EMBRACE THE DARK (The Blood Rose Novella Series)

  Gerrod, she pathed. I am west of you and I have a troll child with me. Can you shift your power another ten feet and cover us?

  She pulled the boy against a tree and held him tight. She looked up once more.

  The wraith was a fierce-looking creature, almost opaque, with small eyes, yellow fangs and dark lips. This one, a female, was covered in red gauze-like strips of fabric, sewn loosely together, but floating easily around her long thin legs. She was barefoot and in flight, which was a wraith’s preference most of the time.

  She smiled, showing red gums.

  Gerrod?

  I’m trying Abigail, but I’m battling three Invictus. Can you reach a position where I can see you? Then I’ll know better what to do.

  The wraith taunted her, shifting back and forth through the air. “A human caught in the forest. What am I to do?” She laughed, almost a cackle.

  Abigail lifted her chin and stood up. She knew this could be the end of her life, but she had to do something. Still holding the boy against her legs, she moved a foot forward then another. “What do you want with a human, wraith? I am nothing to you.”

  “Human blood tastes quite good.” She hissed and bared her fangs a little more.

  Gerrod, can you see me yet?

  No.

  She took another step, then another, each putting her closer to the wraith. A couple more feet and she would reach a pool of light cast by the distant floodlights which was also in line with Gerrod’s shield.

  “Why don’t you battle those who have weapons?” Abigail called out, hoping to distract the wraith into a conversation. “Or are you just a coward, like all of your kind?”

  The wraith’s clothing stilled and she advanced forward, as Abigail advanced. Abigail put her foot in the beam of light, then brought the other one forward, the troll still hidden in the skirts of her gown, but he wept against her leg. He’d seen the wraith and he could hear her hiss.

  “Foolish human. I won’t just take your blood. I’ll tear each of your limbs off just for the pleasure of it.”

  She launched, but at the same time, Gerrod’s voice streaked through her head. I’ve got you. His power shield slipped between them and the wraith collided into that shield, as though she’d struck a brick wall.

  Abigail heard a terrible crunching sound, the wraith’s eyes rolled, then she plummeted to the ground falling hard. She didn’t move.

  Stay where you are. You will be safe.

  She dropped to the ground and drew the boy onto her lap, holding him close. Gerrod’s power wrapped around them. She could see him now. He moved like lightning in the distance, well above the ground as he made use of his levitation power. Pulsing lights flashed from his arms, hands and shoulders in powerful streaks. Each time, a wraith screeched and fell, or one of the Invictus realm-folk cried out in pain then toppled over. The wraiths still fighting sent repeated red streaks of energy toward Gerrod. Each one hit his shield which protected him, but even she could see that his shield had holes in it here and there.

  The flash of lights grew quicker.

  Then suddenly, another Guard appeared, dropping from high in the sky, to levitate beside Gerrod. The lights flashed faster now and within another minute, the last of the Invictus lay on the ground.

  Abigail rose, helping the boy to slide off her lap. She could hear a woman screaming in the distance, calling for ‘Petrus’.

  “That’s my mama.”

  He pulled against Abigail’s hand, but she didn’t let him go. Instead, she began to run in the direction of the castle with him. But one last glance in Gerrod’s direction revealed that all of the Invictus pairs lay dead in front of the ruined wedding cake.

  *** *** ***

  Gerrod was breathing hard and so damn weak. He had used up a tremendous amount of energy. He’d never seen so many wraith-pairs before and all well-armed. As his shield had weakened, he’d gotten nicked a couple of times, nothing serious but he was damn glad Jason had shown up when he did.

  He glanced behind him and saw Abigail running with her hand clasped around a troll boy’s hand. Until that moment the reality of her plight hadn’t sunk in. Sweet Goddess she could have been killed.

  He brought his power shield back toward him, reabsorbing as much of the energy as possible.

  Jason sat down on the ground to catch his breath. Gerrod knew he had pushed hard to get here. They had both used up some serious reserves.

