Praise for THE SAVAGE VENGEANCE:
“... Tamara [Rose Blodgett] took a HUGE risk doing this, and in the end it paid off. She weaved these two worlds together like an expert seamstress. I was in awe...”- Kami contagiousreads.com
“... What a very enjoyable read great adventure , suspense and romance. I love all the men from the band. Can't wait for the next book...” Lovebooks, Reader
“... Hard to put down! Captivating, exiting, and different. She keeps you turning page after page, curious as to where the story will go next ....” Jessica, Reader
The degradation of Queen Clara's sphere continues without apparent end. She must ask for assistance from the neighboring Kingdom of Kentucky to combat the demise of their way of life. However, the alliance isn't as strong without the promise of marriage, which in the past stood to unite the spheres.
Tensions run high, the ruination of additional spheres an imminent threat, causing strife and conflict. When Clara is seen as a pawn in a greater scheme and change of leadership, the Travelers interfere in an unforeseen way.
When two different groups of Travelers' objectives collide, a cataclysmic event ends in a scenario of unprecedented upheaval and resolution. Can Clara and the Band save the sphere and in so doing the people of the future? Will Clara find the peace and love she deserves?
THE SAVAGE VENGEANCE
Book Four: The Savage Series
Copyright © 2011-2012 Tamara Rose Blodgett
Kindle Edition
ISBN-10: 1470161044
ISBN-13: 978-1470161040
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold 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 return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DEDICATION:
My dad: for without his drive and discipline through example, none of this would have been possible.
Words are inadequate.
I love you, Dad~
June 6, 1930- March 22, 2012
A special thank you to reader, Kami Bravo, who graciously supplied the title for this work~
RIP
Table of Contents
Praise for THE SAVAGE VENGEANCE: 1
DEDICATION: 4
CHAPTER ONE 7
CHAPTER TWO 12
CHAPTER THREE 19
CHAPTER FOUR 25
CHAPTER FIVE 30
CHAPTER SIX 35
CHAPTER SEVEN 41
CHAPTER EIGHT 48
CHAPTER NINE 54
CHAPTER TEN 60
CHAPTER ELEVEN 69
CHAPTER TWELVE 78
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 87
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 101
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 110
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 119
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 130
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 139
CHAPTER NINETEEN 148
CHAPTER TWENTY 160
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 168
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 176
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 189
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 199
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 208
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 218
EPILOGUE 222
THE SAVAGE PROTECTOR-excerpt 227
Acknowledgments 235
More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett 236
Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros 237
About the Author: 239
CHAPTER ONE
“They have killed all the homing pigeons,” Rowenna mourned as Clara looked about her, the fragment having departed after their nefarious deed was executed with precision. The small bodies of the birds were strewn about the ground, their feathers like lonely pilgrims of purity amongst the graves that stood near at hand.
“Nay,” Bracus began, “we have one that lives at the clan.”
All eyes swept to him and he rolled his bulk into a shrug. “I had sent word but one day past, even now the homing pigeon returns.”
Clara breathed out a sigh of intense gratitude. “We will have an additional sentry stand guard at the portal, day and night. The assurance of which will be the aid that we may procure for this.”
“Methinks the other spheres may now lend an ear, Queen Clara,” Clarence said with surety, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth.
Clara agreed. She thought it very likely that they might offer assistance. After all, to her knowledge, hers was the only sphere with an active alliance with the clan-dwellers. Of course, the spheres were more populated than the clans. Nonetheless, it would not be overly long before the fate of her sphere was joined by the remaining eighteen.
She would need to journey to her neighboring sphere and visit the king that presided thereof. King Otto.
What a joyous occasion that would be.
Clara looked around her, the afternoon sun of Outside beating down mercilessly against her unprotected skin. Yet that is not what gave Clara pause. It was the pock-marking of her sphere that stilled the breath in her throat. Clara took in the damage caused by the fragment but one day past and guilt seized her in its iron grip. Had Bracus not just discussed with her a preemptive strike against the very ones that had now peppered the sphere with weapons of salt? Pellets that once launched, burrowed an insidious pathway through the permeable walls of her home.
Damn them.
Clarence shattered the stream of her thoughts like a hammer to glass. “Queen Clara,” he began, nervously wringing his hands together, “let us send word to King Otto that we must call a Gathering.”
To think of being in the presence of that odious man galled Clara. Especially given what had transpired due to the wretchedness of the man.
However, it could not be avoided. She would bring the glad tidings of Prince Frederic's demise. A petty smile, not usually at home on her face, sprung to life and flourished.
“Yes, I do say that shall be a fine idea,” Clara replied, lifting her long skirt just enough to clear the grass that rustled in the thin breeze of early winter. The air had bite and she shivered. A hand at her back told her Matthew stood behind her, and she turned as that palm burned its imprint at the base of her spine.
