by L A Kennedy
Table of Contents
Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Trademarks Acknowledgment
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Glossary of Terms
New Excerpt
About the Author
Publisher Page
Dark Amour
ISBN # 978-1-78651-034-1
©Copyright L.A. Kennedy 2016
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2016
Edited by Jamie D. Rose
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2016 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Simmering and a Sexometer of 1.
The Genesys Project
DARK AMOUR
L.A. Kennedy
Book two in the Genesys Project series
There’s war brewing and only one group of Slayers to protect their race. Their second-in-command must choose between the life he’d be forced to live and the life he’d kill for.
Something inhuman is taking out the upper crust of society, and it’s up to the Slayers to confront an evil so great that it threatens to destroy all they hold dear.
Blood Alley will earn its name, as the war between the Slayers and the Rancor Order spills from the trenches and onto the streets of Van City.
For Slayer Zylan, his demons haunt him as he comes face to face with his own personal hell. For ten years, Zylan—Zy to his friends—has been deep undercover infiltrating the Rancor Order.
Now, shoulder to shoulder with the Slayers, Zylan must choose between his birthright and his heart’s desire. He is forced to call in his one true love, his Fyrvor, Neri. He is given a taste of pleasure unlike anything he’s had before—until fate comes knocking on his door holding a blade.
You can’t run from fate. You can’t hide from the darkness.
Dedication
Dedicated to my mother… As the saying goes, you walked uphill, both ways, in hip-deep snow, with bags for shoes. That was your journey to make sure I succeeded and I know you’d have dug through hell with your bare hands and crawled through glass for me.
Thank you with so much love for being there to remove my self-doubt, and for each time you said, “You can be anything in life. I believe in you.” I can never repay you for all you have done. Thank you for encouraging my dreams and for always being there when I stumbled.
And for Van… To the academic, the brain, the Google master, the friend, the snack maker and the lover in you, thank you. For each time you looked up with a smile when I ranted about my characters, I appreciate those moments. Thank you for understanding I had to work on my last chapter and couldn’t dig myself out from behind my new creation. Thank you for making this as important to you as it is to me. While you have been along for my ride, I thank you for inviting me to be along for yours. It’s been one hell of a ride!
P.S. Don’t touch the chocolates on the fridge, I’ve “literally” staked claim!
Acknowledgments
With immense gratitude to Jamie Rose, my editor, slash coach, slash cheerleader. I could go on for hours here. You wear many hats with me. I can’t say enough about how amazing you are. I am blessed to have someone like you in my corner. Thank you for always having the time to answer my questions and guide me toward my dream.
A huge thank you to the rest of the team at TEG. You all blow me away. Emmy, your creativity is far more than I could have hoped for. I’d like to thank each and every one of you, but there are so many to list. I feel blessed to be able to say there are so many people on board with me. Thank you.
And a special thank you to my readers, my writer friends, and my family—both blood related and chosen. None of this would be possible without your support and encouragement. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Trademarks Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
The Merchant of Venice : William Shakespeare
The Art of War : Sun Tzu
Styrofoam: The Dow Chemical Company Corporation
iPod: Apple Inc.
MMA: Mixed Martial Arts LLC
454 SS: General Motors Inc.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1
Chapter One
Zylan-Nefarious Bloodletting must die.
Zylan—Zy to his friends—was born cursed and heir to the throne of Sola-Nosfer, a ruling Vampyre hamlet, the settlement of the upper crust of their society. He was the blood descendant of Rhival-Enmity Bloodletting and Vestal Virgyn Zylamon-Vhenom Bloodletting. They were the ruling king and queen for almost six hundred years.
Upon his birth, he was promised to the hand of Amity-Rhuin Blooddawn at the age of thirty. Amity was the blood descendant of Vhenom-Ash Blooddawn, High Councilman, and daughter of Ayla-Dhemise Blooddawn, Vestal Virgyn.
With his thirtieth birthday upon him, Zy needed to die his first death. It was law. It was to be celebrated with the Reaping. His people would come from around the world to watch him take his last breath as a Day Walkyr, his first life harvested for the betterment of his people and the continuation of his bloodline. Basically, he’d be held down and his throat slashed, while the uppity-ups drank wine and laughed full-bellied, pretentious laughs, lifting their glasses, spilling their wine, all in the name of some tradition that most of them couldn’t remember why they even celebrated. There would be free booze, free food and free access to royalty. That was all that mattered to them. Zy grimaced at the idea. Useless, each and every one of them.
