by Aja James
© Copyright by Aja James 2020
Dear Reader:
I hope you will enjoy the sixth installment of the Dark Ones saga on the following pages (Book #11 in Pure/ Dark Series). You will soon see that much more is yet to come.
Every story has many points of view, many different interpretations and versions of the truth. So what about the perspective from the Pure Ones’ POV? See how it all began in Book 1, Pure Healing, and meet Ramses for the first time (officially) in Book 4, Dark Pleasures.
Email me at [email protected] to find out more. And follow me on https://www.facebook.com/AjaJamesAuthor and https://aja-james.blog/. I will have free chapters, behind the scenes and other goodies on the Pure/ Dark Ones series.
I love hearing from you!
Enjoy!
Aja James
Contents
Glossary
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Other Books in the Pure/ Dark Ones series:
Glossary of Characters
Glossary
Blood-Contract: Contract by which a human Consents to surrender his/her blood (and sometimes soul) to a vampire for a promise in return that the vampire must fulfill. The vampire has the choice to accept or reject the Contract. Upon acceptance, he/she must fulfill the bargain or risk retribution from the unfulfilled human soul in the form of a curse. See also Consent.
Blooded Mate: the chosen partner for each Dark One. Once the Bond is formed between two Dark Ones, it cannot be broken unless a third party has prior claim of blood or flesh. The third party can elicit a Challenge to one of the Bonded Dark Ones to obtain rights to the other. The Challenge is fought to the death.
Save in the case of a successful Challenge, the Bond cannot be broken except through death. Attempts to break the Bond by one or the other Mate will end in death or madness or something worse, depending on the depth and strength of the Bond in question.
Blooded Mates do not need to take the blood and souls of others to survive. However, they must take blood and sex from each other on a regular basis, else they will weaken and eventually go mad and/or die.
The Chosen: royal guards of the New York-based Vampire King, Alend Ramses.
Consent: a human’s willing agreement to surrender his/her blood (and sometimes soul) to a vampire.
Cove: base of the New York-based vampire hive, with dominion over the New England territories in the U.S.
Dark Goddess: supernatural being who is credited with the creation of the Dark Ones. She is a deity to which Dark Ones pray. She is the twin sister of the Pure Ones’ Goddess. See also The Goddess.
Dark Laws: One, thou shalt protect the Universal Balance to which all souls contribute. Two, thou shalt maintain the secrecy of the Race. Three, thou shalt not take an innocent’s blood, life, or soul without Consent.
Dark One: supernatural being who prefers to live in the night and who gathers energy and prolongs his/her life by feeding off the blood, and sometimes souls, of others. Dark Ones are born, not made. Sometimes confused with the term vampire.
Decline: condition in which, or process of, a Pure-Ones’ life force depletes after he/she Falls in love but does not receive equal love in return. The Pure One weakens and his/her body slowly, painfully breaks down over the course of thirty days, leading ultimately to death unless his/her love is returned in equal measure.
Ecliptic Scrolls: events past, recorded by the Keeper of the Dark Ones.
Ecliptic Prophesies: events in the future as foretold by the Oracle of the Dark Ones.
The Elite: royal personal guards of the Pure queen.
Eternal Mate: the destined partner to a given Pure soul. Each soul only has one mate across time, across various incarnations of life. Quotation from the Zodiac Scrolls describing the bond: “His body is the Nourishment of life. Her energy is the Sustenance of soul.”
Fallen: Term used to describe a Pure One who Fell in love with the wrong person, endured the Decline, and chose to become a vampire at the end of it rather than death.
Gift: supernatural power bestowed upon Pure Ones by the Goddess. Usually an enhanced physical or mental ability such as telekinesis, superhuman strength and telepathy. True Blood Dark Ones also possess powerful Gifts. See True Blood.
The Goddess: supernatural being who is credited with the creation of the Pure Ones. She is a deity to which Pure Ones devote themselves. She protects the Universal Balance.
The Great War: circa 2190 B.C., the Pure Ones who had been enslaved by the Dark Ones rebelled against their oppressors en masse. At the end of decades of bloodshed, the Pure Ones ultimately regained their freedom, and the Dark Ones’ empire lay in ruins with the members of the Royal Hive scattered to the ends of the earth.
Hive: society of vampires with typically a matriarch, the queen, at the head, with the exception of one Dark King in modern times.
Horde: small groups of vampires with no queen, typically composed of Rogues who band together for ease of hunting.
Nourishment: the strength that Mated Dark Ones take from each other’s blood and body through sexual intercourse. Once Mated, they will no longer need others’ blood to survive, only that from each other. Sexual intercourse is required to make the Nourishment sustaining.
Nourishment is also what Pure males provide their females as Eternal Mates.
Pure One: supernatural being who is eternally youthful, typically endowed with heightened senses or powers called the Gift. In possession of a pure soul and blessed with more than one chance at life by the Goddess, chosen as one of Her immortal race that defends the Universal Balance.
