Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
The Vampire Paul is not this champion.
He is, however, cunning and patient.
Ryet, cursed by his demonic transformation, is bound by blood to Syrsee, a witch whose very existence fuels his hunger and his torment. Each drop of her blood brings him closer to becoming the monster he fears, even as their connection grows intoxicatingly intimate. Is it love between them? Or just an addiction?
Paul, the creator, sees Ryet as his masterpiece, the key to his salvation—and his undoing. Driven by ambition and the promise of a legacy, Paul will stop at nothing to see his vision realized, even as it fractures the fragile bonds of love and loyalty he’s earned with Ryet.
But it is Josep, favored and chosen by the Darkness itself, who holds the true power. As he wields his gifts to shape the future, his arrogance blinds him to forces conspiring for control.
In a world of blood and magic, where power corrupts and love ensnares, the Darkness always demands more—and the battle for eternity is only beginning
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue - Josep
Two Weeks Ago
We are the Darkness and the Darkness is us.
Iwalk towards Paul and place my hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eyes. They are red these days, like the anger inside him. “This is it?”
Paul nods his head, searching my eyes or maybe getting lost in them. “Ryet’s not here yet, but he will be shortly. The girl is being bled out right now. You will have your share in a matter of hours.”
A long exhale comes out and I release Paul’s shoulders. I turn, then walk across the smooth rock cave floor and over to the little pool of cool water that is collecting underneath my trickling waterfall.
I look down into the water—it’s black. Black and shiny. Like a mirror. Like a portal to the Darkness that lives deep below the earth. I can see it on the other side of the water, though this is not how I physically make contact with it.
The Darkness undulates with slow, gentle movements. Like ink. But it’s not ink. It can rise up and be whatever it wants to be. It could be me, or Paul, or anyone. It has been me, many times over. It was Paul too, once upon a time.
I turn back to Paul, smiling now. Because this little witch’s blood will change everything from this day forward. Nothing will ever be the same after tonight.
We are making a new kind of Darkness. Something that hasn’t been attempted since… well. Since the Darkness came to be, I imagine.
“We did it,” I say.
Paul is looking handsome, as usual. Especially surrounded in the misty lavender light of my cave. “We did.”
I can hardly believe it. “He’s going to be born tonight?”
Paul nods. “Absolutely.”
“And how long—”
“I don’t know. A week, perhaps? You know how slow things move across the ocean. Regardless, the Obscurati will know what’s happening soon enough.”
“Yeah.” It almost comes out as a chuckle. But I turn just in time to hide my smile. The lavender mist cooling my body and filling the cave is making everything glow.
Paul and I met after he tried to kill his maker, as one occasionally does. It’s not a heinous crime, per se, but the Obscurati look down on cheaters. And Paul is nothing if not a cheater. He takes shortcuts.
Well, he did. That was his real crime. Not the killing of the maker. Evolution must be done stepwise—slowly and carefully, over many hundreds of years—so when a talented newborn skips ahead, well. He must be put in his place and forced to slow down.
That’s all that happened back in the Old World. Of course, it’s very easy to see the complete picture from a distance. But in the moment, it didn’t feel like a slap on the hand. It felt very personal. Paul’s banishment to the wild lands of America was only meant to be a timeout. He didn’t understand that and, of course, I didn’t bother filling him in. Punishment is a cure for tarnished character and Paul’s character was in desperate need of polishing.
Paul was energetic, and ambitious, and eager. I was tired, and bored, and apathetic.
I was never a talented newborn, but I had favor with the Darkness. I was singled out in this way. The Darkness has liked me since my birth. It would visit often when I was a scion, following me like an ink-stained shadow through the years. Guiding me forward. Giving me little hints about how to proceed when the ambition to figure it out on my own eluded me.
It had me make terrible, terrible things. Of course, these terrible things were for the Darkness itself, not me. But I was the one responsible for them and the Darkness did not interfere with my punishment from the elder brothers in the Obscurati. They didn’t like the fact that I was favored. That I could, theoretically, get the Darkness to do my bidding by simply asking.
I wasn’t interested in asking for gifts from the Darkness. Not then, not even now. There is a high price to pay when you are blessed with success without earning it. Nothing is free, after all. There is always a cost.
The brotherhood couldn’t force me to use my gift. But they could make my life very uncomfortable if I didn’t.
So that’s what they did.
My life, from the moment I was second-born as a scion, was a series of torturous events at the hands of these brothers, so when Paul came to me with this offer—a vial of dead blood to kill myself in exchange for a blessing from the Darkness so he could complete his project—of course I agreed.
I never wanted to be this thing that I am.
I never asked for the Dark blessing.
I didn’t kill myself. Obviously. It’s funny how it happens like that. You get what you want, your greatest desire, and then… it’s just not as sweet as you thought it would be.