ASH
ALEXA B. JAMES
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
incidents and places are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locations, or real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Alexa B James
Edited by Stories Matter Editing
Cover by Covers by Combs
All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book in any
form or by any means. For subsidiary rights please
contact the author.
Email: [email protected]
Contents
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
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
ASH
Chapter One
Kori
There were no fairytales in the world of the vampire domes.
At least, I hadn't thought there were until I picked a magical flower and a vampire king sentenced me to spend five years in a kingdom deep below the earth's surface. Even when my life turned into something out of bedtime stories, it was twisted and wrong.
Never had that been so clear as this present moment when I glared at King Ravage, looking down at the stack of papers he'd slid across a long dark-wood table.
“So, you're proposing some sort of consortship plea deal?” I managed to ask, even though I felt like there was a rock stuck in my throat. “What would the terms be of my reduced sentence?”
His bright green eyes stared at me, and I could practically see the wheels turning behind them. “We've gone over this several times, Kori, and I do not doubt that you grasped it the first time. I want you to become my consort for one year and one day.”
“Why that specific amount of time?”
He held out his hands. “Because it's what I want.”
I broke from his fathomless green eyes.
Three days ago, King Ravage had isolated me from everyone and everything I knew and threw me on a bed in a large, luxurious bedroom before leaving without saying a word.
When I'd tried to leave, ten vampire warriors stopped me outside my door. Vampire servants brought me three meals a day. The closets were full of gowns that fit so well that it made me feel uneasy. A constant stream of electricity powered the room, making it glow with so much light it hurt my eyes. Water poured out of the taps, steaming hot. I had been locked in there three full days before King Ravage requested my presence this evening.
When I made no move to take his forms, he pushed the stack of papers further across the wood. “Being my consort would have specific requirements and rewards.” He tapped the paper. “First, you have to sever all connection with the former Kings of Portland in writing. You'll tell them that you made a deal to become my consort and that they should consider your relationship severed.”
A strike of pain seared through my chest, and I clenched my teeth to keep from snapping a response. Even after days of giving myself a horrible migraine wracking my brain trying to remember the four weeks that were missing from my memory, I couldn't conjure up so much as a glimpse of what happened. But even if it had been the most wonderful month of my life, it didn't explain the grief surging through my heart.
The gut reaction I had to the idea of taking this man sitting across from me into my body was just as fierce, but for Ravage, it was the antithesis of the longing I felt for Ruin, Ash, and Death.
“Second,” he said, “You'll feed me your blood at least once a week.”
“No, thank you.” I shoved the papers back at him, but Ravage slammed his hand down on the stack.
The sound made me jump in my seat, and I glared into Ravage's green eyes.
“No deal. I'll just focus on finding a way to escape.”
Ravage rubbed the back of his fingers along his dark blond five o’clock shadow. “The third requirement is that you submit to me entirely, body and mind, on the stipulation that I will not damage you physically in any lasting way. You will be required to do this only once, on a night of my choosing. The fourth requirement is that no one but I can touch you for that year and that day.”
“So, you're saying that the weekly feedings would be dry bites?” A phantom pain pierced into my neck. During my years of training in the time before becoming a blood courtesan, we all had to endure one dry bite, and the agony was unbearable.
Ravage tilted his head, considering me intently, like I was a bug trapped under glass. “Except for that one night of my choosing, I will only touch you if you initiate it.”
I stood. “I'm done with this conversation.”
He only talked louder. “In exchange, I will show you what it's like to truly be the queen of a vampire kingdom. You can sit in during the meetings with my generals. You can give your opinions in these meetings and in private. You will have authority in this kingdom. It won't be the same as mine. You won't be able to undermine my laws or judgements, but you'll have my limited proxy when I'm not at home. I will also allow your brother and sister to live in Nightendale so long as they behave themselves. “
Heat boiled up in my chest. This king, he somehow knew exactly how to target my vulnerabilities.
Ever since the day our parents left us in our temporary living facility room and never returned, my siblings and I had lived by one rule. Our family's survival was all that mattered. At nine years old, my older brother Brendan hadn't looked sad or heartbroken when he realized that our parents weren't coming back.
Within a week, we had a routine to trick vampires out of their money and wealthier humans out of their ration tickets. When I thought about it now, it wasn't all that surprising that Brendan, Genevieve, and I had been three of the most influential and devious courtesans of the Portland Vampire Court before the revolution. It shouldn't have surprised me that my older brother and twin sister went behind my back and massacred the Vampire Royals in their sleep. We did what we had to, always.
