by Aja James
© Copyright by Aja James 2018
Dear Reader:
I hope you will enjoy the fourth installment of the Dark Ones saga on the following pages (Book #6 in Pure/ Dark Series). You will soon see that much more is yet to come.
Every story has many points of view, many different interpretations and versions of the truth. So what about the perspective from the Pure Ones’ POV? If you’re curious, check out how it all began in Pure Healing.
Email me at [email protected] to find out more. And follow me on https://www.facebook.com/AjaJamesAuthor and https://aja-james.blog/. I will have free chapters, behind the scenes and other goodies on the Pure/ Dark Ones series.
I love hearing from you!
Enjoy!
Aja James
Glossary
Blood-Contract: Contract by which a human Consents to surrender his/her blood (and sometimes soul) to a vampire for a promise in return that the vampire must fulfill. The vampire has the choice to accept or reject the Contract. Upon acceptance, he/she must fulfill the bargain or risk retribution from the unfulfilled human soul in the form of a curse. See also Consent.
Blooded Mate: the chosen partner for each Dark One. Once the Bond is formed between two Dark Ones, it cannot be broken unless a third party has prior claim of blood or flesh. The third party can elicit a Challenge to one of the Bonded Dark Ones to obtain rights to the other. The Challenge is fought to the death.
Save in the case of a successful Challenge, the Bond cannot be broken except through death. Attempts to break the Bond by one or the other Mate will end in death or madness or something worse, depending on the depth and strength of the Bond in question.
Blooded Mates do not need to take the blood and souls of others to survive. However, they must take blood and sex from each other on a regular basis, else they will weaken and eventually go mad and/or die.
The Chosen: six royal guards of the New York-based Vampire Queen, Jade Cicada.
Consent: a human’s willing agreement to surrender his/her blood (and sometimes soul) to a vampire.
The Circlet: five royal inner council members of the Pure Queen.
Cove: base of the New York-based vampire hive, with dominion over the New England territories in the U.S.
Dark Goddess: supernatural being who is credited with the creation of the Dark Ones. She is a deity to which Dark Ones pray. It is unclear how or whether she is related to the Pure Ones’ Goddess. See also The Goddess.
Dark Laws: One, thou shalt protect the Universal Balance to which all souls contribute. Two, thou shalt maintain the secrecy of the Race. Three, thou shalt not take an innocent’s blood, life, or soul without Consent.
Dark One: supernatural being who prefers to live in the night and who gathers energy and prolongs his/her life by feeding off the blood, and sometimes souls, of others. Dark Ones are born, not made. Sometimes confused with the term vampire.
The Dozen: see Royal Zodiac.
Ecliptic Scrolls: events past, recorded by the Keeper of the Dark Ones.
Ecliptic Prophesies: events in the future as foretold by the Oracle of the Dark Ones.
The Elite: six royal personal guards of the Pure Queen.
Gift: supernatural power bestowed upon Pure Ones by the Goddess. Usually an enhanced physical or mental ability such as telekinesis, superhuman strength and telepathy. True Blood Dark Ones also possess powerful Gifts. See True Blood.
The Goddess: supernatural being who is credited with the creation of the Pure Ones. She is a deity to which Pure Ones devote themselves. She protects the Universal Balance.
The Great War: circa 2190 B.C., the Pure Ones who had been enslaved by the Dark Ones rebelled against their oppressors en masse. At the end of countless years of bloodshed, the Pure Ones ultimately regained their freedom, and the Dark Ones’ empire lay in ruins with the members of the Royal Hive scattered to the ends of the earth.
Hive: society of vampires with a matriarch, the Queen, at the head.
Horde: small groups of vampires with no Queen, typically composed of Rogues who band together for ease of hunting.
Nourishment: the strength that Mated Dark Ones take from each other’s blood and body through sexual intercourse. Once Mated, they will no longer need others’ blood to survive, only that from each other. Sexual intercourse is required to make the Nourishment sustaining.
Nourishment is also what Pure males provide their females as Eternal Mates.
Pure One: supernatural being who is eternally youthful, typically endowed with heightened senses or powers called the Gift. In possession of a pure soul and blessed with more than one chance at life by the Goddess, chosen as one of Her immortal race that defends the Universal Balance.
Rogue: lone vampire who does not belong to an organized vampire society or Hive.
The Royal Zodiac: twelve-member collective of the Elite, the Circlet and the Queen of the Pure Ones.
Shield: referred to as the base of the Royal Zodiac, wherever it may be. Not necessarily a physical location.
True Blood: a vampire born of Dark parents. See also Dark One.
Vampire: supernatural being who prefers to live in the night and who gathers energy and prolongs his/her life by feeding off the blood, and sometimes souls, of others. Contrary to prevalent beliefs (see Book 1: Pure Healing), vampires are both made and born. Some vampires are Pure Ones who have chosen Darkness rather than death after they break the Cardinal Rule. Some are humans turned by other vampires. Some are True Bloods that are born of a vampire mother or father, more accurately called Dark Ones.
