by Anna Santos
VAMPIRE’S RETRIBUTION
The Chronicles
of the
Eylones
ANNA SANTOS
VAMPIRE’S RETRIBUTION
Copyright © 2017 by Anna Santos
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact : [email protected]
http://www.annasantosauthor.com
Edited by Measha Stone
Cover design by Moonchild Ljilja digital art
Book Formatting by Derek Murphy @Creativindie
ISBN: 153697658X
ISBN-13: 978-1536976588
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917609
Third Edition: April 2017
Prologue
There are memories thatlive with us forever, no matter how old you are and how long you’ve lived. Those memories keep playing in the back of our mind, assaulting us in our darkest hours or haunting our thoughts just before we fall asleep. Those memories can define what you are or how you see yourself. They can also be made into memoirs to help others understand they are not alone in the world and their feelings aren’t so different from the rest of us, human or not.
So let me introduce myself–my name is Violet, and I was born into darkness in 1620. However, my human life started a few years before, in 1601. My story starts on the cold evening I was sold to an enigmatic and alluring man who came to my home and convinced my parents to take me away.
My family had arrived in London from the countryside, where my father used to be a tenant farmer. The farm was sold, so we moved to London when I was eight. We were extremely poor and my mother had to do all the cleaning, the cooking and still earn money or food in exchange for her medicines. My mother wasn’t uncaring or an uneducated woman. She was ahead of her time even if we lived poorly and could barely eat a meal a day. My mother was an ingenious woman, or what we nowadays call a physician. She had the ability to work with herbs and enchantments to cure people. Back then, people called her a witch and that’s how history remembers those women of that age.
That day, we had left to buy herbs and candles for her to perform an incantation. When we arrived home from the market, we noticed that there was someone inside our humble home, talking to my father.
“My daughter has arrived. As you can see, she’s a beauty, a true beauty. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. She can already cook and clean. Violet often helps my wife with her daily chores.”
I blinked several times, trying to understand my father’s words. He had gotten up to stand beside me and was talking to the nobleman seated across our table with enchanting features. My mom had worked for some of the newly rich merchants living in Milk Street, but I had never seen anyone as elegantly dressed as that man or as handsome for that matter.
“This is Sir Thomas Howard, Duke of Arundel. He’s here for our daughter,” my father informed my mother who was as baffled as I was for having an aristocrat inside our home.
The duke wore a wired collar with lace trim, and a black and gold slashed doublet and sleeves. His blond hair fell in loose curls to his collar, brushed back from his forehead and putting in display is angel-like features and intense blue eyes. My eyes lingered on his face and I knew, even that young, that he had left and impression in my soul. Maybe it was love at first sight. It’s not that farfetched for a young girl to feel love for a man. But I was too young to fully understand the repercussions of his presence in my life.
“I don’t understand, James,” my mother said, reaching to hold my hand.
“Come inside, we need to talk privately.” My father grabbed my mother and took her to the other room where we slept. They spoke lower, but I could still hear bits and pieces of their conversation.
“Sit down,” the duke instructed me, pointing at the wooden chair. I obeyed, feeling my cheeks burn and rubbing my cold hands against one another. “Are you scared?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know exactly what was going on to be scared.
“Are you cold?”
I nodded even if my body temperature was rising because of his eyes on me.
“Can you speak?”
“Yes,” I stuttered. I looked at the table, focusing my hearing on my parents’ argument and escaping his curious eyes. It wasn’t polite for me to stare.
“No!” my mother protested and blood raced inside my veins because she didn’t normally level her voice. “My relatives will come to test her next year. You can’t let some stranger come here and take our innocent daughter away.”
“She’ll have a better life. He says he’s family.”
“What family? You don’t even have family in West Sussex!”
“He’s a lord. He lives right here in London.”
“He’s lying! You are mad! I won’t let him take her away!”
The duke got up, startling me as I looked at him. “Excuse me, I need to talk to your mother.”
He smiled as if he was harmless, but something inside of me told me he was not.
The candles in the small shrine that my mom kept to protect us from evil were burning strangely bright and red. I focused my eyes on them, and I was unable to hear what the duke told my mother because he spoke softly. However, once he finished, my mother came out with a blank stare and ordered me to pack my few belongings and leave with the man. I cried, my eyes stung with tears until she grabbed my arm and forced me to pack my things inside a white cloth bag. Then she pushed me against the duke’s figure and he put his arm around my shoulders, letting my tears stain his fragranced and soft velvet doublet.
“Say goodbye to your mother,” he requested, caressing my tangled blonde hair.
“I don’t want to go,” I sobbed, raising my head to watch him. He was extremely tall. I should have been afraid of him, but I wasn’t.
“You will like where we are going,” he assured, brushing my tears with his fingertips. His voice was soothing and his eyes hypnotic. “Kiss your mother goodbye, child.”
