Eternal Reign (Age of Vampires Book 1)

by Caroline Peckham

  As we approached the little building, we started gathering firewood to see us through the night. The silence was tense between us as Magnar refused to discuss whatever was on his mind and I grew more irritated by having to wait for answers.

  Eventually we made it to the building and headed inside. Everything was covered in a layer of dust but other than that, it was comfortable enough. There was a small fireplace in the living area and Magnar left me to build the fire while he headed back outside to place wards by all of the entrances to keep the vampires away.

  While I waited for him, I searched the tiny kitchen and found a few cans of sweetcorn and kidney beans as well as a sealed bag of breakfast cereal which didn’t even taste stale. I heated the beans and corn over the fire in an attempt to make them more appetising and dished them up with the cereal to create a strange but perfectly edible meal.

  Magnar reappeared and accepted his meal with a nod of thanks. I waited for him to finish eating it but when he still didn’t start talking, I cracked.

  “Are you going to explain what this means then?” I asked, shoving my shirt sleeve up and brandishing the mark at him, fearing he might deny it was there if I didn’t prove it.

  In response, Magnar pulled his jerkin over his head and held his own arm out to show me. On his inner forearm, the exact same mark stood out against his skin. His was pale, almost silver like an old scar with a touch of something more powerful to it.

  “This is a slayer’s mark,” he said slowly, giving me a moment to absorb his words.

  “You mean I... you...” I frowned at the mark on my arm. Apart from its pink appearance it was an exact twin to the one on his skin. “But how? I mean my dad is just... Dad. And Mom never even tried to fight back against the vampires. Not even when she was dying and they came for her. Neither of them were secret vampire hunters-”

  “You have slayer blood running in your veins from one parent or another. They probably never even knew they had it. Not everyone with our blood chooses to join the order. Some natural born slayers left us and married humans, had normal lives. You are most likely descended from one of those. But for your mark to have awakened, the call of it must be strong in your blood.”

  “I felt a pain in my arm right after I killed that vampire who was trying to catch me,” I said, remembering the searing burn. At the time I hadn’t been able to spare it any attention and afterwards so much had been going on that it was driven from my mind entirely.

  “Embracing your slayer nature awakened some of your gifts.”

  “Gifts?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about finding out that my blood was different from other people’s but I couldn’t deny the spark of excitement it ignited. If I was even the smallest bit like Magnar then I might have a chance to fight back against the vampires. It could be enough to get my family safely away from them.

  “To some degree, each generation of slayer passes on their own knowledge and training to the next via their blood. If you train, you will feel things that you haven’t been taught yourself. Your senses will heighten, your reactions will get faster and once you learn to trust the instincts of your ancestors you will be able to fight the vampires as an equal.” His gaze burned with purpose and I could tell that he was hoping I would embrace this part of me.

  “You say if I train?” I asked carefully.

  “To some degree this gift is yours whether you embrace your calling or not. I can help you learn to use it and you will be stronger for it. But I cannot train you fully unless you decide to take the vow. The true extent of your gifts will not be realised until then.”

  “Vow?” My voice was low and my mind whirled with the strange possibilities that were suddenly before me.

  “If you choose to embrace your slayer nature, you will have to take a vow to place the destruction of the vampires above all else. Your life’s purpose will be to bring them down and destroy them. That is not something to choose lightly. There are repercussions; you may not be able to choose your own husband or make your own decisions on having children. You may be forced to sacrifice your own life or that of others for the sake of the cause.”

  “I don’t want a husband anyway and I definitely don’t want children,” I said firmly. The sacrificing myself part I wasn’t so sure on.

  Magnar sighed and looked away from me into the fire. “You might not be able to choose not to have them either. If the cause demands you take a husband and produce more children to inherit the gift then you would be obligated to do it.”

  “The cause? Aren’t you the cause? I mean, it doesn’t seem like there are any other slayers left so I’m guessing those decisions would be down to you.”

  Magnar shrugged. “The runes still hold power. It is possible there are more of us out there. The gods may decide to speak to us and tell us their wishes. Or a prophecy might come to light which demands such things of you. Or of us.”

  “Us?” I stared at him for several seconds before realising what he was implying. We might have been the only two slayers in existence so if some prophecy demanded slayer babies... I got to my feet quickly and walked away from him to stand by the small window which looked back towards the stream. “No way. I’m not some hapless fool you can use to have little vampire-killing offspring with.

