The Forbidden Chapters Part 1: Afterlife Saga

  “Because I knew I was wrong.” I frowned and shook my head a little, telling him silently that I didn’t understand.

  “I should have believed you and when I didn’t, I let you down. That slap made me realise my mistake but more than that, it made me realise how much I had hurt you…after that, I couldn’t face it…” he told me honestly and my mouth dropped to free a gasp, one that never made a sound.

  “What couldn’t you face, Draven?” I whispered my question and he took my face in both his hands and placed his forehead to mine and whispered his deepest regrets down at me.

  And it was beautiful…

  “Disappointing the woman, I love.”

  AUTHOR’S INSIGHTS.

  BOOK 3

  The Triple Goddess.

  Now comes the third instalment of Lost Chapters and this time they are from Book 3. As you can imagine there were a lot of chapters I wanted to write that included our lovely but misunderstood Lucius. But in the end, I found it took away from the main part of the story or became too complicated for our Keira. After all, many of the chapters I wrote would only have you falling even deeper in love for our rogue hero and this wasn’t something I was prepared to do. Yes, there are elements of a love triangle but in the end, I simply wanted Keira’s love for Draven to be everything to her, no matter how she felt about Lucius in secret.

  I hope you all feel like this has continued throughout the saga. With of course, the exception to them both nearly taking things too far in Germany. But I like to think that considering what Keira had been put through, that she was certainly entitled to a little Vampire comforting. Once again and like most things in this saga there was a reason behind this and one you will no doubt secretly curse me for as my lips remain sealed. But thankfully, most people these days don’t have pitch forks and angry mobs are usually only seen on the Simpsons, so I feel safe for now ;)

  So, without further ado and anymore waffling from me, here they are for you to enjoy…the very, very forbidden Chapters of Book 3…The Triple Goddess.

  AUTHOR’S INSIGHTS

  Chapter 21 – Book 3

  Okay so I might have lied about the ‘Finished waffling’ part but I swear this will only take a minute. Okay, so we start with our first chapter which begins after Keira learns who Draven’s father is for the first time thanks to our lovely and adorable Pip. They are in the middle of their Gothic tea party and Pip has just told Keira about her little ‘Black Death’ mishap and being punished in Hell, were she met the Demon part of her husband.

  Now when writing this I always intended to write about how Pip found Adam but thought it would be further down the line. However, it never worked out this way and I knew there was only one natural place to write it in.

  Which meant this chapter had to go and with it, another one with Lucius and Keira finding themselves in each other’s arms once again.

  So, for your enjoyment, here it is…

  Lucius saving Keira from a very bloody mess, once again.

  Chapter 21

  Bloody Vampire Massacre

  Book 3

  NEW

  “King Asmodeus is… Draven’s father!”

  “Well of course he is you silly Goose Pillow!” Pip said, giggling at my reaction to it.

  His Dad? Was it possible? Well of course it was, I mean he had to come from somewhere and he did tell me about him and his siblings being a product of an Angel and Demon naughty get together. So why was I finding it so difficult to comprehend? I think it was probably down to the fact that now I knew of at least one man who had a say in Draven’s life and no-one likes to piss off their Daddy!

  “The King of Lust…you’re sure?” Okay so it sounded stupid asking it now, considering what Draven was like in the bedroom.

  “Things starting to make sense now…eh?” Pip asked with a wag of her eyebrows.

  “You can’t hear my thoughts, can you?” I asked making her double up laughing, rocking like a child cross legged.

  “You’re so funny! And not just like haha, Charlie Chaplin style, but like a whole bag full of funnies! Like those cartoon crispy guys from the cereal, those guys just crack me up!” she said slapping her leg and I found myself asking yet another unimportant question around her. And in a time, where there were oh so many others that should have come before,

  “You mean Snap, Crackle and Pop?”

  “Yeah! Those guys! You know Rice Krispies are also known in Australia as Rice Bubbles…what’s with that! Oh, and did you know that they are gnomic elves and were originally designed by illustrator Vernon Grant in the early 1930s,” she informed me and I shook my head in wonder at where on earth she kept this type of information. But more importantly, what was that file labelled in her head, ‘Useless crap I might need one day’?

  “Which reminds me, damn it all to the Bermuda worm hole! I forgot the snickerdoodles!” Pip shouted throwing up her hands dramatically.

  “The what now?” I asked with a smirk, looking down at all the food I had consumed and not sure how I would fit anything else in my belly.

  “The freakin’ snickerdoodles, dudette! Wait, hold up a few heartbeats and back the fuggle up…are you telling me you have never had a snickerdoodle?” she asked…I think.