Rogue: lone vampire who does not belong to an organized vampire society or Hive.
The Royal Zodiac: twelve-member collective of the Elite, the Circlet and the Queen of the Pure Ones.
Sacred Laws (Pure Ones): One, thou shalt protect the purity, innocence and goodness of humankind and the Universal Balance to which all souls contribute. Two, thou shalt maintain the secrecy of the Race. And three, thou shalt not engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is not thy Eternal Mate. Also known as the Cardinal Rule.
Shield: referred to as the base of the Royal Zodiac, wherever it may be. Not necessarily a physical location.
Sustenance: the strength that Mated Pure-Males take from the Pure-females’ spirit. Once Mated, the Pure-male becomes dependent upon the Pure-female for sustaining his life. If his Mate dies before him, he too will perish. In equal exchange, the Pure-male provides Nourishment. See Nourishment.
True Blood: a vampire born of Dark parents. See also Dark One.
Vampire: supernatural being who prefers to live in the night and who gathers energy and prolongs his/her life by feeding off the blood, and sometimes souls, of others. Contrary to prevalent beliefs (see Book 1: Pure Healing), vampires are both made and born. Some vampires are Pure Ones who have chosen Darkness rather than death after they break the Cardinal Rule. Some are humans turned by other vampires. Some are True Bloods that are born of a vampire mother or father, more accurately called Dark Ones.
Zodiac Prophesies: events yet to come, foretold by the Seer of the Pure Ones through the Orb of Prophesies.
Zodiac Scrolls: events past, recorded by the
Scribe of the Pure Ones.
Prologue
Sharing my body with another soul, and one with a conniving, sociopathic mind, has not been fun.
I wonder if my Creature experiences the same frustrations—not having full control of your actions, the constant disconnect between mind and body, the lurking fear that the other part of you has done something unexpected (and in my case, unexpectedly vile and Machiavellian) that you would have to answer to…
But of course my Creature knows this feeling. It must experience these headaches to an exponential degree given its countless forms.
Here’s the difference: my forms are shared with an entirely other soul. Completely separate from myself.
Someone I mistrust.
Who could very well be a formidable foe, even though our interests are currently aligned (for the most part).
And let’s be clear, I can be just as, if not more, conniving and Machiavellian.
What I don’t appreciate is surprises.
Wan’er, or whoever she really is, has her own agenda to pursue, using a physical shell that we now share. What keeps me on tender hooks is that I don’t know what her ultimate goal is.
There’s a nihilistic tendency to her that is…disturbing.
Coming from me, Anunit Salamu, or as I am known in modern times, Anu Medusa, that’s saying something.
When we were separate entities, she was a disposable pawn I could crush at any moment. Now that we are irrevocably linked, she is a disease I cannot eradicate no matter how I wish to.
What we have is far removed from a symbiotic relationship. It is only a matter of time before the parasite eats the host, or, Dark Goddess willing, the host (me) consumes the parasite.
She knows things…
She holds knowledge that I suspect is more powerful than my own accumulated store. This is what I fear the most.
If she is to be believed, she is the “majority share holder” of our evil enterprise (in other words, our shared monster form—the Hydra).
It could be fifty-one percent to my forty-nine, but that two percent advantage gives her veto rights to decisions I want to make, actions I want to take. Further, when in Hydra form, if our enemies manage to lop my head off, according to Wan’er, I would be permanently snuffed out from the universe, while she has the ability to regenerate.
The bitch!
On the bright side, our humanoid forms are still distinct from one another.
My Dark One form is intact, though I’ve lost my original powers after the last battle with my darling little sister, Ishtar Anshar. Wan’er’s Pure One form is also intact, refreshed and renewed indefinitely without the expiration date she had before. We now have the greater powers of the Hydra even in our humanoid forms, and therefore that much harder to maim and kill.
I am still learning all of my new Gifts in my humanoid form, but suffice it to say they are substantial.
I wonder if she has new Gifts as well…
Unfortunately, she keeps her cards close to her vest. I ponder whether her slightly greater powers allow her to probe into my thoughts.
I shudder at the possibilities.
The prospect is like having tiny maggots crawling all over my skin, into my orifices, to one day consume every particle of my consciousness and scatter into the night in a swarm of flesh-eating flies.
The conniving, duplicitous bitch!
Speaking of split personalities, my Creature has been detained by the Pure Ones.
Of course I know this. I always know where it is, even if I don’t know the details of what it’s up to.
Its capture is unplanned but not necessarily unwelcome. Given its subversive, sneaky, ingenious ways, I have no doubt it will use its current position behind enemy lines to our best advantage.
And if it dares betray me by switching sides…
Well, with two fragments of my own soul embedded within its psyche, it will always be my Creature.
I made it. I can unmake it.