Prologue
It is I, the Creature.
Well, that was a rather dramatic opening line, wasn’t it?
Don’t be fooled.
I might like a bit of melodrama, some gritty sadomasochism, a good dose of violence and chaos…
But at the core of it all, I’m just bored.
Indifferent.
You could probably string me up naked by my toenails, upside down from a tree, cut—oh—about twenty odd slashes all over my body so that I’m dripping blood out of every major vein, and I wouldn’t even blink an eye.
Been there, done that.
Sort of.
I’ve had worse.
There’s not a whole lot out there that would surprise me anymore, having existed over four thousand years.
I say existed, not lived, because, really, that poor sod who’d been strung up by their toenails from a tree had died a brutal death in their twentieth year.
Who could survive something like that? Could you?
Didn’t think so.
What existed—exists—after their demise is yours truly: a hideous creature from the inside out, whose blood runs black instead of red. (Unless I get my regular infusion of Pure blood).
Soul-less. Heartless. Rotten to the core.
Neither vampire nor Pure One. Neither human nor animal.
But an abomination to all races and Kinds. (I’m not being melodramatic with the italics. It is thusly written in the history tomes of the Pure and Dark Ones).
If you’ve followed my journey thus far, you’d know that I can shift shapes. Take on different humanoid forms. You might wonder whether I’m male or female.
Doesn’t it annoy you that I’m an “it”?
Well, take consolation in the fact that I am whatever you want me to be, my sweet. I can surpass your wildest dreams and your ugliest nightmares.
And for the right price, I can be your ultimate fantasy. “Money back” guaranteed.
It’s how I influence others to get my dirty work done, after all. Providing services for services rendered.
But shapeshifting is not my only Gift. I’m a creature of many talents.
Wouldn’t you like to know what they are?
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Patience. All will be revealed in due time.
You might ask me why I bother. Why carry out the Mistress’s machinations for world domination and run amuck with unprovoked, ruthless violence?
I’d answer: why not?
It’s not like I have anything better to do. It’s all I’ve ever known.
And before you judge me for wasting my immortality on ignoble ends, blah, blah…take a walk in my shoes for the past four millennia, and then we can talk.
Meanwhile, I’m busy running a tight ship while the Mistress recuperates from her latest setbacks—losing her eyes, her Gifts, her henchman, her prisoner, and her dearest little sister.
Honestly, I don’t know how she gets up at night.
Her sins and evil already put Satan’s in the shade before these losses (or perhaps Samael is the better corollary, given her serpent tendencies); I shudder to think what she will become in the aftermath.
No point dwelling on it.
I have mass-murdering fight clubs to grow, Pure and Dark warriors to recruit (and make into mindless killing machines for the Mistress’s army), cutting-edge (and highly illegal) genetic, chemical and robotic engineering to advance, and human arms and drug deals to facilitate on the Mistress’s behalf.
And then there are a few loose ends I am trying (but not very hard, because I like the game) to tie up.
Like driving a wedge in the Pure Ones’ alliance with the New England vampire hive and deciding what to do about the Mistress’s ex-Blooded Mate, “Lord Wind.”
I don’t think she knows, but I’ve already located him after his abrupt disappearance about a week ago.
Unless the Mistress had other minions looking into his disappearance, she shouldn’t be able to track his whereabouts like she used to when they’d been Bonded, through her blood in his, for he had cut her literally out of his heart.
That’s the only way, aside from a formal Challenge by a third party and death, to break the Bond between vampire Blooded Mates.
It was a risky thing for him to do, stabbing himself in the heart to gut her out. Lord Wind has some major, ironclad cojones.
Or maybe he just got tired of living and didn’t care whether he survived or died.
Because, most often, such maneuvers end in death or insanity or some other dreaded calamity. Vampires don’t like to Mate for this very reason—you only get one shot at it, and if you choose badly, there’s no going back.
I wonder which is worse: to die an excruciating death within thirty days like the Pure Ones if you give yourself to the wrong lover, or to live forever in tortured enmity like the Dark Ones who choose the wrong Mate.
And let’s not forget, Pure Ones might also get a second option at the end of those thirty days—to become a hated bloodsucker and start the process all over again. I wonder if the Pure Ones’ Goddess deals out these alternatives arbitrarily or if she’s following some master plan. Hmm. It’s a puzzle for the ages…
Back to the issue at hand. It seems that Lord Wind is very much alive. Flying in stealth mode, using an alias not even the Mistress is aware of. He’s been pulling away from her for quite some time now. There is so much about him that she probably doesn’t know.
But I know. I make it my job to know.
And that knowledge is power, the sort I like to cultivate.
I’ll have to keep an eye on him, make sure he stays out of our way.
Not really planning on sending assassins after him though, since he’s nigh impossible to kill, having been, and still is I suppose, one of the fiercest Dark warriors across the history of his Kind. At least in the top five, anyway. I’d be wasting resources if I tried to take him out.