  “Uhh…that would be a no,” I told her and she screamed, as in full out slasher movie style! I held my hands over my ears for a second until she stopped.

  “Feel better?” I asked and she smirked at me.

  “Hell yeah, love a good fucking scream! Right, I will be back…Terminator style but armed with awesome cookies not guns, man I would so jump those guns, Arnie has got it going on!” she said laughing and bouncing up in a way that only looked achievable if you were a contortionist!

  “Well, I will be here,” I told her and she stopped in her tracks. She then looked around and sucked in her lip ring as if torn. I held up my hands and said,

  “Pip, come on, where am I going to go?” I asked laughing because unless I had a ‘freezing my ass off death wish’, then really, where was I going to run to? She laughed it off and said,

  “Yeah and anyway, Luc would just hunt your fine ass down and drool like a hungry ass wolf whilst doing it…silly me,” she said walking off and laughing to herself. Although, the thought she left me with wasn’t exactly what I would call ‘laugh worthy’. Anyway, I think she was forgetting one small factor in all this and that was I didn’t have bloody wings so where she expected me to go exactly I had no clue.

  I decided to put my gloves back on and get up to have a look around. It was a stunning open space with a haunting beauty thanks to the startling white snow that lay upon every surface like a blanket. Even the air looked white, if that was possible. It wasn’t like fog but more like a cloud bed that surrounded the crumbling walled garden like a protective barrier. It even rolled over the stone like the ground was drawing it in and it flowed like a waterfall of white mist down the sides.

  I decided to be brave and look over the sides to see if there were any lower levels that could be seen. Although I would be surprised in this weather but it was worth a shot. I buttoned my jacket back up and walked closer to the edge, the only sound was the eerie crunch of crisp snow under my feet. The whole place felt as if you were in some ethereal dream or even approaching the gates of Heaven…it just didn’t feel real.

  It made you want to gather up balls of snow and throw them, so that you could prove it wasn’t magical and could show the result by a little destruction. But I didn’t do that, instead I simply ran my fingertips through the snow that lay perfectly moulded to the top of a half-broken balustrade. It was deep enough that I would have lost my hand in it if I had applied more pressure.

  I clapped the snow off my glove and continued towards the side when I started to hear a strange noise. It was only very faint but in this deathly still place, you would have heard a pin drop. It sounded like scratching against stone and it was coming from where I was walking to. I moved a little closer, this time more cautious as to what I may fi
nd. Suddenly a strange thought entered my mind and I had no control over it, as I wished for Lucius to be here.

  I think that it was down to fear of the unknown and in this place, he seemed to be my only anchor to safety. It was messed up. I knew that. But I couldn’t help but feel as though he would never let anything happen to me. That he would even…kill for me.

  I shook the feeling off and decided I was being silly and just letting the creepy surroundings get to me. When Pip had been here it had been fine. There was laughter and chatting and getting to learn the history of who I considered was becoming a great friend. But now…alone in this silent, winter garden. Well, it looked like the place that lost souls came to walk eternity in peace.

  I looked back over my shoulder once more before making the last two steps to the edge. I placed both my hands on the stone wall, this time pressing down and creating dips in the snow. Then I took a deep breath and looked over the edge into an abyss of endless white. I couldn’t see anything thanks to the heavy cloud, so thankfully my fear of heights didn’t come into play. I released a sigh and shook my head, cursing my own imagination. I was just about to turn around, with one hand still left on the wall when I screamed,

  “AHHH!” I looked back at my hand that was now covered by someone else’s! Someone was reaching over the wall as if they had just climbed up the side. I scrambled backwards, righting myself on the balustrade just before I fell. Then I started to back away from the wall as a body started to emerge over the side. I knew with what followed in his other hand he was an enemy of both myself and Lucius, thanks to the glint of his lethal looking blade.

  “A knife.” A whisper left my lips and I began running. I knew there were only two options left to me and if this being was a demon then one of them would be useless. So instead of running for the way out, knowing he would no doubt easily catch up with me, I went for option two. I ran back to the tree and grabbed the wicked looking butcher’s knife that was still sticking out of the cake. I turned back and held it out in front of me, threatening anyone that came close.

  My eyes homed in on the figure emerging from the cloud of fog that had rolled in with him. He wore all black and he was easily double my size. He cracked his neck to the side and his evil smirk told me that my knife did nothing but make this interesting for him. I gripped it tighter, my leather glove creaking against the handle.

  “What do you want with me?!” I demanded backing away from the tree and knowing eventually he would have me trapped.

