure. The kind of friend who wants to rape and murder me, maybe.” Her hand clenched hard on the pepper spray. If he took one step in her direction, he’d get it full in the face.
For a moment it appeared as though his eyes went completely black. It rocked her back a step. Impossible. “I’m not the one who means you harm. I’m just trying to warn you, Jessa.”
Now she was really scared. How the hell did he know her name?
Jessa said a whole bunch of words she would never normally say and broke into a run, checking over her shoulder constantly to make sure he wasn’t following her.
Normally she would be highly disturbed by an encounter like that, but she would brush off the man’s comments as inconsequential to her life. Just some crazy guy. These days what the man had said made a kind of sense she didn’t want to examine very hard. She had no idea who Dmitri was, but it was possible he was telling the truth.