Blood Will Tell Part 21

But it wasn't the accent that got her. It was the strength of her need for their souls.

The further they drew away from them, the hunger lessened, but Eden swore under her breath.

"What?" Noah frowned, concern creasing his brows.

She scowled at his concern. "Darius woke up the beast.

Do you think it's safe to take another dose?"

Noah shrugged. "I suppose not."

"What the hel is he anyway?" she snapped, irritated. "I mean that energy... Jesus Christ, I've never felt anything like that in my life before." When he smirked, she exhaled wearily. "OK, just tel me, 'cause I'm sick of the cloak and dagger c.r.a.p."

"Fine." Noah grabbed her arm and opened the pa.s.senger side door of one of the cars. "Get in."

"Why?"

"Privacy."

Not real y wanting anything that amounted to privacy with Noah, but too d.a.m.n curious for her own good, Eden did as she was told. She waited impatiently for Noah to get into the car and then turned to him in exasperation. "Wel ?"

"Wel ," he began. "Darius is kind of different from us."

"Like how?"

He smirked again. That smirk was real y starting to drive her crazy. "There are some people who believe what I'm about to tel you is a legend. Others even believe Darius is dead because he's like a ghost among us..."

"And the truth?"

"What they believe is legend, is true."

"And what is that exactly, Mr 'Don't I know how to drag out a conversation with an unwil ing partic.i.p.ant'?"

Blood Past - Coming August 2011 Read a sample of Moon Spel : Part One in The Tale of Lunarmorte trilogy...

War The war had been raging for centuries; a war that breathed beneath human reality, lost in the labyrinth of their legends and folklore. It was a silent war of soundless screaming and invisible bloodshed.

And like many wars it was built upon a mindless prejudice.

The ancient Greeks had it right. They were not naive enough to believe they actual y had any control over their fate. No. They knew the G.o.ds control ed al . They didn't believe a good crop that year had anything to do with luck in a poorly cultivated land - no, it was Demeter who'd blessed their farm. They didn't believe that one man was far superior in battle than another, thus tipping the scales of a battle in their favour - no, it was just that Athena took a liking to him, and so aided the warrior. Yeah, the G.o.ds were capricious, unmerciful, loving, and selfish; there was nothing that contented them more than making the human world their chessboard and humans their own personal chess pieces.

They gloried in their own supremacy.

But one day... the G.o.ds of ancient felt a pierce in each of their hearts. It was the day humans, who had once been under their thral , who had loved them, and feared them, and prayed to them, turned their back upon the G.o.ds and their heart to a new one. As the centuries pa.s.sed the G.o.ds were no longer wors.h.i.+pped by any human, no longer feared, or loved, or prayed to. The barrier of s.p.a.ce that had al owed them to come down from their mountain, and interfere in the lives of humans strengthened as time forgot them. Indeed, their very existence would have been expunged from earth if not for their legacy: their children, the supernaturals of their own creation that stil looked to the heavens and believed in them. They are the children of Gaia: Mother of al the G.o.ds.

Her children were the culprits of the silent war waging beneath the humans' very noses.

On one side of the war were the true instigators, those who cal ed themselves the Midnight Coven: a community of magiks who believed above al in their own superiority.

Gaia, perhaps in her infinite wisdom, had long ago blessed a number of humans by al owing them a taste of her blood, so that as the years turned a generation of magiks arose; witches and warlocks with elemental power, a race of children who would forever pray to her, and through them time would never forget her. They believed, however, that those lesser supernatural beings were abominations not fit to live side by side with humans, much less themselves.

Their distaste for lykans (like me) and vampyres not only enraged those they sought to exterminate, but also their own kind: magiks who believed in the equality of the races.

We cal ourselves the Daylight Coven. You see, to our mind, Midnights hunted not abominations, but their own people, humans transformed and blessed by the G.o.ds, creatures descended from Gaia herself. This gaping split in beliefs between the dark and light Covens was shared by their contemporaries, the faeries of Hemera. As a primordial deity, the G.o.ddess of Daylight and Sun, her children were almost equals to that of Gaia's.

They were descendants of a young queen, who had sold her soul to her favourite G.o.ddess for the opportunity to take on the form of any living thing she wished, so that she would always know her enemies, and they would never know her. From her, to Hemera's delight, sprang a race of shapes.h.i.+fters who held the power to take on the appearance of anything born of nature. They're mischievous and tiring, but useful spies on either side of the war.