I just haven’t decided yet whether or not I’d let the Mistress know I’ve found her defected Mate.
We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we.
Chapter One
Either he was stalking her, or they lived in the same area of NYC, took the same public transportation, at the same times.
In the dead of night.
Clara’s bet was on the stalking.
But why would someone like him—the most beautiful thing she’d ever clapped eyes on—be stalking someone like her? An ordinary redheaded art teacher with innumerable freckles?
At least she had the “glow of youth,” was physically robust, and her hair shone like waves of molten gold in sunlight.
Or so she’d been told by an ex-boyfriend who dabbled in unoriginal poetry.
She thought of her stalker as a “thing,” not a person, not because she was objectifying him (even though it’s very tempting to do so when someone was that inhumanly gorgeous), but because in her mental dictionary, “thing” was all-inclusive.
She lumped into the comparison paintings by Renaissance masters, sculptures by Rodin, Michelangelo, Bernini, Phidias; man-made wonders like the Taj Mahal and natural visions like the aurora borealis (which she’d always wanted to see firsthand), and the coves of Connemara in Ireland, whence her ancestors hailed.
At least, that’s what her DNA results pointed to—through a discounted service she bought with 23andme.com—that a large portion of her genes were Irish. She just imagined she was from an idyllic place like Connemara. And maybe had a kind faerie or two in her genealogy.
And of course, her comparison included all living things as well.
The point being: the man making his way toward her on the midnight bus from Hell’s Kitchen to her destination in Brooklyn was the most beautiful thing in the world to Clara’s subjective, female eyes.
She was usually more egalitarian when appreciating beauty, for she found it everywhere, even in things others would deem its opposite. Using the eye of an artist, she’d learned to appreciate beauty in all things. That, and the fact that she was unapologetically a die-hard dreamer and romantic.
There was no equality where this man was concerned, however. No beauty that could ever match his in her eyes.
His beauty was so raw, so elemental and devastating, that it reached physically into her internal organs, deep into her blood and bones, and made the primitively female part of her sit up and growl—mine.
He looked directly into her eyes as that bit of insanity popped into her brain and shone through her no-doubt shimmering eyes, veritably bursting with stars, like the caricatures in Japanese anime.
The electrifying visual connection streaked down her spine like the split of lightning, making every cell in her body hyper aware of this male.
Unconsciously, she wet her lips with anticipation.
Anticipation of what, she didn’t know. She just…
Wanted. Craved. Needed.
She was starved for him. As if she’d been waiting for him all her life. All her lives, if one were the fanciful sort and believed in reincarnation.
Clara was rather fanciful.
Uncomfortable, and extremely, embarrassingly aroused, she lowered her eyes, breaking their connection.
He flowed past her (yes, he actually glided, moving so smoothly he seemed one with the air) to the last row of seats on the bus and sat in the opposite corner behind her.
She surreptitiously inhaled deeply as he passed by, catching a whiff of his fundamentally masculine scent, unspoiled by any cologne, fresh and clean. Bracing, like an icy wind from snowy mountaintops, the breath of the gods.
Lord almighty!
It’s as if he lit a wildfire under her libido with just his looks and his fragrance—and let’s not forget, the sinfully mesmerizing way he moved—because she flushed with pleasure from head to toe, followed immediately by a blaze of carnality and desperate need.
If he really was stalking her for nefarious purposes, she wasn’t sure she cared at this point.
Besides, Clara could take care of herself. And there were a couple more people on the bus in the seats up front, in addition to the bus driver, if she needed backup.
She’d taken self-defense classes and always carried her Pepper spray and Taser. Growing up in an orphanage, working an
d living alone as a young adult in some not-so-safe places of New York City had taught her to be vigilant and learn how to protect herself.
She’d been aware, for example, that two drunken teenagers had been following her when she was a couple of blocks away from the bus station. She’d been prepared to take action should they start to harass her, something she dealt with more frequently than she’d like.
She always wore her backpack in front so she could access her weapons easily and she’d had her hand in the bag with a firm hold of the Taser. She was also prepared to make a mad dash for the bus if the situation called for flee versus fight. She was a natural sprinter and had outrun all the boys at the orphanage growing up.
But before the inebriated frat boys had gotten too close, her mysterious stalker had walked past between them, leaving them doubled over, choking for breath in his wake.
There had been no sounds of struggle, and when Clara had looked briefly behind her, she hadn’t noticed any out-of-the-way movement from her stalker either; he never broke his stride.
But he did emanate a lethal, don’t-fuck-with-me badass vibe. And the violent glint in his eyes as he passed the teenagers should have given her pause.
Instead, she’d been strangely turned on, imagining that he was protecting her.
Just as likely, he could have been removing the competition so he could assault her himself.
That primitive female part of her, the part she never even knew existed before now, seemed more anticipatory of his potential aggression than fearful.
Maybe she needed to see a shrink.
Clara could see out of the corner of her eye, if she stretched her right eyeball really hard, about a third of him, the side closest to the windows.