“You are cold. Let us go inside the sphere,” he said, his blue eyes flashing in a face like a berry kissed by summer.
Clara smiled at him, her heart instantly warm, despite a future that held uncertainty and danger. She looked at the Band standing beside her, the dead birds and graves standing sentinel around them. It was portentous. She studied the Band which remained and thought of what she must do, her gaze settling on Rowenna.
Rowenna nodded. “I see the mirror of my feelings upon your countenance, daughter.”
She knew her too well already. Clara dipped her head briefly then met her mother's gaze. “Aye, you speak true.” Clara's eyes traveled the group, all in attendance, even Charles. “We must warn our neighboring sphere.” She looked at Rowenna and held her eyes. “We must also bring assistance from the Bands of the sea.”
“President Bowen must be informed. His Band would fight beside ours. Without question. This affects the mid-western Bands directly,” Matthew said. Bracus nodded in agreement but Maddoc and Edwin looked confounded.
“Who might this fellow be? This Bowen?” Edwin queried.
“He is the president of the mid-western clans,” Charles answered, keeping a civil tongue for once.
Maddoc paced, narrowly missing the graves which lay but four horse lengths from the brass portal that entered the sphere tunnel. He was obviously deep in thought but Rowenna had tarried enough. “Maddoc, do stop strutting about like a nervous Peacock and tell us what you are about.”
He swung on his heel and drilled Clara with his sea colored eyes. “Sister?” His hand palmed his chin thoughtfully as he strode toward her.
“Yes?” Clara asked, puzzled.
“How many spheres are there?”
Clara answered automatically, “There be nineteen in all.”
He laughed and Clara frowned. “Do you not see, we will meet the fragment in battle head-on. Sheer numbers will impel our victory. They cannot stand against us.”
Clara saw his passionate youth, and realized he was but one year younger than she. Maddoc, her half-brother, had seen battle, fought beside warriors without compare, but in life she felt that perhaps he had not the lessons meted out that she had been exposed to. Clara chose her words with caution.
“Maddoc, the people of the spheres do not understand war as the clan-dwellers and obviously, the people of the fragment.”
“That moniker is too generous by far, Clara,” Edwin snorted and she inclined her head in his direction. With the exception of Daniel, she had not encountered one of the fragment that had a good intention. Nary a one.
“Let us get ourselves in the comfort of the sphere,” Charles said, his expression anxious. His look took in the openness of the Outside with distrust.
Clara watched the eyes of the assembled group train on the sphere, the holes in its porous shell widened slightly, even from one day past, when the fragment had started the beginning of the end of the only way of life Clara had ever known. She had much to fight for, she realized. Though it would be fundamentally impossible to gather a resistance between sphere-dwellers and clan-dwellers in a way to cause them to unify against the fragment, she realized it could be their only hope. Of course, that supposition was in place only so long as the dreaded Travelers elected not to reappear at a critical moment and interrupt their lives irretrievably yet again.
Matthew clasped her hand, feeling its iciness and kissed the delicate skin of her wrist where blue veins ran like exquisite lace, intersecting with her palm. His eyes met hers. “Nothing will be fixed Outside with the dead. Let us retreat inside, where the living breathe. We will formulate a plan of victory.”
“Matthew speaks true,” Edwin said and Bracus nodded.
“I'm game,” Daniel said and the groups' brows drew together in confusion. He laughed from his belly. “I am willing to attempt a war in unity so that we may prevail.”
Ah! Clara thought, giving him a rueful smile, his strange speech so much a part of who he was. It seemed most odd to hear him mimic the speech of the sphere.
Matthew dragged her gently behind him while Daniel and Edwin fell in line beside them. When they reached the portal and the four of the Band began to open it, Clara glanced behind her at the Great Forest as she felt the creeping of eyes upon her. She shivered and Matthew pulled her in beside him as they crossed the threshold into the sphere.
*
fragment
Tucker took the magnifiers he had stolen during a raid and let them fall against his thigh from slim cords of leather, the cold stinging his hands like biting ants. He had the young queen in his sights. He growled low in his throat, lightly slapping the apparatus against his leg. He would have her, and it didn't matter how many of the Band protected her. His reconnaissance spoke perfectly for him. And he had his directive: destroy the spheres, all nineteen. But nothing beyond that. He didn't care that the Travelers hadn't explained why the spheres must be eradicated, only that they be destroyed. He was very much about that. And the fiery queen would be at his mercy.
He felt the presence of another and reluctantly moved deeper into the forest border, obscuring the view of Clara as she turned and looked directly at him before being herded inside the sphere.
The sphere which had the disease of salt he'd laid on it. His smile widened as he turned and faced the one of the fragment that was as cunning as he.