  Besides, doesn’t this mean you might be my great great great great grandad or whatever?” I shook my head. “I’ve had more than enough of being told how I’m going to live my life. Twenty-one years in a prison is more than enough, it’s too much in fact. From here on out I’ll be making my own decisions and no prophecy or vampire or any other supernatural bullshit is going to decide for me.” My chest heaved with the sudden onslaught of emotion and I shook my head in anger.

  Magnar looked at me curiously, the light of the fire sending shadows dancing across his bare chest and making some of his scars stand out fiercely.

  “I didn’t mean us like that,” he said and a trace of irritation flitted across his face. “If I take on your training then no such thing could ever take place between us anyway. So your disgust at the idea is unwarranted.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. I hadn’t meant it like that. It wasn’t that the idea of me and him was the problem, it was the fact that I might not get to choose it for myself. Who would want to be with someone without making the decision to do so of their own free will? Before I could think of the right way to correct his misunderstanding, Magnar stood.

  “I’m going to check the wards again. We both have a lot to think on.” He headed out of the small room and I watched him go without saying another word.

  Nice work Callie.

  Guilt tugged at me but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about it. All Magnar wanted was to find some of his kin and now I was standing right before him, telling him I didn’t want to be one of them. Or was I? The thought of having even a fraction of his gifts definitely called to me but the trade-off against my own free will felt like such a high price to pay.

  I’d only held freedom in my hands for a matter of days and now I was being asked to consider enslaving myself to some cause for the rest of my life?

  No way.

  I moved towards the fire and sank down before it, letting the heat of the flames warm me as I turned everything over in my mind. A faint whispering echoed at the edge of my thoughts and my hand drifted to the blade at my hip.

  Fury sighed in satisfaction as I gripped its hilt. Perhaps I wasn’t going mad after all. Maybe the things I felt from the blade had something to do with the slayer blood that coursed through my veins. Magnar said that everything innate in my blood came from the memories of my ancestors so perhaps the blade could help me to understand that.

  I concentrated on the feeling of the blade in my hand as I placed it across my lap and closed my eyes. Show me, I asked it, wondering if I really was going insane.

  The blade grew hot beneath my fingers and I could feel its eagerness to share its life with me. Images started to flash through my mind of people wielding Fury before me
. I was a man creeping through a dark cave. A dark-skinned woman fighting with my back against a wall while more vampires than I could put a number to came at me. A child learning to hunt in a forest. An old woman defending her grandchildren from a hungry wolf.

  More images than I could count. More people than I would have thought possible. Year after year, the blade passed from hand to hand. I felt its love for those who’d wielded it, its hate for the vampires it vanquished. And somehow they were all a part of me and yet not me at all.

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, watching as my ancestors fought and died. Loved and lived and passed the blade on through the generations.

  My palms felt cold and it took me a moment to realise Fury was no longer in my grasp. I fluttered my eyes open in confusion and found Magnar kneeling before me.

  What the hell was that?

  He was staring into my eyes with a fierce intensity. “What did you see?” he demanded.

  “Everything, everyone who came before me.” I frowned, unsure of how else to describe it.

  “You’re sure it was before?” he asked. “It wasn’t still to come?”

  “No. It was definitely before.” I knew that deep within me.

  He reached out and took my hand in his. “You’re freezing,” he said irritably. “You went too deep.” He released me and moved to grab his cloak from the back of the moth-eaten sofa before draping it around me. He left his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to lend me some of his warmth.

  “Too deep?” I shook my head as my mind returned sluggishly to the present. I turned to look at him, his face just inches from mine and he stilled under my scrutiny. “You shaved.” There was still stubble lining his jaw but the beard was gone.

  He sighed and released me, shifting away a little and leaning towards the fire. “The beard was irritating me,” he replied vaguely.

  I watched him as he worked on building the fire back up. Without the beard he looked younger than I’d presumed before. His face seemed a little softer too and I could see more of his strong jaw. I wondered how old he really was. Not counting the thousand years he’d spent asleep.

  “How old are you, were you… you know what I mean…”

  His mouth twitched in amusement. “Discounting the thousand years I spent in an unageing slumber? I lived twenty seven years with my kin and spent ten of those as an Earl hunting the Belvederes to the ends of the earth.”

  I nodded, trying to pretend I knew what he meant by that. I was pretty sure being an Earl meant that he’d been a leader. He was certainly bossy enough for me to believe he was used to being in charge of people.