  “What I want with you is to rip your flesh from your bones but I doubt the Master will let us play with you before you die,” he told me, snarling and licking out his tongue which was long enough to cover his chin. He was rough looking, and I’d bet my lifesavings that he was a demon of some kind. However, his human host looked to be in his mid-fifties, and one that had seen every bar fight this side of Germany, because he looked as though his nose had been broken at least ten times. Even his skin looked as if it had been shaved with a rusty hatchet.

  Dirty hair, small dark eyes and yellowing teeth completed the hillbilly hick look.

  “Well, what can you do but call your union rep?” I said masking fear with humour. He chuckled once and said,

  “They told me you had spunk…all the better to…”

  “Wait, I have heard this one…will it help if I lose the red jacket?” I asked interrupting him making him growl.

  “It’s not the wolf in front of you, you should be worrying about but the wolf at your back!” A voice from behind me said making me scream. I backed off to the side wondering where this other person had come from. That was when the cloud started to lift slightly and I realised that the silent garden wasn’t as private as I first thought.

  I moved away from the two men and followed the stone wall that arched up, looking briefly at the framed picture of the mountains around us. From here you could see the lake and the natural walls that surrounded it, sheer cliff faces that dropped straight down without so much as an incline, drops that would kill given one wrong step. I don’t know why but this added to its raw beauty and to the dangerous situation I now found myself in.

  I sucked in an icy breath when the wind picked up and I wondered how I was going to make it out of this one. That’s when I finally had a good look around, trying in vain to see where I could run to. I found myself further than I should be and with another shadow closing in, I knew there were too many of them.

  I turned around and saw I had passed the walls to the circular courtyard and I slowly managed to walk down some broken steps without falling. My shaking hand still held out in front of me, clutching on to my only hope.

  The steps went further down and when I looked to where they might lead I saw a dead looking forest looming back at me. My eyes followed it round and noticed that it surrounded the courtyard like an army of dead, straight soldiers all waiting to be commanded forward. Shadows could barely be seen for lack of light. It was as though day never saw this part of the earth and it was forever to live in the darkness of night.

  A fitting place to die, without ever being found. But no, these men didn’t want to kill me…not yet anyway. However, the man they worked for, then yes, there was little doubt of what he had in store for me. And speaking of hired demon goons, one by one they all started to close in on me until my back was against the wall with nowhere left to go.

  The last one to have spoken came into view and unlike the other brute, he looked deadlier in a sleek, thief of the night kind of way. His hair style however, left me wondering what he was going for exactly, 80’s porn star? I think even Tom Selleck would have been envious of that slug shaped moustache!

  “Come with me little girl, time to face your fate!” Mr Porn Star cheese said just before he tried to grab me. I swiped out at him with my knife, catching him in the forearm and making him growl, as I sneaked passed him after my attack.

  “You bitch!” he snarled and I would have replied with a snappy come back if I hadn’t been trying to keep my eye on all four bodies slowly advancing on me.

  “Enough of this, get her!” The one in the shadows commanded and I gathered that he was the Beavis in charge of all the rest of the Buttheads. The big one got angry and charged at me like a bull and just before he could make impact, I sidestepped and ducked, finding myself back at the tree. He crashed into one of the walls and a large chunk of it crumbled into the abyss below.

  He turned his head and roared at me, making me shrug my shoulders at him before running to the other side of the tree. I was quickly grabbed from behind, making me drop my knife. Thankfully I just managed to grab a green glass teapot, and as I was pulled backwards I swung it round and smashed it across someone’s face. They howled in pain and I looked down as the handle was still in my bloody hand. A shard of glass had managed to slice me good right through the thin leather and near the thumb but the pain didn’t yet register. Thank the Heavens for adrenaline.

  The guy covered his eyes and I now realised it had been the ‘Arsenic’ teapot with vodka in…yep, that stuff would sting like a mother! I threw the handle at him and decided it worked once, so what the Hell. I reached inside and grabbed the one labelled ‘Toxic’ and hoped what it held was referring to the liquid inside.

  “Someone fucking get that girl!” The Beavis said again, this time in a clear rage. Good, bastards thought it easy, maybe if I could keep this up for a time longer then maybe Lucius would hear…which was when I wanted to bloody kick myself!

  So, just as another made a grab for me, I finally did something I should have done when Mr Charge and Grab had showed up over the wall. I filled my lungs and screamed loud enough Pip would have been proud.

  “AHHHHH! LUCIUS! HELP ME!!!!” Then I was grabbed, turned around and swiftly punched across the face, losing my unconventional weapon in the process. I swear I saw stars as pain exploded around one eye and all down one cheek. I slumped forward and was slung up over the shoulder of the biggest brute.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here
before the King turns up,” Mr Porn Star said, and I could briefly make out him shaking the blood off his hand that was running down his fingers in little streams thanks to my attack.