Lyle jerked his head in the direction of the sphere. “How long before the salt works on the walls of that?” he asked, absently picking at a scab that had filth surrounding it. Tucker looked at him with distaste. He certainly understood the lack of easy bathing areas but Lyle of the fragment gave unclean a new meaning. He schooled his expression and responded, “maybe a few weeks. Not long. Even now the Band think they might ready an offensive,” he scoffed. Let them try. There were too few and if he understood the Band (and he thought he had their mindset down to a Science), they would try and communicate covertly with neighboring Bands. At which point they would prepare an alliance of sorts.
Leaving their precious clans without proper numbers.
The fragment would sweep through, burning the great borders of wooden pickets that defended their perimeter. Once inside... well, Tucker grinned with true joy, thinking of the spoils that he and his men could partake in.
“What's the happy face for?” Lyle asked.
“I have a plan that is foolproof. I'll outline it shortly. For now, I need a man to stand guard at this very spot.” Lyle gave a quizzical look but turned to fetch one of his men.
“Wait!” Tucker called out in a low voice. Lyle turned expectantly.
“Make it someone who is as dull as a blade we eat with.”
Lyle grinned. Someone expendable. He understood, and had someone in mind. “Got the perfect person.”
Tucker nodded and turned his back on Lyle. His eyes took in the sphere, lit like a soft beacon as twilight edged around the graceful lines of the dome. His smile returned as pinpricks of lights dotted the surface, the light from inside, leaking out of the holes the battery of salt quartz had made.
Tucker was happy.
CHAPTER TWO
Clara had the strongest feeling of déjà vu, gazing upon her reflection in the looking glass, as she had many times before. Always with resentment and bitter anticipation of some public humiliation she would inevitably bear.
But no longer.
Today she readied for the journey to the Kingdom of Kentucky. Her eyes met Olive's in the glass and she grimaced slightly. Clara did not hold to her royal position with exactness. But today she had realized that she must cleave to it like skin to bones. Clara understood the show she must put forth for King Otto.
They required the other sphere's help. Mayhap they did not ken it. It did not matter, they would all fall before the salt. They would soon see reason.
Olive wove the pearls into Clara's long hair, the pearls sinking and reappearing with the movement of her deft hands. Today she wore a gown of deep jade. The plunging neckline bordered on immodest décolletage, but at her age of ten and eight, she was certainly woman enough to wear it. Decorating the bodice were rare Samuel's pearls. Jet black, with an iridescent green wash, they were the size of pin heads but glittered like inky jewels, the ambient light of the sphere a perfect complement to their understated beauty.
King Otto would have his gaze locked on the wealth that they symbolized. He was no longer dealing with her false mother, Queen Ada, but a monarch that held the pearls in a gloved fist, just out of reach of his greed. A monarch that he had once allowed his son to abuse.
With a sigh, Clara looked at her finished appearance. She grinned suddenly. “You have used the flawed pearls.”
Olive grinned back, a wayward dimple appearing and disappearing. “Yes, my lady. I thought it ironic.”
“I am pleased.” Olive had the cream pearls that had a pink wash fashioned into her hair dressing. The pearls that had been the cause of one of the worst beatings Clara had ever endeavored to survive. Now, the unseemly pearls graced the deep copper of her hair, the palest wash
of pink complimenting the tonal quality of the burnished strands.
It was wonderful in a spiteful way. “I am shocked, Dear Olive,” Clara feigned indignation.
“Ah... my Queen, you should know that the injustices visited upon you were against me as well.” Clara beheld a face marked with a passionate rage and realized that Ada's abuse had not been for her only, but had touched everyone close to her.
Clara stood, smoothing out the deep green velvet that she wore, a perfect material for the season. She turned and the skirt wrapped and rustled around her ankles as she strolled to gaze outside the sphere window.
Large snowflakes fell gracefully from a sky gone pewter with a winter storm. Clara had never been Outside with snow. She wondered on it.
*
Clara felt a heat behind her that made the fine hairs of her skin rise just as a large hand wrapped around the slim column of her neck, warming the pearls that lay against it. The few tendrils that fell between her shoulder blades gave way like silk.
Matthew dipped his head to her nape and pressed a kiss against it, his mouth moving back and forth until Clara tilted her head back against the hand that held her neck and he gently turned her.
His eyes smoldered over the dress that she wore, missing nothing. Clara felt naked beneath that gaze, though fully clothed. Matthew had seen her in less yet his eyes held heat as if she wore nothing. She smiled uncertainly and he suddenly grinned.
He bent down very near her mouth and whispered against her lips, “The snow which falls feels like iced lace against one's skin.” His mouth moved that bare amount until his lips were moving against hers and she responded, her arms twining around his thick neck, the muscles of his shoulders working as he lifted her, his kiss taking her off the ground, their passion on the thinnest tether of restraint.
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