  Jason looked up at him and pushed his light brown hair off his face. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the woven sleeve of his shirt. “That was fucking close, wasn’t it?”

  Gerrod nodded. “Very. There were forty in all.”

  “Sweet Goddess. What has happened? How have the Invictus grown in such numbers? Someone must have charge of them. I’ve never known these pairs to join together like this.”

  “I know. I have thought the very same thing.” Gerrod swallowed hard. His left hand trembled, a sure sign that his blood-starvation was reaching a critical point. He should have summoned one of his doneuses to stabilize him long before tonight, but he hated to disturb the women. Each of his three donors were married to good men. The act seemed disloyal and he despised having to ask.

  Though it wouldn’t have mattered. He could have had a dozen doneuses, as some of his fellow mastyr vampires did, but he would still suffer from starvation. It was the curse of his ‘mastyr’ status. Though he, like all mastyr vampires, had tried a hundred remedies, the starvation remained. Although, with so few doneuses, he tended to reach dangerous levels much more often than those mastyrs with larger blood-harems.

  The rest of the Guard began arriving, which helped his spirits since he had no doubt that once the notables in attendance at the wedding reached his entrance hall, cell-phones would light up alerting the media to the attack. It was only a matter of time before the TV station vans and reporters arrived.

  The headlines the next day would be terrible, no doubt, but he thought it the wiser course to let the populace know that the Invictus had become active again. Parents would take extra precautions, neighborhood watches would be on guard again, and all volunteer policing units would gather with city entities to organize for increased patrols.

  In the meantime, clean-up was critical. Each of the Invictus would have to be hauled to a morgue, families of any of those realm-folk who had paired with a wraith would have to be notified of the death. None of it was an easy task.

  Gerrod issued his orders. And as Jason nodded then returned to the battlefield to begin the horrific disposal process, Gerrod headed to the castle to confer with those governing officials who had been present at the wedding. Each would of course have a great deal to say about how the governance of Merhaine ought to be conducted.

  He repressed a sigh as the weight of rule descended heavily on his shoulders once more. Another tremor vibrated through his left hand and he made a fist then released it a number of times. He really didn’t want a group of Merhaine dignitaries to observe him in this weakened state.

  But as he walked up the broad front path to the castle, his thoughts turned to Abigail. His heart seemed to lumber in his chest. An image flashed through his mind of his fangs buried in her neck. Whatever the reason, more than life itself he wanted to know what her blood tasted like, if it would carry the flavor of rosemary, the scent that seemed to be attached to her always.

  Yes, in the year he’d known her, he’d come very close to obsessing about the damn human.

  *** *** ***

  An hour later, Abigail frowned as Gerrod marched away from her.

  He had said very little to her except to insist she return to Flagstaff and not to come back because Merhaine was no place for a human.

  She hadn’t known exactly what to expect when she saw Gerrod next, but these terse commands weren’t it. For one thing, she had wanted to thank him for saving her life but he hadn’t given her the smallest opportunity.

  For another, she really wanted to know what was happening.

  She mig
ht even have demanded he speak with her for a moment, since he’d kissed her in the forest, but she saw that his shoulders were tight and his hands were balled into fists. He was struggling with a very difficult situation.

  Most of the guests had driven back to their respective homes, but the castle entrance hall was still full of the more exalted citizens of Merhaine. He might have just battled forty Invictus, but now he had to put a different hat on, the one that would strive to reassure the worried mayors and council members of the various Merhaine cities that all would be well.

  She’d been connected with Merhaine for a year now, increasingly so in the past several months because of the bakery she and her business partner, Elena, were due to open in the next few weeks.

  Merhaine, one of the Nine Realms of North America. She was used to the existence of the realm world, as most humans were, at least those who were on the Internet with any consistency. The discovery of the realms some thirty years ago, before she was even born, had taken Earth by storm especially since the parallel nature meant that Realm and Earth cultures shared many things in common, from simple bonding rituals like marriage to much more complex things like language.

