by Tara Brown
Vengeance
The Blood Trail Chronicles
A Novel by Tara Brown writing as AE Watson
Copyright 2012 Tara Brown
http://TaraBrown22.blogspot.com
Amazon Edition
This ebook is a work of fiction and is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. No alteration or copying of content are permitted. This book is a work of the author’s crazy mind—any similarities are coincidental. Any similarities are by chance and not intentional.
Cover Art by KC Designs
Edited by Andrea Burns
Other Books by Tara Brown writing as
TL Brown, AE Watson, Erin Leigh, and Sophie Starr
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Hyde
Witch
Death
Blackwater
Midnight Coven
Redeemers
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
Imaginations
Imaginations
Duplicities
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
Vanquished
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
The End of You – A Novella
Blood and Bone
Blood and Bone
Sin and Swoon
My Side
The Long Way Home
The Lonely
LOST BOY
First Kiss
Sunder
In the Fading Light
For Love or Money
White Girl Problems
The Seventh Day
The Club
Sinderella
A man once told me, “There are infinite places love will take you, but revenge is the business of hate, and there is only one place hate will take you—the end. The end of you and the end of everything you once stood for.”
He was my teacher and the bravest man I ever knew. His words still echo in my mind, next to the images of the millions of places I might have gone.
Chapter One
The beginning of the end is always a day or a moment that is burned into your mind forever. Nothing about it is fair or just, and only when you step away from it can you see what the intentions of everyone involved were.
To start at the beginning of the end, I must go back further. I must go back to the time before.
The time when my family was happy—as happy as we could be, we just didn’t know it then.
I was ten years old, fourth child of four, and the only daughter. With three older brothers, very little was expected of me. This allowed room for the type of childhood girls only dreamt of. One filled with adventure. Every day was spent climbing the castle, running in the fields, training to fight with the guards, and riding with the stable hands. I was covered from head to toe in things my maids would later chastise me for. Things that required extra soap and harsher scrubbing, though they seemed up to the task.
My fingers were calloused and my hair was ratty, and often I was mistaken as the daughter of a pauper and not the princess I was. But that also afforded me peace my rank and station in life should not have. There was bliss in living a life where no one expected you to do anything.
My brothers learned about the things outside of our small country, and I mastered the things and places inside it.
And it was in a moment such as that, a moment of adventure and poor behavior, that it all happened. The world changed right before my eyes. I remember the day clearly that was the beginning of the end.
I just never knew it then.
It was a warm afternoon, one I wished to be spending out of doors but was stuck inside, again. My father had forgotten my birthday—my tenth birthday—and my mother was angry with him for that and took it out on me. It started because the guest list wasn't what she would have expected for a princess’ birthday, as if I somehow controlled who she was able to invite last minute. The half-hatched party wasn't coming together well as my father had taken to hunting the day away and thus shirking his daughter’s birthday.
Next, she attacked me for ripping the costume of a gown she had forced the seamstress to make for me. I couldn’t run or climb, or even sit in it. It felt as though a snake squeezed my insides when I wore it. In fact, breathing was difficult. She ripped at my hair and scolded me, muttering terrible lies like, “It takes pain to be beautiful, Amillia.”
And rightfully so; when she wasn't in the bedchamber I climbed from the window of my locked room and slipped along the tiles carefully, always carefully.
Atop the roof the breeze was soft and warm. It felt like the perfect day to hide among the turrets and towers, forgetting my obligations. Forgetting my punishment of confinement to my room, until the blessed party.
I lay on my back and watched the soft fluffy clouds dance in the skies as if riding the winds. Shapes took form, making me smile as a cloud went from being a lump of fluff to a horse galloping across the sky. I wished every day that I could do the same: take on the form I wanted to be and not the one given to me just by being born.
The day felt like any other, which was how all my birthdays seemed. My mother would plan a ball, and my father would busy himself and focus on the wars encroaching on our borders or hunting, or anything other than me. My mother would be angry he had forgotten. Though I always suspected he hadn’t forgotten but had fled, as she was unusually sinister on my birthdays. The day would progress and end with my being stuffed into a dress and made to feel grateful for the efforts being put into my day.
It never felt like my day.
It felt like her day to prove to the world what fabulous parents they were and what wonderful royalty we all were. It never made much sense to me that parenting was less an act and more a display. What a happy family we were, when everyone was watching.
I rolled onto my belly and looked overtop the roof, down at the fields, and watched the soft breeze massage the tips of the wheat and grass. It moved with such skill, dancing and caressing.
