by Aja James
© Copyright by Aja James 2018
Dear Reader:
I hope you will enjoy the second installment of the Pure Ones saga on the following pages (Book #5 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 Dark Ones’ POV? If you’re curious, check out Inanna and Gabriel’s story in Dark Longing.
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 and other goodies on Book #6 Dark Redemption.
I love hearing from you!
Enjoy!
Aja James
Glossary
Awakening: test of courage and strength of spirit which leads to the subject, who possesses a Pure soul, coming into his/her Gift, a supernatural power, if he/she passes the test.
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.
Bonding Ritual: symbolic ceremony whereby a Pure One pledges his/her devotion to his/her Eternal Mate, or when the Healer unites with his/her Consort. The binding pledge, delivered by the Master of Ceremonies, contains the following verses:
In Darkness and Light, in Life and Death
Two souls will join to share One Path
With heart and mind, and every breath
You become each other’s present and past
What the future holds only the Goddess can see
Paved by the choices you both shall make
Step by step toward your Destiny
In Bond Eternal that none shall break
Cardinal Rule: Sacred Law number three, thou shalt not engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is not thy Eternal Mate. See Sacred Laws.
The Chosen: six royal guards of the New York-based Vampire Queen, Jade Cicada.
Consent: a human’s willing agreement to surrender his/her blood (and sometimes soul) to a vampire.
The Circlet: five royal inner council members of the Pure Queen.
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. It is unclear how or whether she is related to 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.
The Dozen: see Royal Zodiac.
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: six 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.”
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 countless years 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 a matriarch, the Queen, at the head.
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. See Eternal Mate.
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 On
es through the Orb of Prophesies.
Zodiac Scrolls: events past, recorded by the Scribe of the Pure Ones.
Prologue
The Great War did not result from an ill-fated love between a Pure and a Dark One.
I know. I was there.
I started the Great War.
My name is Anunit Salamu. The Dark Star.
You may also know me as the mysterious Anu Medusa, a human moniker I sometimes answer to.
What? You didn’t think you’d hear from me?
The bad guy doesn’t get to have her say?
Well, this must be a special treat, because here I am, giving you a tantalizing glimpse into my Machiavellian mind.
And now that I have your undivided attention, where, oh where, shall I begin…
It was not always this way.
I was not a Devil’s spawn sprung fully grown like Athena from Zeus’ head. I was once an innocent babe like any other.
Beautiful, ignorant, hungry for affection.
And so was the Greek Gorgon, Medusa, you know.
Medusa was the only mortal sister of three, but she was the sweetest, gentlest and most beautiful. Such beauty and purity could only be punished, however, because they engender envy, covetousness and lust.
When the sea god Poseidon ravished her in Athena’s shrine, it was only Medusa who suffered her wrath, as if violently losing her virtue was not enough. The jealous goddess turned her most treasured golden ringlets into snakes, and anyone who looked upon her would be turned to stone. After a lonely, loveless existence, Medusa met an ignoble end, decapitated in her sleep by that coward Perseus.
I do love my Greeks—they have such imagination, such culture and refinement. But they were misogynists mostly. The Romans had more sense.
I take Medusa’s name because she is sadly misunderstood. She deserves a better end.
If the world makes her a monster then she should show the world such monstrosity it will tremble to its core and kneel before her in fear and awe.
Once upon a time, I, too, was the most beautiful princess in the kingdom.
I had my mother’s love and respect. My younger twin sister idolized and adored me. I was betrothed to the fiercest, strongest and most magnificent Dark male across the whole of the empire. And I was full of charity with the world—nothing was out of my reach.
Until my twentieth name day, it was all but certain that I would succeed the Dark Queen in her three-thousand-year reign over all of the races. I was the elder daughter, after all, by a full seven minutes.
But my darling, deluded little sister decided to assert herself at the most inopportune moment. A surge of defiance triggered by him, an inferior Pure One.
It put a seed of doubt in the Dark Queen’s mind, and that was all it took to change my Destiny.
Although my powers, intellect, cunning and aptitude for rule far exceeded my sister’s, like an infinite black hole that swallows nearby stars, all my mother could see was her small twinkling brilliance, shiny and new.
Suddenly, my succession to the throne was put in question. Even my Mating ceremony was postponed. But I took him anyway because he’s mine.
I have taken my sister’s love as well, that gorgeous Pure male who enraptured her.
After millennia under my meticulous “care,” he has truly become a thing of beauty—a terrible, wretched mess of scars, both physical and mental. His pain and anguish feed my unquenchable lust for more of the same.
It is why I allowed his liberation, you see.
After a brief taste of freedom, a small respite from imprisonment and brutality, perhaps the fragile hope for a better life will grow within him. And when that happens, choking that hope anew would double his pain, triple his torment, feeding my power in glorious ways.