That part of me was telling me that accepting this deal would be my best chance of survival, but there was nothing safe about falling further into King Ravage's clutches.
I paced around the table slowly and stopped before King Ravage. Setting a hand on the wood, I leaned in. “There is a raw, churning feeling in my gut that says you're evil. We knew each other in that missing chunk of time, and you did something to make me forget. You knew me better than I at first assumed because you know exactly how to manipulate me.
“On the surface, you're offering me everything I want and asking for something that doesn't seem like a big deal. I've been a courtesan for years, I've fed and slept with vampires I despised for so much less than four years of my freedom. But my gut is telling me that accepting your deal would be the worst decision I could ever make. I trust my intuition—it's kept me alive so far.”
“I slaughtered the rebels in Pioneer Courthouse Square. I wasn't the one who killed your siblings, but I killed hundreds of humans. I followed you down into Nightendale with General Griff in order to kill you. Instead, I spared you. I also betrayed you. I tricked you. I took your memories because I didn't want you to recall a single touch from those vampires who had you while you truly belonged to me. All those things are true, but it doesn't make your life any less mine. The truth is that you knew there was a price to use the Tree of Life's magic to save yourself and bring your siblings and General Griff back from death’s icy grip, and you were willing to pay any price at the time, but now when it comes time to pay for your debt, you don't want to. You owe a year per life you saved. I'm willing to renegotiate if you're willing to meet my terms.”
“You played a part in killing us...” A tear trailed down my cheek, “Doesn't the code of vampire laws have an exception for that?”
“Not in these circumstances. You were rebel leaders, and it was war,” he said. He stood and closed the distance between us, looming like a boulder about to crush me. “Do you know how many days you were actually with those kings?”
“How would I know that?” I choked out. “You stole my memories, remember?”
“Nine days.” He leaned even closer. “Do you think that they're going to wait five years after spending only nine days with you?”
I clenched my jaw as pain ripped through my chest. I managed to say, “I never said that I thought that.”
“They're vampires. They will need to feed at some point within the next few days. Do those three kings strike you as the kind of vampires that would dry bite humans?”
I might not remember my time with the three kings, but I knew instinctually that Ash, Ruin, and Death weren't the kind of vampires to dry-bite a human. Meaning, they'd have to have sex—or at least pleasure—someone within the next week. The thought shouldn't have hurt me. Vampire royals were never monogamous with a single partner. But it did hurt. It felt like Ravage had plunged a knife into my stomach and twisted the blade.
“My guess is that they'll feel that they are betraying you when they feed for the first few times. It will hurt them, but if they don't drink blood, they'll weaken and die. If you have lingering emotions for these men, I would think that you'd care about them enough to let them move on with their lives. It's cruel to keep them attached to you when all it does is hurt them.”
His manipulation was blatant, but his words also contained a kernel of the truth.
“I can get a message to them in one day, and I can send legal help to your siblings at that time as well. Hopefully, I can get Brendan and Genevieve here within the week.”
A tear rolled silently onto my cheek, and Ravage's gaze fixed on it. I turned away from him. I was too close to this and too close to his manipulations to see clearly.
“It's one night Kori, as opposed to four years of your life. Or, if you want to think about it this way, spending one night with me saved your siblings and--”
“That's enough, okay?” I glanced back over my shoulder. “I need time to separate your manipulations from the truth of the situation and consider both.” I wrapped my fingers around the metal doorknob. “Am I going to be locked up again?”
“You're free to walk around, and that reminds me…” He crossed the distance and held up a packet of papers. “These are the warriors watch schedules, so you don't have to waste your time studying them. I'm also including detailed maps of the castle and tunnels--within the castle, not the grounds around it.” He punctuated his words with a cruel smile. “If you do manage to escape, I'll catch you, but I look forward to you finding holes in my Nightendale's security so I can seal them.”
I hesitated for a brief moment before taking the stack of forms. My instincts were telling me that King Ravage was giving me a complete record of the castle's security information because he was that confident I couldn’t escape.
My hand turned the rough metal knob, but I paused before opening the door. “What do you want from me, Ravage? Just tell me honestly, what do you want? I already think the worst of you.”
“Everything,” he said. “Every part of you. I want it. But I will satisfy myself with collecting the pieces over time.”
Meaning, he might be offering to bring my official sentence down from five years to a year in the eyes of the vampire laws, but he never truly planned to let me go.
Chapter Two
Kori
I stood on a balcony overlooking King Ravage's garden. The ivory Tree of Life stood central, stark against the colorful foliage.