The clouds in the far-off skyline were turning dark, almost as though the darkness chased the light that fled in the direction of our castle. Something in the distance moved with the clouds, a large bird perhaps. My curiosity piqued. I watched it grow bigger as it grew nearer, assuming it was a flock of birds going south for the winter. It dove and then rose again as though dodging an unknown enemy.
My eyes narrowed and attempted to focus at the same time that my brain tried to reason with the image it was seeing.
What I saw was not only incredible, but also impossible.
Instead of a flock of birds, there was only one, a large one.
A bird bigger than any I had even heard about, except in legends, was flying toward me. It flew as though wounded or losing its balance in the air. It was burnt orange, almost reddish in color, and beyond anything I'd ever seen. It seemed to be coming directly for me.
Nerves filled my belly as I watched it.
Something about it made me uneasy, like it wasn't something I should have seen. I pulled my cloak up over my head and let myself slip down the rooftop a tiny bit, h
iding every part of me except my eyes, which stuck out over the top, peeking at the thing I didn't believe in.
I felt something picking at me, making parts of me numb as others tingled with something—fear. For the first time in my young life, I was afraid.
The sky changed in front of me, ushering in a storm and the warm winds fled, leaving behind intensely cold air.
I shivered, gripping to the cool tiles of the rooftop as I watched the creature that was so large it blocked out the sun. But as the brightness of the day was taken, I noticed the animal held an object in its giant scaled talons.
There was smoke coming from the huge creature as it drew nearer. Its reddish-orange body was unmistakable but my mind refused to believe.
Snorts and grunts gasped from its huge nostrils. I could feel the heat from it as it lowered itself almost on top of me. Hot wind splashed over me in ripples as it beat its massive wings over my body.
I trembled so hard that a tile broke loose from the roof. I tried to hold it with my foot, but my trembling gave way and it slid down, scratching and clanking its way down the huge long peak. The great beast locked eyes with me.
Its fire-red eyes swirled with flames. I had a terrible feeling it was also capable of breathing out said flames and killing me. It was a creature of legends, so old not even the dead believed it possible. Yet, there it was, flying above me. Its eyes looked tired and weak, and for a moment I swore I saw a plea in its vast stare. I felt a morsel of pity trickle through my rapidly beating heart.
A blackish liquid dripped from its side. It was wounded badly. I looked to the thing in its talons and frowned, wondering what it all meant. From a distance it had been hard to comprehend the thing it held, but up close it looked to be a huge black boulder.
I peered back at the face of the beast. It still had its eyes locked on mine, like it was searching me for something. I tore my gaze from it and looked back at the quivering talons, knowing the creature couldn't hold it any longer.
Surely as I had guessed it would, it dropped the black rock and let it roll down into the small valley at the base of three of the peaks. The huge beast watched the boulder for one more second before turning away in the air. It flew out over the wheat and grass, back toward the darkening sky. It looked as though it battled the winds and then dove hard into the dark storm brewing on the edge of our fields. Horror and pain filled me as it crashed into the wheat, skidding across the field.
The darkness of the skies attacked the spot where it lay. My hand shot up to my mouth as tears filled my eyes, and I watched the poor beast let out one last cry as the darkest of the black cloud covered it. When the cry ended, the evil cloud lifted and the creature turned to ash before my very eyes.
I was mesmerized. Twice I pinched my arm, certain I was daydreaming again but the reality of the sadness I felt was too harsh. I swallowed hard, watching as the ash floated away in the soft breeze.
I knew I had truly witnessed the strangest of miracles.
I wiped my tears and looked back at the strange black boulder nestled at the bottom of the pitched roofs. It was a strange thing for a dying dragon to leave at a castle.
I rolled onto my back and lifted my feet so I could slide down the roof, stopping a safe distance from the mysterious rock. After a moment of bravery or stupidity I took a step toward it, immediately noticing heat emanating from it. Gingerly, but with not nearly as much fear as I should have had, I put a hand out. As I made contact, searing pain ripped through my fingers. I pulled it away, shocked and whimpering from the burns on my fingertips. The lump of coal was as hot as the liquid metal in the smithy.
My body shivered from the strange feeling in the air. When I glanced up I noticed the black clouds were upon the castle, bringing the storm to us. They seemed to be moving as though searching, like hunting-dog sniffing. I couldn’t say if it was from the bizarre feeling in the wind or watching the dark cloud attack the beast, but I had the strangest of inclinations. I pulled my cloak off and covered the huge boulder. My dark-blue cloak, which I had made to match the rooftops, fizzled as it touched the hot rock. I stepped back and watched as the fabric melted into the rock and did the most remarkable thing. The lump of coal absorbed my cloak, changing its color until it too matched the rooftop.
I shivered and watched the dark cloud moving as no other cloud had ever done. I was certain of that.