  When he was satisfied with the fire, Magnar turned his gaze back on me and the heat in it made me squirm internally.

  “If you are not too tired, I would like to try something,” he said seriously.

  “Okay,” I said in response, unable to turn away from him.

  He leant around me and I froze as he drew close enough to touch me but instead, he pulled one of the long blades he usually wore across his back into his lap.

  “You can feel a connection with Fury. I want you to see what you can feel with this.” He held the heavy weapon out to me and I eyed it nervously. I could already feel the energy pouring off of it. Fury was a much smaller blade and its power almost overwhelmed me. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I accepted that weapon.

  I licked my lips and cautiously held out my hands, palms up. Magnar lowered his blade onto them and the solid weight of it took me by surprise. I had no idea how he managed to wield such heavy weapons with the speed he did.

  The sword didn’t sing to me like Fury did. Its response was sluggish and resistant. I ran my fingers across the runes carved into the hilt, trying to feel more from it.

  “Tempest,” I breathed, though the name hadn’t come to me willingly.

  I urged the blade to show me more but it resisted. The power in it felt dark and roiling, waiting to be released. As I pushed harder, it finally showed me a few scraps.

  I was Magnar, fighting shoulder to shoulder with many men and women dressed like gladiators. We cut through vampires like they were blades of grass.

  Everything around me shifted but I was still Magnar, back to back with a man I knew was his brother as we faced a cavern filled with vampires. Outnumbered but not outmatched.

  I saw him hunting a raven-haired male vampire across the land and sea, his heart aching for vengeance as grief for his father drove him on. His thirst for that vampire’s death motivated him like nothing else. I tried to push for more information on his identity but the blade drew me away.

  I was Magnar decapitating the red-headed vampire who had come for me after my dad and Montana were captured. I saw myself through his eyes as I stared up at him in gratitude and fear. He felt an overwhelming urge to protect me but I couldn’t tell why.

  Magnar pulled the blade from my grasp. “Well?”

  “Tempest,” I said again, clearing my throat before I continued. “I think that blade is a lot more loyal to you than Fury is. It didn’t want to show me anything and all I did see was you.”

  He nodded. “Fury was given to me as a gift by the leader of the Clan of Dreams. It was forged to be wielded by those of their bloodline and has never connected to me as it has to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That I’m not your great great grandfather, though I could have told you that myself as I neither married nor had children before I slept,” he replied with half a smile. “Your bloodline is of the Clan of Dreams. I am of the Clan of War.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course you are.”

  He smirked in response. “You do not have to be afraid of this part of yourself. And don’t think about the vow for now. I have never known someone to find out about their blood right at your age. Our children always knew what they were. They knew they could take the vow when they turned eighteen and had all of that time to make their decision. You should feel no pressure either way. It is a decision you must come to on your own.”

  “Thank you.” I reached out and took his hand for a moment and he looked down at the point where our skin met.

  The fresh cut on his arm already looked like it had half healed and I frowned as I pointed it out. “Didn’t you get that yesterday?” I asked, pulling my other hand out of his.

  He looked at the long wound and grunted dismissively. “It was a clean cut. It will heal well.”

  “But it already looks like it’s a week old,” I insisted.

  “Those of my clan’s bloodline heal faster than most mortals. Injury is a peril of war.”

  “Right.” My head was starting to feel fuzzy with all of the information he was putting on me. “Today has been... a lot to take in.”

  “Sleep. Let your mind and body rest. We can talk more on it tomorrow.”

  I wanted to protest and ask him another of the thousand questions which were racing through my mind but exhaustion tugged at me. I settled myself down in front of the fire and let my eyes fall shut.

  Despite all of the concerns being a slayer raised, I could be sure of one thing. It could only help me when it came to getting Dad and Montana out of the blood bank and that was really all that mattered.

  When I woke, I found a long white dress waiting for me laid across the velvet chair. A hand-written note from Erik was attached to it. My dad had tried to teach Callie and I to read, but I'd always been better at it than her. I still struggled to decipher Erik’s curling handwriting, but eventually managed it.

  If you're not wearing this by the time I knock on your door this morning, you're going to meet my angry side. And no, you haven't met him yet.

  Your humble ruler, Count Erik.

  God, I hated him. It writhed in me like a living thing. I'd always hated the vampires, but this was personal.