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Over three-hundred-years-old, I’d seen some of the most incredible things come to life in this world, and no other creature on earth took things for granted the way that humans did. As someone who’d had to experience what it was like to live without something as basic as a septic system, I appreciated every new invention, every new advancement in technology, every new civil rights movement, every new anything. My assessment of the world around me was why Brander kept insisting that I was born to lead. He claimed that my ability to see and appreciate the bigger picture was a common trait in all good leaders, though I wasn’t so sure about that.
Though I was mentally three-hundred-years-old, biologically, I was only twenty-five. Brander Thorne had changed me when I’d been teetering on the edge of old enough to know better, but still young enough not to care much. I’d been refusing to back down from a bunch of drunken thugs on the streets of London, and when they’d left me bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds, Brander had been lurking in the darkness, ready to finish me off, getting his fix of human blood.
Yeah, that’s not how things had ended up turning out.
According to Brander, there’d been something in my warm blood that had made him decide to change me, rather than kill me. Brander claimed that the copper taste of my blood had been laced with something stronger than life, and three-hundred years later, I still had no idea what the hell he meant when he talked about that shit.
Now, up until Brander Thorne had come into my life, like any sane person, I hadn’t believed in vampires. While I had believed in monsters and spiritual possibilities, I hadn’t believed in vampires or any of that nonsense. The monsters that I had believed in had been of the human variety. Human beings were the vilest creatures in existence, and the fact that they didn’t think that they were was what made them all that much more dangerous. Ignorance gave them a license to ruin the world around them, and they didn’t even know it.
Believe it or not, with my stubborn disposition, it had taken me a full two months before accepting my new fate. It had taken two months of Brander holding me prisoner and feeding me regularly before finally coming to terms with the fact that vampires truly did exist, and that I was now one of them. It’d been enough to send a person insane, and it happened more often than not.
There were also all the myths-some ridiculous, some not-about vampires and what we were all about. The whole mirror thing wasn’t true. Though we might be missing a conventional heartbeat, we were still made up of solid mass; we still existed. There was no way that a mirror would not reflect us, considering that we weren’t invisible.
Garlic was another one of the ridiculous myths out there. I mean, seriously? Garlic? Why not pepper or cilantro? We were reputed to be soulless killing machines, but garlic was one of the things that could bring us down? An herb? Really?
A stake to the heart was another stretch of the imagination. Since we didn’t possess traditional hearts, stabbing us in the chest wasn’t going to slow us down any. Unlike human beings, our hearts weren’t our life’s source. They didn’t pump warm blood to all our necessary organs to keep us alive. Our hearts were just a basic biological makeup of our bodies like everything else. Our stomachs, intestines, livers, lungs, etc. existed because they’d all been a part of us when we’d been turned. However, unlike humans, if someone were to carve out my liver, I’d still continue to exist. Decapitation was the key if someone really wanted to kill one of us in a fight to the finish.
Coffins were also nothing but a Halloween accessory. Though the windows to my bedroom were blacked out with the most expensive and impenetrable insulation ever, I still slept in a regular bedroom on a regular bed. Granted, I ‘rested’ more than slept, but I still didn’t do it in a damn coffin. Maybe the vampires before me had felt it necessary, but it wasn’t necessary anymore.
As for holy water, that one was true up to a point. If the water was blessed by a man that was actually holy, then, yeah, that could be a problem for us. However, it was very rare to encounter a truly holy man. Since all priest, ministers, pastors, and supposed men of faith were human, they were just as flawed as everyone else. A pure heart was as holy as you could get, and there was a very large shortage of pure hearts on this earth.
A blessed crucifix fell into the same category as the holy water. Now, even blessed, you couldn’t ward us off by just aiming the damn thing at us. That was the ridiculous part of that myth. Blessed crosses didn’t radiate superpowers. They were still just inanimate objects, blessed or not. However, if you were to lay them upon our skin, our cold flesh would sizzle a bit.
Now, as for the perils of sunlight, that myth was one-hundred percent true and the biggest threat that we faced as a species. I had no idea what we’d ever done to offend the sun, but those were the facts. At over one-thousand-years-old, even Brander couldn’t tell me why the sun was our enemy. Artificial light was no problem, but the sun’s natural rays could end us. I had even argued against a candle’s flame not being a threat, so why was the sun a threat when it was reputed to be just one huge ball of fire, but Brander still hadn’t been able to give me a reason.
No onehad ever been able to explain it to me.