A tear leaked onto my cheek as I turned back to my room. The bedroom King Ravage gave me was more beautiful than any that I'd ever been in my life, but it was still a prison. The walls were made of interlacing wood. Strips of mahogany and ash wove around each other, braiding together all the way up to the high, arched ceiling. My bed was a long rectangle with four wooden pillars twisting up to join together at a point. King Ravage had put me in the room set aside for his official consort.
Taking a steadying breath, I sat at the desk and picked up a pen. My hand hovered over a blank sheet of paper.
What could I write in a goodbye letter to three men I felt so strongly for but barely had a memory of? My head pounded and my stomach lurched as I scratched the words onto paper. At first, I kept the letter to the basic facts. I told them everything King Ravage said in the meeting. If he was motivated enough to give the kings this letter, he would need to provide them with a piece of the truth with it. Then, I told them that no matter what happened this year, they had to let me go now, and I had to let go of my feelings for them. It was over. It had to be that way so we could all make it through the next year of our lives.
I was going to take King Ravage's deal to reduce my sentence. If I couldn't be their consort, I had to go back to the only life I knew how to survive in. It killed me to have to make this choice, but I couldn't spend five years locked away from my family, not knowing if they were okay.
Pain tore through my center as I wrote the words that would sever whatever thread of hope we had strung between us. King Ravage had stolen my memories of my time with these men, but he hadn't crushed the emotions that had been born during that short time.
My stomach clenched into a hard knot for the entire journey as I carried the note across Nightendale. I took a much longer route than I needed, walking the circumference of the glowing city that clung to an outcropping over an abyss. The massive underground cavern stretched into darkness below and above. On the other side of a deep crevasse, tunnels waited, lit by electricity. Drawbridges stood in the air like great pillars. Warriors guarded the entrance of every drawbridge. On the other side of the palace, a solid wall of rock towered up into the darkness. There were tunnels that led into the foundation, but they were guarded even more heavily.
Warriors bowed to me as I passed, and I was sure it was some sort of order from King Ravage in order to manipulate me, but I just ignored their deference and walked past. My hands shook as I headed up the long stone stairway back to the palace. I wasn't even surprised when King Ravage stepped into the doorway, waiting for me to ascend.
He held out his hand as a smile crept onto his full lips. “That took longer than I expected.”
I lifted my chin to look up into the king's green eyes. “I'm only going to give you this letter if you promise to deliver one to my brother and sister, convincing them to come here.”
Ravage said nothing but held his hand out further and lifted his brows.
I set the letters in his palm. He first unfolded the message to the kings. His eyes scanned over the note.
“You're not even going to pretend not to snoop.” I squeezed my hands at my sides, angered at the blatant intrusion of my privacy.
He glanced over the letter at me. “Do you want me to do this in private?”
“No.”
King Ravage scanned the message several times before folding it up and opening my message to my sister. He read this one several times, refolded it, and opened the final letter. “Brendan has a fondness for bridges, does he?” Ravage asked as a grin crept onto his full lips.
“All architectural marvels. He likes puzzles.”
“So do I. This one isn't that hard to figure out, Kori. You'll have to do better next time. Two after one... is that three am or pm, I wonder? Ah, morning. You say that here. And the rightmost bridge near the--”
I grabbed the letter out of Ravage's hand and ripped it up its center before putting the pieces together and ripping it again.
Ravage's green eyes laughed at me. “You'll have to do much better than that, but it's good to know that the deliveries tunnel bridge has a vulnerability at three am, having only five warriors during the transfer. Next time I find a code, I'll send the letter and be ready to ambush whoever comes to take you.” He held up the other two letters. “Should I send these or were they only a way to get the third out.”
They had only been a means to get the letter to Brendan, who would have immediately cracked the message. My brother had always teased me that my codes were too easy to break, but I'd assumed he was just showing off how much smarter he was than everyone else. But clearly, there was no way that I could send a message out. My escape would not come soon if I managed it at all. I had to let Ash, Ruin, and Death move on so they could eat without feeling guilty about it. “Send the letters.”
“Hmm…” Ravage crossed his arms over his chest. “Does that mean that you agree to be my consort for the next year, or is this just for their benefit?”
“I have some terms of my own.”
He nodded.
“My siblings will never return here. I want to know that they're safe, but you will not bring them back to your court. Second, as well as having me in all of your war meetings, I want to be trained to kill you.”
His sandy brows rose. “You want me to teach you how to kill me?”
Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2) Page 1