I had the most incredible urge to run but felt odd abandoning the rock. The cloak and the deep valley between the roofs made me think the rock would be safer than I was, standing on a rooftop in a storm, wearing a bright white shirt.
I wanted so badly to touch the rock again, even though it would singe me, but the clouds drawing nearer chased away the idea.
I offered the blue rock a silent wave and ran just as the cloud pushed its way up the field, toward the castle. I jumped the ledges and slid along the rooftops until reaching the balcony of my room. I hopped down and climbed in the huge window, closing the glass panes while attempting to get my breathing under control. Never had I been as terrified as I was in that moment. Terrified and exhilarated.
I stood at the glass and watched the dark cloud cover our castle and then the village. It felt evil the way it slithered and crept, like no cloud ever had before. I was certain of the validity of the fear I had felt, seeing it kill the dragon. It had to have been a type of evil magic, something cowardly that would be used to kill a beast of such magnificence.
Chapter Two
The party was dull enough that I was unable to escape it. I did attempt it twice and both times was dragged back to my post, smiling and curtsying.
But my curious mind never left the black boulder. I shook hands and tried my best not to cry when my blisters were squeezed.
I laughed at simple jokes told to me as though I were an infant.
And I slept when tucked into bed by my handmaidens.
When I woke the next morning I was devastated at having slept through the night. My plans of sleeping alongside the rock had been destroyed by exhaustion and incessant maids.
Instead of a sunrise wake-up on the rooftop, I woke seeing the light and groaned. In my bedclothes, I ran to the balcony and leapt onto the roof to start my trek to the rock. When I arrived the cold morning air made steam appear around it.
It took my breath away just to see it.
Thankfully, it still matched the roof so well that had it not been for the steam, it might have taken me a moment to spot it.
I shivered as I neared it. The heat from it made me feel comfy, even in the misty morning air.
I decided then that I would be its protector. It must have been a great treasure for a dragon to protect it and then hide it here.
And so I sat.
A fortnight passed and my position hardly changed. I went for provisions and ablutions and very little else. I talked to it, read to it, and sometimes just watched it. But to my disappointment the rock never changed. I would swear it had grown slightly. It was just bigger than I was.
The day that everything changed was not remarkable in any other way. I woke next to the boulder. My shoulder was singed through my sweater. I winced and moved away from it. The metal was warm from the heat of it, and so I curled into a ball and closed my eyes again. It was not quite dawn's first light.
In the silence of the dark morning air I heard something—a crack. I opened one eye but saw nothing. I closed my eyes again until I heard another. Terror started to tiptoe through me, and when I opened my eyes again I gasped, seeing the boulder trembling like it was skin overtop of something trying to come free.
I was not a foolish child. I had suspicions about the hot rock being an egg when its heat lasted the fortnight, but as the shell cracked I still was shocked. I couldn’t tear my gaze from the quaking surface or the loud noises ripping from it.
A large thick chunk broke free. The huge thick hunk of shell looked like old lava rock the mountain people brought to our markets to sell. As it hit the air, it turned to ash and blew from the
roof.
Nervously, I peered into the hole it had made. Steam was pouring from it so thick that I couldn’t see properly until something in the steam moved. I held my breath as a tiny dark-orange talon with little black claws stuck out of the egg. A noise came from inside.
The problem with being an adventurous child is the lack of common sense and fear.
I was beyond excited as the little burnt-orange monster clawed its way from the black hole. The thick egg chunks broke into many pieces, all of which turned to ash and blew away. It was as if the little beast had its own magic.
It emerged from the steam and ash looking like nothing more than a painted toy. It was hardly bigger than a pup, and its beady green eyes were too shiny to be real. He had glittery orange scales and a sharp little beak. And the oddest part were the eyelashes that he peered through up at me. They seemed like they belonged on a person, not a creature, and added some sort of character to his face.
My bravery had foolish moments, one of them being when I reached for its little face. It snapped at me, nearly taking my hand off. I pulled back, but after a moment put my hand out again. It yawned and blinked its little green eyes at me. He took a tiny step, making little clicks with his talons against the tiled roof.
If ever there was love at first sight, that was it.
"Artan," I whispered to him. In my grandmother's language, it meant stone.
When my hand made contact, the strangest of things occurred. There was a burning sensation. It was sharp at first and then it mellowed into a buzz. A buzz I would forever feel when I touched him.
His hard dark-orange scales felt velvety and his warmth made my entire body tingle. It was like sitting by a fire and having the heat permeate all the way through you.
He smacked his dragon beak and gave me a needy look. I'd seen it before on the hounds when breakfast was skipped.