Zy had left Sola-Nosfer at the age of twenty. He was granted ten years, less one day, to explore the outside world. Due to his childho
od training in the Vampyres’ version of The Art of War, the Netherworld had accepted him right away. He’d been put into the field within months, and he’d finally landed undercover with Cael and Riam. To him, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. With Cael and Riam, Zy finally felt at home, with a family who truly cared. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t as long-lasting as he would have hoped. He knew the drill. You can’t run from fate.
Day Walkyrs were called home the day before they turned thirty in preparation for the first death. Nothing says ‘welcome home’ like having your throat slashed.
To not return meant being banished from society for the rest of the Vampyre’s days and having a black smear placed upon that family name. Zylan would’ve been happy with being banished. But, in his case, he would have been hunted. It was absolute law for him to return to marry his promised one. The duty flowed through his veins, as it had done for his parents and their parents. Some traditions weren’t easily dismissed—not for him and not in his family.
Sitting in the corner of his bedroom on the floor, he held his invitation to the Reaping, his name listed as the one to be celebrated. In exactly three months, a blade would be dragged across his throat, his blood flowing into solid gold bowls and fed to the high born and patrician of his society. They’d toast his death with the very blood that kept his heart beating.
He’d met Amity-Rhuin Blooddawn once, if he could call it that. The day he was leaving Sola-Nosfer, she’d been there. He hadn’t stopped to talk to her, and he hadn’t bothered looking in her direction. He hadn’t wanted to marry her then, and those feelings hadn’t changed with time. With a taste of the outside world, he hated the idea more now than ever. How could he go back? How could he marry someone he didn’t love? How could he abandon his fellow Slayers?
With the invitation came a photo of Amity. He stared at the photo, finding himself glaring. He almost hated her in all her beauty and perfection. She was as beautiful as she should have been for the son of a king and queen. He knew her manners would be impeccable, and she would give appreciation for any verbal assault her husband would offer her. And she’d do it with a smile and not a tear in sight. She’d likely not know what the word ‘no’ was, as she was raised to be agreeable and free of complaint. She would be nothing like the spitfire and hellish women found in the clubs around Van City. Here they dressed in stilettos, wore an inch of makeup and had an attitude. The only silver lining? Amity wouldn’t be coked out of her skull or need to be shoulder-packed home, lost to drunken oblivion. In all honesty, Zy would sooner foot the bill for a coked-out bitch.
For Amity to fail was to sign her death certificate. She would be entombed with a small amount of food and water then left to die, unless the Orygin decided to save her, which he wouldn’t. He never did. It was his society’s way of putting the responsibility of her death onto someone else, someone their traditions said was untouchable, the Orygin. Amity would be dressed it up in a pretty dress and the act would be called something other than what it truly was—murder. Yep, these are my people, lost to their ignorant ways.
Amity would be like the rest of those promised to the royal born. She’d kowtow to her husband and thank him for any cruelties he saw fit to bestow upon her delicate body. Her breeding was exact. There would be no flaws. She’d come from a long line of Vestal Virgyns, and she would produce all female children to take their places within the Vestal Virgyn ranks, save one or two male children to carry on the family name. For every three females, a male child would be born. Most Vestal Virgyns did not produce more than eight children, if they weren’t killed by their husbands beforehand. But that didn’t matter. Zy didn’t want a single one with her, let alone eight. Eight little reminders of what he could have had, but he’d had to settle for.
Her skin was china doll white and flawless, and she had ice-blue eyes and white-blonde hair in waves to her hips. She had an ample bosom, small waist, long legs, and she was hairless everywhere but her head. The photo left nothing to the imagination. She stood nude, not being allowed to cover her body in any way. It is our way. She belonged to Zy, and she could hide nothing from him. It was more of an ownership than anything else. His people put more care into trading livestock than marriage.
Blood of my blood, blood of your blood, cemented an eight-hundred-year-old truce. Zylan’s father’s father had conquered the neighboring lands, and the practice remained. The neighboring council members now presided over one council. Zylan was to marry the most influential of them all, the daughter of the High Councilman.