  English was prevalent throughout the Nine Realms and the now inter-connected planes and the sharing of history and culture had even broadened realm-dialects.

  Gerrod, on the other hand, was over three-hundred-years-old so that his speech patterns still hadn’t caught up to the current Flagstaff vernacular. But she had seen other mastyr vampires interviewed from all over the United States’ plane. Some of them, like Mastyr Ethan of the Bergisson Realm, spoke like most of the cops she knew, with a fair sprinkling of Earth-based profanity. How and why the revelation of a connected parallel plane had occurred at this point in Earth history was not something even the most brilliant scientists had yet to figure out.

  But here Realm was and because of her bakery, she’d spoken to numerous trolls, fae, and elves about Mastyr Gerrod, about Merhaine, about all the various species that existed on this parallel plane.

  Trolls were the most helpful, however, being extremely garrulous. In fact, the saying among realm was that if you kept a secret like a troll, it meant you never kept a secret, that you couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended on it.

  “Ask me.”

  Abigail turned to Augustus who was Gerrod’s Master of the Household. She was alone with him now, in the hall not far from the shouting that had begun in the entrance hall.

  Gus, as he was known, side-stepped like a child who had to go to the bathroom, but this she’d gotten used to as well. Trolls showed enthusiasm as well as many other emotions with their feet. Given that most trolls had lovely feet, contrary to human depictions, she thought all that movement fascinating.

  Gus was five-six, which meant tall for a troll. He was also quite good-looking, with long light brown hair combined stylishly away from his face. She hadn’t thought trolls could be handsome but in fact they were like any specie, running the gamut from homely to stunning. Gus ranged at the upper end, his blue eyes fringed in long lashes. The three ridges of his forehead had elegant turns.

  Yes, much of Merhaine had become very familiar to her.

  His eyes held such a light that despite all that had happened, Abigail smiled. “Yes,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “I want to know everything.”

  He smiled, his eyes now shining like stars. Did a troll love anything better than disseminating information? She didn’t think so. Maybe not even better than her cupcakes and trolls were known for their sweet-tooths. This was one reason a troll made an excellent household governor but a very poor secretary.

  He led the way to the far side of the castle, well away from the shouts now rolling from the entrance hall, to the northern wing that housed a massive kitchen, an equally long state dining room, and in the northwest, a lovely family breakfast room full of windows.

  Because of the Invictus attack, the blinds were drawn. Otherwise, she knew that the forest had been illuminated with a thousand lights and was very pretty, another reminder that much of Merhaine life was lived at night.

  He waved her to a chair by the hearth, in which burned a large log fire and after a few minutes, returned with tea service in white and green ivy.

  Because she had come to the castle often to chat with him when she delivered her orders from her bakery, he knew how she liked her tea. He handed her the cup and saucer, prepared his own, then sat down.

  The tea was redolent of cloves and cardamom. Now what was that novel she had read recently where the hero of the story, a great warrior, had smelled of cardamom. It was something like ‘Ascending’ or ‘Accelerating’, she couldn’t quite remember. She had enjoyed reading that version of vampires. But how strange that now she was caught in her own world of not just vampires, but about every childhood tale she had ever heard of.

  Gus’s feet manipulated the footstool with the skill of his hundred and thirty years, until he was perfectly comfortable. All realm-folk were long-lived, which meant that Gus was still fairly young by Merhaine standards.

  He met her gaze and lifted a brow.

  This was her cue. She took a deep breath. “Why did the mastyr dismiss me?”

  “Ah, the best question first. I like that. He told you to leave the castle because he is feeling too much for you, and you must trust me in this. I have known Mastyr Gerrod most of my life. You are the only castle supplier he ever seeks out. And the strangest thing is, he seems to know the moment you have come. Have you not noticed that he often brings an entire army to help you unload a few boxes of cupcakes?”