He is mine. He will never break free of my hold on him. Hunting him down will lead me to that which I desire most.
I will make the rest of the world mine as well, one soul at a time.
And if not, then I will simply destroy it.
“Pure and Dark, two sides of a coin, like magnets that attract and repel. Ever at odds and intertwined, which one is which—none can tell.”
—From the Ecliptic Prophesies, buried and forgotten
Chapter One
“You should not have come here,” she hissed into the darkness of the unlit room.
Tal turned his blind eyes in the direction of that soul-deep familiar voice, now filled not with love and warmth but icy vengeance and blazing fury.
Outside, a deafening crash of thunder harkened the onslaught of a deluge.
The rain came down so hard, like sheets of arrows from the heavens, that he heard it pound the roof, the sides of the building, the streets outside, even from within the thick concrete walls of her private quarters behind their brick façade. It appeared that the skies agreed with her mood.
No, it was not wise to have come here.
It was suicide to appear before her, when he knew, deep inside, that she had no love for him.
Not now. Not anymore.
A sharp, splintering pain seized his heart at this truth. For he had never ceased, not for one moment, to love her with his entire self, body and soul.
It hurt just to breathe the same air as her, sitting on her bed not three feet away from her, when all she pushed back at him with her very aura was hatred, bitterness and fury.
And now that he was here, only two things would happen if he stayed: she’d gorge her fill of his blood—he could sense her desperation and starvation before she even entered the door.
And she’d slake her lust upon his sex.
While he gave all of himself in return.
After all, when a vampire Mistress beckoned through her blood, calling for his, which even now was roiling through his veins to Serve her, feed her, quench her thirst, a Blood Slave had no choice but to obey her command.
A Blood Slave who loved his Mistress.
“Last and final warning,” she growled, deep and guttural.
“There will be no mercy.”
He stared intensely in her direction, willing his sight to return.
There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wished he could communicate. But he knew that she could see none of his feelings, desires and dreams, just as he could see only endless darkness and pain.
A shuddering breath left his chest on a long exhale.
If this was all he could give her—the strength of his blood and seed, the vengeance she would wreck upon his flesh and bones—if this was what it took to obliterate her hatred, pull her back into the light, erase the stains he’d spilled upon her soul, then so be it.
He’d endured millennia of anguish and torment, ever hovering on the edge of death. If this was to be his end, at least he chose it.
Just as he’d chosen her so very long ago.
“Then come and take me, ana Ishtar,” he invited, his voice deep with regret and sorrow, his heart open and bleeding.
She would hurt him, he knew. More than all the punishment he’d endured at the hands of the vampire who’d held him prisoner for thousands of years.
She would rip him apart.
Physically. Emotionally.
He would not survive it.
This would be his ultimate price for loving a Dark One. For daring to embrace the heavens’ brightest star.
She curled her lips back from her fangs and growled deep and low, the savagery of the sound resounding through the room.
And then she was upon him.
*** *** *** ***
Third millennium BC. Capital City of Akkad. The Ivory Palace.
Ten-year-old Ishtar watched the little yellow songbird flit to and fro outside her classroom window.
She wished she could be that carefree bird, going wherever and doing whatever she pleased, enjoying the beautiful summer night away from the confines of the royal palace.
“Princess Ishtar, do pay attention.”
Ishtar obediently straightened in her seat and faced
the Royal Sage with an apologetic smile.
She had no idea what the instruction had been for the past half hour or so, probably something about the Dark Laws, as this was the class on the venerable history of her Kind.
She didn’t understand why there were so many laws. Endless rules and regulations.
At some point she was expected to memorize all of them. The book was three feet wide, two feet in length and more than a foot in thickness, with tiny print that required squinting to read. How in the world was she supposed to memorize that?
Thank the Dark Goddess she wasn’t going to be the new Queen.
That honor belonged to her beautiful twin sister Anunit. She was older, after all, by a whole seven minutes. So if Ishtar lapsed in her studies now and again, it was no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
“Little Star,” her favorite sister in the world whispered to her across the narrow aisle that divided their seats while the Sage’s head was lowered as he droned on about another passage from the book of Dark Laws, “why don’t you go out to play? I will cover for you, don’t worry. Mother will not be angry.”
“But he will notice and stop me from leaving,” Ishtar pointed out the obvious, though she desperately wanted to escape this endless tedium.
Anunit gave her a crafty look.
“So shift your body into something else,” she said as if Ishtar had no imagination, “the kitty cat you favor.”
Ishtar drew herself up a fraction, slightly affronted.
“It’s not a kitty cat, it’s a leopard. A mighty snow leopard. And it’s the only animal form I can take, you know that.”