Hades, G.o.d of the Underworld (and grandson to Gaia), created a race of children familiar to humans within their folklore: vampyres. His children were the souls who pa.s.sed through the River Styx without tol , and whom Hades returned to earth to extort in blood, payment from those who dared to leave them to travel into the underworld without coin.

And the youngest of the children of the G.o.ds are the lykans: we are fierce, strong wolves consecrated with the power of regeneration. In the dying years of the ancient G.o.ds, Artemis, G.o.ddess of the Moon, the Hunt and of Beasts, was cal ed down to earth by the last human who prayed to her. His son was dying from his battle wounds, and Artemis in grat.i.tude for his loyalty, replaced his son's wasted heart with that of a wolf's. To her supreme pleasure, for she had always been a compet.i.tive G.o.ddess, her own race of children was born, and she too was remembered by us.

In the early years of our existence, we children of the G.o.ds, cousins, wandered the world of humans at peace with one another. But the ages pa.s.sed, and our forms changed - lykans producing lykans by humans, diluting the werewolf blood, and eventual y becoming a non-violent breed of our original selves.

In other words, this rational (most of the time), articulate lykanthrope narrator before you is an evolved version of my ancestors.

Anyway, because of the vengeance taken upon Hades for his kidnapping of her daughter Persephone, the G.o.ddess Demeter changed the course of the vampyres, blessing them with fertility and diluting their undead souls with the light of humanity, until eventual y adhering to the laws of the Daylight Coven, they withheld from kil ing humans.

The last century had seen calm before the storm. The Midnight Coven had dissipated into a mist, a near invisible layer of destruction that touched those who did not seek it.

We Daylights waited with bated breath, aware that our enemy had retired a fearsome aggressive strategy. The Dark Coven had become wary of the war spil ing over into the world of the humans, and instead had embraced a far more threatening silence.

But the attacks started.

The subtle desolation of individual supernaturals: communities of vampyres, and packs of lykans; packs like mine, who wanted nothing to do with the war and had lived in relative peace until that point.

Other than the faeries who share their beliefs, only the daemons, the beasts created from Midnights own magik, are al ied with the Dark Coven. The Daylight Coven, with her al ies of faeries, lykans and vampyres, could only hope to act fast enough to discover the target of the next Midnight attack in order to prepare the target for war.

Some supernaturals escaped disaster.

Others slipped through the cracks - targeted without warning, without preparation.

That's how the war stood.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Gaia, already grown weary of being cal ed down upon both sides of the war, had set her plan for its end in motion many generations before.

My pack, Pack Errante - untouched by the war, unpol uted by the world were pul ed into this chaos. My name is Lucien Lider. I am Alpha of Pack Errante and our story begins in 2010.

There we were going about our business, living in the world of humans, keeping our secret. Little did we know that from the heart of us, would spring the culmination of al Gaia's designs.

1 - Hidden Caia recognised his ruddy face and chocolate eyes from long ago memories; memories that poked and prodded her heart and set it racing, her ears burning hot with the sudden onslaught of blood rus.h.i.+ng to them.

Life was going to be very different from now on.

His dark eyes settled on her only companion these last ten years, Irini, and s.h.i.+fted from soft concern to steely determination.

"It's final y safe for you to return her, Irini." His gaze flickered back to Caia as if trying to gauge a reaction. He would get none.

Irini sagged down into the sofa beside her as her wide eyes flew to his face.

"Dimitri, please promise this is for real."

He smiled gently. "I know you have lived alone for a long time... but it's final y time to come home."

"What happened?" Irini breathed in disbelief.

Dimitri managed to fold his huge, muscular body into the smal armchair before them. He looked to be somewhere in his forties but she knew he must be much older than that.

He was an Elder after al .

"Lucien returned five years later to reclaim the pack." She looked to Irini and then to Dimitri. She had been seven when she was taken from the pack but she stil remembered Lucien, a young headstrong male, who had fal en out with his family and ran from the pack at seventeen. A year later, Lucien's father Albus, Pack Leader, had been kil ed by The Hunter.

Irini looked shocked at this news. "And the pack welcomed him with open arms?" She shook her head.

"After Albus' death, no one else tried to track The Hunter.

Everyone was far too caught up in who was going to be Pack Leader, what with Lucien being AWOL. Whilst you were stuck in this G.o.ddess-forsaken place under Marion's protection, we were trying to rea.s.semble our lives. Then Lucien returned. He didn't give us much of explanation...but he told us what he had been up to." Dimitri's eyes narrowed. "He kil ed The Hunter, Irini."

His eyes went to Caia as did Irini's. She was puzzled by their guarded looks.