I nodded and did what he told me. She didn’t react as I expected. I placed a kiss on her pale cheek while her blank stare focused on the wooden wall. I felt my heart breaking into little pieces with her indifference and lack of love.
I never saw her again. I didn’t look for her. Even when I was old enough to understand what had happened that day, I was already too fascinated and in love with my master to want to get connected with the ones I left behind. Because the duke wasn’t a duke. His real name was Ewan and he was a vampire. He used his power to enthrall my mother and convince her to let me go. He erased my existence from her memories so they wouldn’t look for me. I was raised to believe that my father had accepted to sell me for a bag of coins and probably died drunk in some filthy street near an alehouse, while my love for my mother was tainted by her willingness to let my father sell me.
To cut a long story short, I was ten years old, and I was taken away from my family by the most appealing being I had ever seen. My parents completely forgot about my existence, and I was raised by my vampire master as his daughter.
1
EWAN
MY MASTER WASN’T A DEMON. Vampires aren’t the same as those beings. Vampires are more civilized, and their hobby is alluring and seducing humans for blood and survival. I loved my master with all my heart. I
would kill and die for him. In fact, I did. I grew up obeying, and wishing for the day he would think I was old enough to have Eternal Life and be his wife, rather than his daughter, or later on, his sister. Even when the day had come that I was old enough to be turned into an undead, he still considered me as his little sister, and it killed me.
Whatever you think about the cruelty of vampires and their lack of emotions, you are wrong. We feel like humans do, and we kill for the same reasons that humans do: for food or just pleasure. For us, you are meat, meat with feelings and beating hearts. Nevertheless, you are food. For some of us, you are just food. Nothing more. Beware of thinking that all vampires are like Edward Cullen or Bill Compton when they are in love. They aren’t. They are cruel predators. They will turn you or just use you if they think you will make a good pet or a good amusement for a couple of years or centuries.
I was chosen to be a vampire for a reason. Not because I was meant to be his mate, like my master had told me, but because I looked just like her: Ebony. The real love of his life and death. I was the image of Ebony as a child and as I grew up, the similarities only got stronger. Ebony was killed at the age of nineteen. It was at that age that my master decided to turn me into a vampire.
Ebony lived when the druids and the sorcerers were aplenty to fight the predators of the night. Back then, the predators would attack the villages, drain the women’s and children’s blood and take the men to feed their King. They transformed the stronger ones into vampires. My master was a descendant of the druids, but he didn’t hold any magical power. Those who couldn’t be wizards or sorcerers were warriors to defend the clan.
One night, when my maker was hunting the vampires, predators came to his village, attacking the innocent children and his wife. He was captured and taken to be turned into the same beasts he hunted. Of course, he had never told me that; I found out after I was taken from him. It was only then that I discovered I was merely a substitute for the one he truly loved. A walking portrait he liked to have around to look at, but never touch or give me his love when I was a human. Those days of crying over him are over. Now I know I’m much more than an obedient and blinded, passionate girl. I’m a strong and old vampire with the ability to destroy the one I had learned to hate more than I loved.
Another thing you should know about vampires: we don’t die with sunlight or burst into flames. That is a myth to make you feel safe during the day. We walk among you fangless, counting the centuries to measure our strength and power. Few have any kind of magical power besides abnormal strength and speed. The only plus they may have is the ability to enthrall humans, being strong or weak of spirit. The only exception to the rule, as I found out later, was that the descendants of wizards and sorcerers can keep their magical powers after cleaning the impurities of their blood.
Nowadays, it's difficult to maintain a correct diet, since human blood is infested with diseases and fatness that make us sick and weak. Some can even perish because of impure blood. That is why I preferred vegetarians. They tasted better and made me stronger against others of my kind.
But let’s meet my creator: the infamous Ewan.
2
Paris, 17th century
ALL THE IMPORTANT ARISTOCRACY was gathered in a big, labyrinthine garden. The night was almost falling, and the servants were spreading chandeliers around the gardens so the dark wouldn’t affect their master's amusement. Not that it mattered; vampires have keen sight in the dark.
Ewan had rented the house to a French noble. At least, that was what he had made the noble think. And the labyrinth was just perfect for him to play hide and seek or should I say hide and eat—with all the delicious prey. It was the day that we were introduced to the French aristocracy.
Louis XIII was the King at that time in France, even if it was his mother who ruled. The royal family was making a lot of money selling nobility titles and charging enormous taxes to the people and the bourgeoisie. It was the time of the musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu. However, I’d never met D’Artagnan and the other three musketeers, even if the scandal of the queen’s infidelity echoed throughout history due to her husband’s uncertain taste for men or women or both.
My master was more interested in his financial life than politics and gossips, and I was one of his puppets to achieve his goals. He was searching for money and jewels and, at that time, France was the place to be.
