AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Leave him alone, Rosamunde! The vampire is mine.”
Stone’s mind cleared just enough to feel Margetta’s battle power strike Rosamunde, while she clung to his back. She had to be in enormous pain, but still she held on. Don’t do this, Stone. Her telepathic voice sounded weak and she no longer spoke aloud at the same time.
Please, Stone. I love you so much and I want you to be the man, the vampire, you’ve always been, a man of service and honor. Margetta will use you and cast you aside.
He felt Margetta siphon a new stream of elf-lord power then ramp up her battle energy again.
When she fired, Rosamunde screamed then slid off his back, tumbling to the ground. He whirled and found her face down, burned all along one side of her body where Margetta’s power had struck.
The sight of her did something to him and the pleasure that clouded his mind began to dissipate. He dropped to his knees and touched her shoulder. He let his own healing energy flow, but even amplified by the elf-lord power, it wouldn’t be enough to restore her.
W
hat was he doing here?
He saw the silver glow coming off his arms. Margetta was with him. She was flooding him with the elf-lord energy so that his mind had begun transforming and not in a good way. He was in severe danger of becoming an elf-lord.
He looked back at the Ancient Fae. “She’ll die if she doesn’t get help.”
Rosamunde didn’t have to come back to the garden, to throw herself on him, to try to stop him from this madness. Rosamunde was the one who had sacrificed for a thousand years, not Stone. He’d served, but she’d lived in Ferrenden Peace, a life so solitary he didn’t know why she hadn’t lost her mind centuries ago.
“Let her be, Stone. She’s nothing to us.”
“She doesn’t deserve to die.”
“There are many tragedies in a war. My niece has always chosen the wrong side. Your parents didn’t need to die. If Rosamunde had just contacted anyone in your realm, I would have aborted the mission. She’s the cause of your parents’ deaths, not me. You need to remember that.”
He felt the Ancient Fae’s hand on his shoulder once more and again, the elf-lord power flowed. He understood now why the original elf-lords had succumbed. Worse, he didn’t know how to resist the pleasure that flooded his mind.
But what had Vojalie said to him? Embrace the power of love.
Though the seductive nature of the elf-lord power worked in every part of his being, he forced himself to remember all the evil Margetta had spread throughout the Nine Realms for the past millennium. For as long as he could remember, the Invictus – her creation – had terrorized his world. Had his people ever known a moment’s peace because this woman was intent on conquering the Nine Realms?
Margetta had killed Rosamunde’s mother, which in turn forced Rosamunde to spend centuries sustaining a veil of mist that would prevent the very thing Stone had just brought down on the Nine Realms. And he’d done it because he was stubborn, arrogant and impulsive.
Margetta now had her own, permanent access to the elf-lord power. She’d created a path to Ferrenden Peace through which she’d be able to return at will and take from the infinite source. She might even, as Rosamunde could, access the power from all other parts of the Nine Realms now that she’d established the connection.
Despite how strongly the elf-lord power called to him, he chose in that moment to follow Vojalie’s path.
He reached deep inside himself and found love, a very deep permanent love that Margetta could never understand. He loved the Nine Realms. He loved his world. He loved the realm-folk that he’d served from the time he could remember, even long before he joined the Tannisford Vampire Guard.
He also loved the woman lying at his feet, barely conscious, but shaking and moaning. She’d thrown herself on his back, knowing what she risked, to help him return to himself.
He turned toward Margetta. “I won’t go with you. I won’t embrace this horrendous power. I won’t become an elf-lord, or rule beside you. I’m staying here, with Rosamunde.” He drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders, ready to fall when she struck him down with her deadly battle energy. Enhanced as it was, he was no match for her.
Margetta’s beauty suddenly distorted as rage took her over. Her violet eyes turned black, her gold hair flew around in twisted writhing strands. She lifted both her hands, forming them into claws as she drew in the elf-lord power. Black and gold sparks flew from her fingertips.
Tonight, he would die.
His life rolled through his mind like a deck of cards flipped in his hands. He saw Davido sneaking into his room at night, talking to him, when he was very young. Davido had always been there. He saw his wonderful troll parents who had loved him like their own and who had rebuilt their house at least three times to accommodate his enormous size compared to their five-three heights. He saw the first wraith-pair he ever fought. He’d only been fifteen, but he’d had all this ability from the time he could remember. He saw his first few weeks in the Vampire Guard and how much he loved being among a band of warriors, of like spirits and minds.
On the brisk memories flowed, of the various women he’d loved at times, though his heart had always remained with the Guard and to his commitment to fight for his fellow realm-folk.
Images of his parent’s funeral pyre came next, of the depth and longevity of his grief. Then his rise to mastyr status came and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he surpassed the then ruling Mastyr of Tannisford. He’d spent the next several months searching out every corner of the realm to learn its geography. He visited every village in his spare hours, every town, every outlying farm.
He recalled the agony of the crippling stomach pain that accompanied mastyr level blood hunger, then most recently the arrival of Aralynn and the discovery she could ease that suffering because she was a blood rose.
Now he was here, with Aralynn as Rosamunde, lying on the ground behind him, moaning softly in her own dying pain.