As for covens, that myth was also true, and we currently had three inhabiting the western region of the country. We didn’t concern ourselves with the covens on the other side of the country or in foreign lands because, for the most part, we respected each other’s claimed territories. As long as we were vulnerable to the sun, no one wanted to get caught. The last thing that any of us wanted was for the world to know that we existed. Just like humans would lose their minds to know that aliens from outer space actually existed, they’d come unhinged to discover that we were walking among them.
My coven was Noctis, and Brander Thorne was our…father, for lack of a better word. There were six of us ‘kids’ in total, and Brander had turned us all for his own personal reasons. My real parents had been Henry and Janet Dreven, but I could barely remember them anymore. Whenever I thought about them, they felt like a vague dream of sorts.
As for the other five members of our coven, there were three men and two women. Jaris Norrix was five-hundred-years-old, six-foot-three, Black with brown hair and dark brown eyes. Marcel Ruse was six-hundred-years-old, six-foot-one, Italian with brown hair and dark brown eyes. Leander Isaac was two-hundred-years-old, six-foot-two, Caucasian with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. Elissa Abby was one-hundred-years-old, five-foot-four, Caucasian with red hair and black eyes. Finally, Faine Rowena was three-hundred-years-old, five-foot-five, Caucasian with dark blonde hair and dark brown eyes. As for Brander Thorne, he was over one-thousand-years-old, six-foot-one, Caucasian with dark blonde hair and black eyes.
Now, while most vampires’ eyes changed color when turned, Leander’s eyes had been the only ones that hadn’t changed. While everyone else’s eyes ranged from dark brown to black, Leander’s were still a bright blue, which made me think that he’d be the one with the powerful blood, not me.
Though my eyes had been a bright green at one time, they were now a dark grey. I also had black hair, was six-foot-two, and since Brander had turned me while in my prime, I was very well built, eight-pack abs and everything. The others ranged in biological age, but no one had been over the age of thirty-five when Brander had turned them, so we were all fairly strong.
We also control the entire west region of the country, though there were only seven of us in total. The Tenebris Coven inhabited Montana through Iowa, The Diluculum Coven inhabited Colorado through Texas, and we inhabited Washington through Arizona. We all stayed in our respective territories, and it’d been a while since bad blood had erupted. However, that could be due to Brander being so diplomatically inclined. He was a great politician, and he seemed to get along well with Thorin Moldark and Phaeron Aurel, the leaders of the other two covens. Both were eight-hundred-years-old, so maybe that was why they let Brander run the tribunal; Brander was the oldest vampire out of all three covens.
Letting out a deep breath, I knew that I couldn’t put this…situation off any longer. Tonight was the night that my entire life was going to change-yet again-and twenty-five years later, I was still questioning why it had to be me. Nevertheless, I trusted Brander, and I had given my word to see this through, so there was no going back now. Besides, there was so much more at stake now.
In all honesty, I wasn’t really looking for a way out. Mora Kamra had grown up to become extraordinarily beautiful, and she had a body on her that made a man’s mouth water. The woman was sexy, curvy, soft, and she had a face that should be etched into existence for all eternity.
Now, while the myth of us not being able to procreate was true, our sexual appetites still existed, and they weren’t anything that could be satisfied by the weak. We were voracious when we found ourselves in a breeding frenzy, and Mora Kamra had a body that was made for my sexual stamina. In fact, everything about her had been designed specifically for me.
Luckily for me, she wasn’t going to have a choice with her life after tonight.
Chapter 2
Mora~
It was finally going to happen, and I could hardly sleep for it. It had taken me over two years to accumulate this vacation time, and I was going to take full advantage of it. I had everything planned, right down to the most irrelevant details, but that’s what happened when you were so excited about something. I had even debated what to pack for over two hours.
Though not very glamorous, I worked as a secretary for a very respectable law firm, and to say that the place was always busy was an understatement. Lawyers were a necessary evil, and they were always in high demand for something or another. While they did have their place in the world, it was just too easy to sue someone for anything these days, and the love of money being the root of all evil was the truest thing that I’d ever heard.
At any rate, working for Burleson, McCafferty, and Lancer wasn’t all bad. I had a great schedule of Monday through Friday, from eight to five with an hour lunch break. They also paid way over minimum wage, even at the secretary level. Plus, my employment package included great health benefits and vacation time each year once the hours had been accumulated. While I wasn’t changing the world by being a secretary, I was still proud of having a great job and proud of the life I led. I was also extremely grateful for everything that I had.
Luckily for me, I’d been fostered by a great couple that hadn’t just wanted that government check. Kyle and Wendy Kamra had been great parents, eventually adopting me when I’d been around six. I’d been placed with them at birth, my birth mother having dropped me off at one of those safe haven fire stations. She’d been decent enough to leave my medical records, but that’d been it. She had dropped me off, then had disappeared for whatever reason.