He wished he was like Cael, the Aegys of the Slayers—their protector, leader and guardian of the newbies. Cael, of a lost family line, was free. Cael was adopted after damn near dying at the hands of his abusive parents. He’d been thrown away, left for dead. He was Vampyre, without any ties to the godforsaken society. Lucky him.
Zy opened the invitation, oddly careful not to rip the thick-papered envelope. The whitest of white—only the purest for his mother, a once-was Vestal Virgyn. Everything was perfect, as always. She didn’t sleep unless it was perfect. Perfect breeding wasn’t something a Vestal Virgyn outgrew.
Zylan pulled the blood-red card from the thick envelope, running his fingers over the embossed white lettering. He knew his mother had spent months, if not years, designing this card perfectly. It was who she was.
The Reaping
The Reaping Celebration of Prince Zylan-Nefarious Bloodletting
King Rhival-Enmity Bloodletting
and
Queen Zylamon-Vhenom Bloodletting
are proud to announce the Reaping of their son,
Prince Zylan-Nefarious Bloodletting
Date of birthing celebrated October nine in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-six.
Date of rebirthing to be celebrated on October nine in the year two thousand and sixteen.
Your presence is requested at midnight. We invite you to celebrate this new beginning.
Zylan cringed. He had fewer than ninety days until he’d drag his sorry ass back to his mother and father, back to a world he wanted nothing to do with. If he stayed with the Slayers, the king and queen—Ma and Pa—would kill him to remove the disgrace he would bring to his family. They would also kill everyone who harbored him. If he returned to Sola-Nosfer, he’d be forced to marry Amity, and he’d be forever stuck in a loveless marriage with a woman he knew he’d grow to hate even more. Amity wasn’t who Zylan wanted, and he’d hate her for it.
Sola-Nosfer wasn’t a bad place. It was what it represented that Zylan didn’t like. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, making a call he should have made nineteen years ago.
“Mother,” Zylan whispered.
“Zylan, it has been too long.” Her voice was void of emotion. His mother wasn’t created to allow emotion. She was created for one thing, birthing more royals and bowing when her mate, Zylan’s father, entered the room.
But Zy knew her. He knew her heart had skipped a beat with excitement to hear from her son. When he was a child and no one was looking, his mother would smile or cry or groan in frustration. She was—and always would be—more than her birth to Zylan.
“I’ve received the card,” Zylan spoke, his bones vibrating with the need to scream that he didn’t want to come back. He wanted to rant and rave, throw down the gauntlet, but he knew it was pointless.
“We look forward to your return. We all do. Your younger brother will return for the night. He, like you, has been gone for many years.”
Zylan sighed, trying to stifle it to keep his mother from hearing the sadness in his exhalation. Zylan had one younger brother, who was out exploring the world, and six older sisters, all Vestal Virgyns. He didn’t know who to pity more, the younger brother who would be yanked back, forced to give up everything and everyone—including any children he may have been foolish enough to produce out in the free world—or his sisters, who would be forced to marry into the highest of society, likely away from the family and home they knew, into
loveless marriages.
“You do not want to return, son of mine?” she asked in a monotone voice. Zylan knew his mother already had the answer. She was never the fool.
“No, I do not.” His answer was straight and to the point.
“You must. It is your duty. Amity is in waiting. She is to complete the Reaping the night before yours. She has committed her life to serving you.”
Zylan closed his eyes, praying he’d wake up and be someone else to find that this was all just one long fucking nightmare.
“I want to see her, here, before the Reaping. I want to know who I’m being forced to marry and produce heirs and more virgins with because of this barbaric and pointless tradition.”
His mother let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Son, you insult me with your words, for I once was a Vestal Virgyn. There is great honor in that role. We bring forth our most noble, our warriors, our most honorable. If not for me, you would not be here to offer such insults.”
Cursing himself, he apologized. “I’m not prepared for this, Mother. I’m sorry. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve only ever done right by me. It’s just difficult to give up my life.”
“I will send Amity to you at once. I believe you may be correct. Had I known your father and had been given time to love him, perhaps life would have been easier for both of us. It took many years for us to love each other. I wish you not to have that pain or suffering.”
“Pain and suffering… Isn’t that what we’re about? You could’ve fooled me.” He didn’t bother keeping his anger out of his comment.