Its absence in my arsenal has an impact, however. I’ve had to take a much more hands-on approach to greasing the wheels of my multitude of schemes—
The continued expansion of vampire and human fight clubs.
The mass production of man-made vampires and animal shifters—all mindless foot soldiers in my war against the races.
The recruitment and turning of ancient, powerful Pure and Dark warriors.
The proliferation of vampire-killer weaponry, starting with those heat-seeking bullets, but there’s a lot more coming in the pipeline. For example, given the bullet’s sensor technology to isolate heat signatures and home in on specific targets, my engineering team can modify the specs to target Pure Ones and animal spirits as well.
The amassing of human political, military, law enforcement and research organizations.
The bribing and threatening of Dark noble houses. (I’d do the same with Pure Ones, but the boring goody-two-shoes are more difficult to persuade).
The facilitation of the Pure Blood Slave trade.
But honestly, little help from me is needed there. Greedy, bloodthirsty vampires are perfectly capable of stirring up old trouble by themselves.
And of course, my endless search for, and consumption of, more power. Like the animal spirits and their Kings.
I have successfully destroyed the Snake King, after failing to coerce him to join forces. But the Tiger King has not been neutralized, and the Eagle King is still at large.
I don’t like loose ends.
Though the animal spirits’ numbers are even more anemic than the Pure Ones, reduced to ghosts of shadows of their former glory countless millennia ago, they are still the most fearsome predators on earth. If I cannot bring them into my mind-controlled army, then I must eliminate the threat.
And then there are the Elementals, the Pure and Dark Ones with the unique Gift of controlling one of the four primary elements on earth—water, fire, air and earth. I have been acquiring their powers too over the past four millennia, not the least of which is my own ex-Blooded Mate, Enlil, Lord Wind.
Just like my dear departed mama, the most powerful Dark Queen that ever lived.
Myths and legends have it that my sire, Dark Queen Ashlu’s Consort, had the Gift of an Elemental. His strength was unparalleled, as was his beauty and sexual prowess. (Naturally, dear mama would have accepted nothing less than the best of all males. I paid avid attention as part of my own education, you see).
No one knows what happened to him. He disappeared from all written records shortly before I was born. I’ve never even met him. There were no images in his likeness anywhere in the Ivory Palace where I grew up. The Queen never spoke of him.
I know as much about the male who tied himself to my mother for thousands of years, my own sire, as I do about the Pure Blood Slave she took before my birth. There were speculations that this was the reason my sire disappeared, enraged by the Queen’s preference for a Pure One over him.
I do not even know my sire’s name.
But I feel him in my blood, even as diluted from its original makeup as it is.
He is out there, this powerful, ancient Elemental Dark One.
He will either be my greatest ally or another potential threat.
I must find him.
And when I do…
One way or another, I will consume his strength and make it my own.
“This is not a true account of events past. This is a retelling of rumors, whispers, and observations that might never have been observed. They are colored by the perspective of the writer—and there will be many, for these Scrolls existed before us and will outlive their Scribes long after we’re gone. They are interpreted through the lens of the reader, for what is written is not always understood. These are stories, after all. Nothing less, nothing more.”
—Preface to the Zodiac Scrolls
Chapter One
It was a cluster fuck of a night.
Quite literally.
And the evening had only just b
egun.
Alend Ramses, the first-ever Dark King of the New England vampire hive, clenched his jaw and resisted the urge to roll his neck and crack some of the tightness out.
His Chosen was scattered to the four winds having all the fun, while he was stuck at the Cove, detained by political maneuverings.
Rhys and Anastasia had their hands and claws full breaking up fight clubs all over the city.
Ryu was abroad intercepting the latest shipment of vampire-killers, and eliminating those responsible as only a shadow Assassin could.
Maximus and Ariel were away at the Great Plains Hive to placate an increasingly irascible queen who was a hair’s breadth from declaring war on the humans and Pure Ones in her territory.
Devlin and Grace were dealing with the latest round of cyber-attacks from Medusa. Their nemesis’ new tech leader was good. Very good.
Not to mention, the Hunter still had Rogues to eliminate. And unfortunately, the number of violent, law-breaking bloodsuckers were on the rise, directly proportional to the number of untraceable human disappearances in NYC over the last few weeks. The last few years, in fact, across the New England territories.
Coincidence? Most likely not.
The Cove and its inhabitants were protected only by Sentries, with Enlil—or rather Eli, as he was now known—acting as their reluctant leader.
The good news was, Lord Wind didn’t really need vampire soldiers as his backup. He didn’t need backup, period.
Eli was one of the most powerful warriors in the history of Dark Ones. He could decimate entire legions single-handedly and unarmed. With his human Mate and their adopted daughter in the Cove, as well as his son’s vulnerable family also in residence or visiting while Ryu was abroad, Eli was extremely incentivized to ensure that no threat came within a fifty-mile radius of the Dark King’s base.