  “I thought that was your doing?”

  Gus chuckled. “And he always insists you stay for tea, have you not noticed that?”

  “But he never sits down with me.”

  Gus appeared to be very knowledgeable as he nodded his head slowly. “But he hovers. Once you leave, I often find him standing about the great room.” He gestured to a shorter hall behind her that led to the massive room where an annual fae ball was held.

  She frowned. “He really does that?”

  Gus nodded. “I don’t think the mastyr quite understands his feelings at this point.”

  Gerrod felt too much for her? She wanted to know more, but the subject seemed too personal to her, as though Gus was sharing private things Gerrod wouldn’t want her to know about. Gus might have few scruples about sharing everything, but she decided to draw the line.

  Instead, she took a sip of tea, then asked, “Has he always been so tense?”

  Gus sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Always. Since I have known him. He bears the burden of the entire realm on his shoulders.” He brought his teacup to his lips and drank. Trolls tended to drink their tea in hearty gulps.

  “But why is that? I mean I know that he has a lot of battling power so that he can fight the Invictus, but why isn’t there a government in place to support him?”

  Gus snorted. “Have you not been in Merhaine a year now? Do you not see the greater problem?”

  She was afraid to give her opinion. She didn’t know if it was politically correct to speak of the differences in the species. There was a lot of intermarriage among realm-folk, but it was still in the range of ten to fifteen percent, which meant that a majority could still be hostile and disapproving.

  “Well,” she began, trying for tact, “I have noticed that fights tend to break out between trolls and elves, elves and fae, fae and shifters, shifters and vampires. I even watched a forest gremlin start shouting at a fae who was ten times his size.”

  He nodded several times slowly. “Then you understand. Each folk believes they are the smartest, the best, the most reasonable, the strongest, the prettiest, you name it. And the older the realm individual, the more profound the belief in superiority.”

  “Oh, yes, I saw a fae woman spit on the ground in front of a troll. I was later told she was over five-hundred-years-old.”

  He shook his head, pinching his lips tightly toget
her. He took another drink of tea, the three ridges of his forehead folding into a scowl. “We are not a perfect society. And though being long-lived has a wonderful advantage, it is even harder to rid our world of its deepest prejudices.”

  “Like a human dating a vampire?”

  He met her gaze and his forehead relaxed, though a solemn light entered his eye. “Especially a vampire, not to mention a mastyr vampire.”

  “You would disapprove, then?” She leaned forward and took another sip.

  “Thirty years ago, yes. Today, I don’t know. I have come to know your kind and you are not as…well…as ignorant as I had supposed, or as cruel.”

  She wasn’t offended. How could she be? “There is great cruelty in our culture.”

  “But much goodness as well.”

  She met his gaze once more. Because she wanted to understand the position of the castle staff, and especially Gus’s take on the subject, she said, “Gerrod kissed me this evening.”

  Gus’s eyes went wide.

  She couldn’t help but laugh. She knew his gossipy kind well, but she also knew something else. He was a wise troll and she trusted him, so she added, “I kissed him back.”

  His eyes literally moved in a complete circle, as though he was trying to wrap his mind around a certain thought. Or perhaps he was just wondering how the hell he could keep this a secret.

  Since he didn’t respond right away, she thought she would be more direct about what she wanted to know. “Do you disapprove? Is this a very bad thing?”

  Finally, he set his cup and saucer back on the table, and bid her do the same. “Come with me. There is something I wish you to see.”

  She was on her feet and moving swiftly. Trolls were fast, those feet again.

  The return walk in the direction of the entrance hall took at least a couple of minutes. The castle, as the dwelling was called, was more like an ancient European church, made of stone, with only one level, but having several extremely tall, and quite beautiful, vaulted ceilings.

  Because of the gray stone, however, it definitely had the feel of a castle, especially with several suits of armor, imported from Medieval England, standing like sentinels near several of the doorways.