I was raised like a little princess, after being adopted. He had found me tutors to teach me manners, perfect my English, read the classics, and learn French. French was crucial for that period. It was the language of the aristocracy. My master and supposed brother, bought a noble title. It was bought, or rather stolen, from an unfortunate Count who had succumbed to his charm and deadly fangs. The fact was that he had a valid Russian nobility title, and he was accepted among the French court that became his playground.
Ewan didn’t raise me in all sorts of luxury without a purpose. He intended to use my beauty and my noble manners to cause lust among the aristocracy. I was a sort of geisha that knew the art of seduction to make the men fight for me and give me gifts, expensive gifts. I was an adorable, obedient puppet in Ewan’s hands. He promised me eternal love and a life together if I could seduce the men and drain their fortunes in exchange for a glimpse of my perfect white skin or place a lascivious kiss on my neck.
I have to add that he killed whoever tried to go farther than that. In my romantic idea of love, I thought it meant that when the time came, he would deflower me and make me his forever. And I believed that, even if he was always surrounded by other women, beautiful and promiscuous ones, who he would take to his room, drink their blood, and make their erotic desires come true. I just had the naïve idea that he was mine and I was his, and I would be enough when the time came for him to turn me into a vampire like himself.
At the time, France was suffering a literature revolution, therefore the gathering of rich aristocrats in their salons to talk about literature was common and fashionable. We would often go to the Hôtel de Rambouillet to read and listen to new rising authors and poets. It was the best place to hunt. The ability to write poetry was another appealing thing about Ewan that seduced women. He would be the center of attention, conquering women and even men who desired him. I was also a skilled dancer, and he would often open balls with me, so everyone could praise our manners and abilities. It was a time of spiritual attitude toward love and appreciation of the arts, but also of promiscuity and orgies sponsored by rich nobles who carefully chose a select type of person to attend those reunions. Ewan was often invited.
Something he was concerned about was his stubborn idea of finding me an honorable man to marry and have children with, one with a considerable fortune and a respectable title. When I would complain about it, Ewan would promise to kill my husband after a while, and I would inherit my husband's money so we could be together. We would go elsewhere in Europe or even America, and live together as a couple. He had a way of manipulating me with words and broken promises, but I was too young to realize that.
Eventually, the chosen one appeared. His name was Roland, and I met him at a small literary reunion. He was young, like me, a bit clumsy, and extremely intelligent. He wasn’t astonishingly handsome like Ewan, but he was nice and he treated me as if I were a goddess. He wasn’t a good dancer, though. Of course, Roland was only a means to an end for me. I didn't care about the love poems and letters he wrote me. Nor did the look of terror on his face stirred any emotions when Ewan killed him in a horse riding promenade, making it look like an accident. Two years after we married, and I still hadn't had any children, Ewan decided to kill him, complaining that he couldn’t stand to see my husband touching me anymore. Well, I couldn’t stand him either, so I did nothing to stop Ewan. I was glad to be set free from Roland’s jealousy and repulsive touch.
Even so, Roland was my first husband and lover. I had to accept Ewan's demand and obey to his decision that I had to be a virgin until I got married. My husband could
end the marriage if I wasn’t. I was more valuable a virgin and Ewan’s interest in me was purely business. Nevertheless, I had begged Ewan to enthrall him so he thought I was a virgin. I had begged Ewan to make love to me. He always denied me and made sure that I understood that I should love my husband, and that I should be grateful to find a man so in love with me that was willing to marry me even against his family’s blessing. But I didn’t feel grateful at all. I wanted Ewan, and I was just marrying Roland to please my master and to give him the money he needed to keep having his luxurious life.
My wedding night was strange. I tried to imagine Roland was Ewan, but I’d seen Ewan making love with other women. Roland didn’t have the same passion or ability to bring a woman pleasure as Ewan. It was all quick and clumsy, like Roland’s personality. But he treated me right, and he would do anything to please me. I was not easy to handle. I realize now that I was extremely spoiled and unaware of what love truly was. I had a fixation with Ewan and I didn’t believe that I was just a means to an end for him to get easy money.
I was so naïve! Not even after Ewan had sex with me next to where Roland was lying dead with his eyes opened, lifeless, gazing towards us, did I realize that Ewan didn’t care about me. A rough and uncaring Ewan penetrated and hurt me, his eyes flooded by the recent blood he had taken from my former husband. It was nothing like I’d expected and dreamt of. His hands were cold and uncaring, ripping my clothes and making no effort to give me any kind of pleasure. It wasn’t common to kiss on the mouth, like it is now, but there were other things he could have done. I felt raped and used. He didn’t care about my needs or feelings. For weeks, I wondered why he had even touched me if he was only going to treat me like a common whore. But the worst was yet to come. After Roland’s death, things didn’t work out as Ewan expected, and it made him bitter and out of control.