Shouldn't they be happy? The Hunter had kil ed her father and mother and had wanted to murder her as wel . If it hadn't been for Irini taking her into isolation, The Hunter would have kil ed her. As it was, Albus, a beloved leader, was gone because of his determination to see herself and Irini returned to the pack. After al , her father had been Albus' greatest friend.

"I suppose that gained him his rightful place then?" Irini sneered.

Dimitri shook his head. "No. Magnus and I were wil ing to see him take up the mantle of Pack Leader-"

"How could you after-"

His hand came up between them shus.h.i.+ng her accusation. "Irini, he is extraordinary.

Everything his father was and more. He just ... needed time."

"Time?"

"Time." He sighed and then narrowed his eyes. "Of course there were others, some of the younger males who felt the need to chal enge him. We felt it only right that those who chal enged him were truly wil ing to risk everything for the mantle ..."

"A Lunarmorte?" Irini breathed.

He merely nodded.

She looked between the two of them again. Irini was somewhat closemouthed about the pack and their way of life, but this she had mentioned. Lunarmorte was an ancient ritual amongst their specific lykan pack, dating back to their Portuguese origins. If there was a break in the hereditary line of the pack, or a rebel rising within it, it fel to a Lunarmorte to determine the Pack Leader. It was fought during a ful moon and only happened once in a blue one.

"As you can imagine, in the end only one chal enged Lucien. Lucien kil ed him within seconds."

"Who?"

"Dermot."

Irini look unsurprised by this. "You sound admiring of Lucien. Am I to a.s.sume he has done wel as Pack Leader these last five years?"

Dimitri stood, towering over them, stating his authority physical y. "It was Lucien's idea to keep you here protected; there are stil some Midnight fol owers of The Hunter on the loose, and we had no way of knowing if they stil held plans for Caia." He nodded towards her, using her name for the first time, and drawing her back into the reality of what he was saying. "Instead he wanted to wait until we had built a safe new life."

"And I'm guessing you have now that you're here."

"Yes. Lucien has managed to integrate us into a good town. Al the families have good jobs. Lucien's got this furniture business going ..." He drifted off at the sour look that pa.s.sed over Irini's face.

"We've been left here for ten years, Dimitri."

"I know."

Irini shook her head in anger. "No! You don't know. I have been left here with Caia whilst my brother gal ivanted around G.o.ddess knows where - not al owed to come home for my father's funeral, not al owed to even speak one word to my mother!"

"Irini-"

"And now my brother just expects me to come home.

Like nothing happened? Like he didn't abandon us?

G.o.ddess-"

"Irini!" He growled, and Caia slid back in her seat. She had lived with Irini's tantrums for ten years. Not entirely sure how to deal with the behaviour she had merely listened as Irini hissed and snarled about her predicament. Apparently Dimitri didn't have the patience for it.

Irini's eyes had widened and she had shrunk closer to Caia.

"You would not even be able to return if it wasn't for Lucien. As soon as he learned of Albus' death he hunted The Hunter and he won. He did not send for you immediately because he wanted to make sure you had somewhere safe to come home to. And now you have."

"And if we don't want to?" She whispered, although Caia was sure she didn't real y mean it.

Dimitri glanced at Caia. "You must," he said, throwing Irini a meaningful look.

Irini now turned to her and reached for her hand. Clasping it she nodded in agreement.

"Do we leave now?" Caia enquired.

Dimitri looked at her, seeming startled. It was the first time she had spoken. "Yes," he eventual y acknowledged.

"Whilst you pack, I'l summon Marion so she can final y drop the protection spel from these many years past."

2 - The Unknown They travel ed by plane. Caia sat by Dimitri leaving Irini alone to her thoughts.

"You're apprehensive." Dimitri smiled kindly down at her.

She brushed her hair behind her ears so she could look up at him. Being so close to him she could smel his own individual brand of beautiful damp earth that identified him as a lykan. It brought with it unprepared for memories. In truth, she sighed inwardly, she had been so long without the pack that if it hadn't been for her weekly runs with Irini in her true form, she would have felt almost entirely human; a social y deficient human, but one nonetheless. Looking into Dimitri's eyes she saw blurry images of a life long gone, a life where she had felt a part of something. But it no longer existed, and now they just expected her to what... be one of them again? The pack didn't know her anymore, and she didn't know them.

"Of course," she muttered in reply to his question. "I'm the returning orphan who stole away a member of their pack."

He laughed. "Irini? She'l get over it."

"Real y? Because that's what lykans do, they get over it?"